Hi my lovely subscribers! I just want to take a second to say thank you for all your support, whether it’s prayer support or financial support and even both! Thank you all so much! I’m so happy that I am on the World Race right now and I
hope that it inspires everyone who reads to step out of their comfort zone and do something for the Kingdom. I assure you, if you do that God will reward you! I can attest to that! If you don’t know what I mean by that, go check out my
past blogs! 🙂 As my time draws near the end here in Guatemala, I am sad but also so pumped to get to reach out to more people over the last 6 months of this amazing journey God has sent me on. Even though I have been here now for 2 months
it does not mean that I know everything about Guatemala! In fact, I’ve barely put a dent in the things I know about Guatemala! In this week’s blog I’m going to share a bit about something new I learned on Tuesday from one of my students.
Not only what I learned but how I’ve realized that God has really put His hand over us in protection and gone before our every step here! God is so good guys and I cannot say that enough to emphasize His goodness! Trust me!
A bit of background before I go on… My ministry is in this little town called Bola de Oro. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we teach English, the Bible, and play with the kids in the town. Technically this town is in the very
large, Chimaltenango. We call it Chimal. Chimal is so big that if we’re being technical, my whole squad lives in Chimal! I don’t even know how far it stretches but it’s massive! However, there is a central city that we just call Chimal. We walk through it everyday.
Anyways, we’ve all just learned that Chimal is a very dangerous place to go and my entire team walks through it everyday to get to Bola de Oro. On Tuesdays we actually teach English in a church in Chimal. We teach kids who don’t know much English, we teach adults who don’t know much English and we teach advanced adults. However, we don’t really teach the advanced adults, we more like just have conversations with them so they can practice. My team and I split up in teaching all those people though, so I “teach” the advanced adults with my teammate Makayla. I also say advanced adults, it’s more like advanced adult… singular. There is only one guy that comes regularly and his name is Brandon. He’s so awesome and his English is super good! He studied it in high school I believe but he’s been out of practice so he comes to class on Tuesdays to practice his English.
This week Makayla had to go visit the doctor because she wasn’t feeling well so it was just me with Brandon this week. Originally I was kind of nervous because I hadn’t been to Chimal classes in 2 weeks because I had to visit the doctor a few times. I was worried I wouldn’t know what to talk about with him or it would be awkward or something crazy. Well, when he showed up we talked from the get go and God gave me so much peace about talking with him which was awesome! Thanks God! Anyways, he ended up asking me if I had any questions about Guatemala that he could answer for me. After a few seconds of thinking I told him about how I had just recently heard about how dangerous Chimal is and I asked him why. Let me just tell you, that was a good question because we talked about this for like an hour or more! He went on to tell me about how the drivers and money collectors on the buses everyone rides to get places have been threatened by the gangs that are in charge of the buses and they have to collect a certain amount of money for the gangs and if they didn’t then the gangs would kill one of the drivers or money collectors. The gangs apparently weren’t originally in Guatemala, they came from New York and El Savador in the 70s and have spread since they came. The gangs are the reason Chimal is such a dangerous place. They are like a ghost. You can’t see them, you know they’re there, and sometimes you can see where they’ve been, you have to be careful all of the time too. These gangs are very violent as well but they only really go after the people they have relationship with if something didn’t go their way.
I asked Brandon if they are more active at night, when it’s dark because we were told by the base host here in Guatemala that it’s very dangerous to be out after dark, specifically on the buses. Apparently the gangs don’t care about whether it’s daylight or night time. When I heard that I was like oh my goodness. He explained that he has walked places in the dark and been fine but he said that he had to be very aware and keep a look out and didn’t draw any attention to himself. He also went on to say that because my team and I are here to do God’s work, He is protecting us. He really has a point too because we’ve been going through Chimal for 2 months now and we’ve all felt peace walking through because God went before us and has his hand of protection on us at all times. So, even though Chimal is dangerous and full of gang activity, it doesn’t matter because God is protecting my team and I and He also still loves Chimal so very much! He loves all the people that live there!
So to comfort those of you reading this and thinking, “Oh my goodness, she spends her days walking and riding buses in a dangerous, gang activity place! I’m so worried!” You don’t have to be worried, God’s got us! If He brought us here to do His work, He will most definitely protect us! Without a doubt! I know it can be hard to think about, the fact that we are in Chimal a lot, but think about it… Chimal is a place Jesus would have gone to! He went where no one wanted to go! He talked to the people no one wanted to talk to, the people that were considered untouchable. So, what do I think about walking through the dangerous Chimal everyday? I say bring it on! There’s no better way to be like Jesus than go to the places He would go to if He were here!
