Bienvenidos a Guatemala! Welcome to Guatemala! I’d like to walk you through what a day in my life looks like here in this beautiful country. We have been living and working here for nine days. This is what my new normal looks like!
Setting: Antigua, Guatemala. Ankle-twisting cobblestone roads, colorful painted buildings, merchants and beggars lining the streets, Spanish spoken everywhere, full of people, cars and motorcycles flying down the roads, historic ruins around every corner, the bells of ice cream salesmen and the roar of bus engines, brightly colored fabrics and goods hanging out of stores and stalls, and a deep need for the Gospel and for healing. I’m not usually a city person, but I dig this city. I think it’s because of all of the color and the fact that it’s surrounded by lush mountains/volcanoes.
Home Base: Casa de Fuego. Incredible hostel run by Craig and Carol Hill that we currently have all to ourselves with them. Our hosts are beyond awesome and we feel so stupid blessed to be here and be with them. At Casa de Fuego, we have bunk beds, hot showers, home cooked food, clean water, so many places to have a quiet time, a golden retriever named Barley, and an incredible view of two volcanoes: Fuego and Acatenango. Fuego is active, so some nights, when it’s clear, we can see red lava at the top. Way cool.
This was our sunset the other night from the roof. From left to right: Fuego and Acatenango.
A Day in the Life:
5:00-6:30 I wake up every morning around 5-5:15 and have a quiet time. For those who have lived with me or know me well, that’s sounds crazy to you because I love sleep and I hate waking up early. But while I was home between Training Camp and Launch, I started a discipline for the first time in my life of waking up and immediately diving into Scripture, prayer, and journaling. And lemme tell you, it was revolutionary for me. Every day felt full of purpose and meaning because of that one habit. Starting off my day intentionally in the presence of the Lord makes my whole day better. I’m still dozing off every few minutes and my brain is foggy for most of it, but I’m so happy with the steps that I am taking towards full intimacy with my Heavenly Father.
6:45 With bagged lunches in hand and backpacks strapped to the front, we walk out to the street to catch our bus to Antigua. It’s not just any bus, though. It’s a chicken bus. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Jess… you ride the bus with chickens on the way to ministry??” No, not quite. In reality, I ride a brightly-colored, completely renovated school bus with 70 of my closest Guatemalan friends! No lie, most mornings when we get on the bus, there are 3 people per seat (about 60 people) and we squeeze through the aisle all the way to the back of the bus and stand in the aisle, thrown to and fro by bumps and turns. The other day, I was standing by the back door and a man exited through it and didn’t latch it all the way, so the door flew open on a curve and I had to lean out the back door of a moving school bus to close it again. Life in Guatemala is wild, y’all.
Flagging down the bus looks like waving your hand up and down; if you wave back and forth, they will wave back and keep driving.
Check out that school bus! I have even seen ones from Spotsylvania and Virginia Beach LOL.
This picture does not do the chicken bus justice. Here, there are only two people per seat. Usually, there are three people in each seat and the aisles are packed. Some have fun lights and play music that we dance to and make all the Guatemalans laugh at us.
7:15 (hopefully) We arrive in Antigua and transfer buses. Sometimes it takes 3 seconds and sometimes it takes 30 minutes. We run on Guatemalan time here.
Waiting for the bus, looking like a bunch o’ gringos.
8:00 We are at our ministry site! This month, we are working in a school called “Casa de Niño,” or “CANI” for short. Since our first day on October 12, we have been partnering with the teachers to assist them in their classes. I am with the first grade students and they have been taking exams every day since today was the last day of school. Through this experience, I can now say that I can explain parts of speech, multiplication, and telling time in Spanish (don’t ask me about Guatemalan civics though haha)! My teammate, Rebecca, is also assisting in this class and we have helped the students review for their English exam (domestic and wild animals and prepositions) and we have taught some English songs like “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.” These kids are so fun. There are 29 of them in the class and they certainly keep us on our toes. I think they might be my favorite age; they can have a conversation with me, ask questions, explain things to me when I don’t understand, teach me silly songs and games, and be my friend without fear on either side. So cool.
Every morning, they start the day with songs and a prayer.
School at CANI is very different from how I’ve ever experienced in the U.S. There’s a lot of ambient background noise from traffic and construction, so the classroom is already loud. Because of this, the kids have the freedom to chat with one another freely during class, which is so bizarre to me. There’s no rigid structure of rules or punishment. It’s honestly beautiful. They get to play outside between lessons and exams. They eat lunch outside and they can buy small baggies of ice cream for 1 Quetzal. My first graders love to read. They spend all of their free time playing tag (“llevas”) and reading books. I love spending time with them.
Playing tag and reading books: our favorite things to do.
11:30 The kids leave to go home and we eat lunch. As soon as we are done, we head out behind the school where we are helping them build a turf soccer field. Last week, that looked like digging an irrigation ditch. This week, we are laying gravel. My job is to arrange the planks for the wheelbarrows, envision where the gravel needs to be dumped, and spread it with a hoe or rake. I actually really enjoy working on the field because we get to see progress at the end of the day: a smaller gravel pile and gravel spread across a field.
2:00 (sometimes) We catch another chicken bus back to Antigua. After we get to the city, we have free time until dinner. Sometimes we stay in the city and explore, shop, get coffee, and hang out. Other times we come home to rest, get work done, or have team meetings. A few times we have done a prayer walk and met with Adventures in Missions Guatemala staff, who are awesome. It starts getting dark around 5:30, so usually we only have about two hours of afternoon free time a day.
Some free time in my happy place: in a hammock, on a roof, with some coffee, with the Lord (and TL #photocreds).
At some point in the evening… We eat dinner with our hosts. After, we help with the dishes and meet as a team for feedback. Feedback is a time for us to make observations, call each other higher, and deepen community. It’s been hard but life-giving. I have received a lot of feedback that has challenged me hard but deepened my dependency on the Lord and brought me closer to my teammates. I want to write about that in a separate blog, so be looking for that! As a team, we have received feedback from each other on using technology as an escape from community, so this week we have been fasting from WiFi and not using our devices except for official World Race business and storytelling. It’s been really good for us, because now we spend our free time with each other by playing games, listening to music, baking, etc. We still have a lot of work to do, but we are learning and growing and that’s awesome.
My team, Wild Fires! Pictured here in the most beautiful McDonald’s in the WORLD. Behind us you can see the volcano Agua. From left to right, top: TL, Lauren, me, Melissa, and Rebecca; bottom: Naomi and Ally.
And that’s our day! I really love it here. I feel comfortable, which is so unexpected. I never expected to feel comfortable anywhere but “home,” but I feel comfortable living and doing life here. Days are long and community is hard, but God is good and faithful and I have so much hope.
Thank you all for your continued prayers for me and my team!! Here’s how you can be praying for us now:
- For me: to walk in my identity in Christ, to see (really see) my teammates and the people around me like God sees them, and to implement feedback I’ve received with grace and boldness.
- For my team: to press into the hard stuff, walk in the knowledge that Christ has already won the battle, love each other well, and be quick to listen and slow to speak.
To God be the glory!
Love, Jess
