Guys I made it to Guatemala!!!! Last Monday we arrived at our ministry contacts house, which is a beautiful compound in San Pedro where my whole team of 37 will be staying at until the 22nd. San Pedro is a cute little city with a gorgeous neighborhood and a market strip that continues to amaze me. Out of my squad, each team of about 6 or 7 people was assigned a different ministry for the 2 weeks that we live here. They range anywhere from teaching english, to selling tickets for a comic show that raises money to put books in schools for kids. My team is selling tickets, which didn’t seem like the most exciting ministry to start with, but it has given us a chance to submerge into the culture of Antigua and spend a lot of time building relationships and doing life with the locals. As a squad we live off of $3 USD a day pp for food, and take “chicken busses” or walk everywhere for transportation (you never have to worry about meeting your Fitbit goal).
This is my team minus Cindy, right outside our gate in San Pedro
Currently I am sitting in a coffee shop, which is my legit all time favorite place to be. Cutting up with the workers, and being able to share about our ministry at the same time thrills my heart. God has been SO faithful with divine connections; I am constantly blown away more and more each day with every person he puts in our path. Yesterday was my “off day” for the week, which means we are allowed to explore or do whatever we want without a specific mission, and it ended being the best accidental ministry I’ve hadthis week. As a team we try to live on mission all the time, and it has been so evident that God is on the move whenever and wherever we give him space to do so, whether it is planned or not.
One thing that our squad leaders have been teaching us lately is to have self awareness and keep your “tanks” full. Each of us have emotional, spiritual, and physical tanks that need to constantly be filled in order to live a healthy lifestyle. Emotionally I am fed by being in intimate community with my squad, developing relationships with the people of Antigua and being part of a community better than I could have imagined. Living with about 40 people 24/7 gets a little hectic at times, but being able to have deep and even hard conversations with the people that you know are here for you no matter what, is extremely rewarding. Spiritually it is so important for us to make timefor God, not just talking to him or serving him, but also listening, letting him speak back to us, and meditating on his word. On the race it is sooo easy to experience FOMO aka fear of missing out. It is especially hard for me to choose to walk away from the group and risk missing out on something fun in order to make time for just me and God, but it’s always so rewarding in the end. Today I got to visit a Guatemalan church with our ministry host, which was an amazing experience in itself. We all had headsets so we could listen to a translator speak in english as the pastor was preaching, but we worshiped in Spanish and it was actually one of the most intimate worship services i’ve experienced in a while. Physically, AIM strongly supports taking care of your body and what you do to it. Every morning their is a group of us that wakes up at 7 to go for a walk, jog, yoga, dance, or workout in the yard. Sleep is also really important so taking time to nap after a long day is also heavily valued 🙂
I met this little cutie in the market, I’d choose babies over shopping any day
Right now my heart is so full and I am enjoying every day more and more. I started writing this blog inmy favorite coffee shop called Guate Java as I mentioned earlier, but while I was there I met so many amazing people that I had to just stop and enjoy the opportunity right in front ofme. We met a girl who works with AIM as a ministry host in Guatemala City, a man who works with a company to put affordable solar energy into low income villages, two of workers who love to cut up and laugh at pretty much everything that I say, and last but not least my favorite translator from last years mission trip to Guatemala, Esteban, came to come visit me!
Don’t get me wrong it’s not all flowers and coffee; my mattress feels like it’s made out of T-shirts, our room continually smells like a soggy diaper (you can’t flush toilet paper), and long hours in the heat with an empty tummy gets old pretty fast, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!
