Two plane rides later, We made it to Guatemala!
After a three and half hour bus ride with almost fifty people on one bus (think three to a seat and then some standing), we finally made it to Santa Cruz del Quiche!
For the rest of the month, my team will be working with Church #1. That's all we know about our ministry as of now. However, the church wasn’t ready for us today so, we went along with Team Kingdom Unleashed.
Today, my day consisted of being chased by stray dogs, holding on for dear life in the back of a pickup truck, going to prison and getting tattooed.
…Ok, so that’s not really a tattoo, it’s just a stamp saying that I am a visitor at the prison. Today our ministry was prison ministry! The prison we worked at today was only a little ways down the road from Agape in Action. Ricardo drove us today, but we will probably walk tomorrow. Almost 60% of the prisoners in this particular prison are awaiting a trial, which could take years with no chance of being able to pay bail. Almost 80% of the prisoners are falsely accused of crimes they did not commit. The justice system is so corrupt that there is nothing they can do about it. Once you are in, you are stuck. They get a total of one hour of outside time per week, which they usually use to play soccer.
We were there to paint the living quarters of the guards, particularly the female guards. We decided to take on a few more projects, like putting up some ply wood over a window to give the women more privacy and putting doors on the bathroom stalls.
The second half of the day, we went upstairs to hand out food and drinks to the prisoners. I talked to a few of the prisoners while we waited, some in broken English, some in Spanish. Some of the prisoners tried to sell us bracelets they made for $5 apiece. After we finished handing out things, Ricky took us into one of the cells to see what it was like. It is such a small space, with fifty people sleeping on concrete as beds, some in the bathrooms, and even more sleeping on top of each other.
It was such an eye-opening experience, and I can’t wait to go back tomorrow! But I am even more looking forward to tonight’s team time and squad time. More details to follow.
And if you were wondering, this is my living arrangements for the month:
