I never knew I could hold so much love for so many people!
Arriving in Guatemala we had three different ministries; bible studies for children, “hanging out” on the street with people who are homeless (some of these kids become known as our “street boys”) and remodeling a building! I’m happy to say the building we remodeled is finally a functioning coffee shop for the street people in Guatemala called The Spark. We hosted a bible study every Wednesday in The Spark where we played games with the kids, sang songs, taught them a short bible lesson and we would always end with a little snack. We also now serve coffee at The Spark to the homeless everyday from 10 to 1. We play games, we build friendships, we simply hung out! After the spark closed we didn’t just go home and forget about the “street boys”, they were constantly on our minds! We always wanted to be working with them and they were our team’s main topic of conversation.
We have created so many memories with these people and building relationships it has been my favorite part of the ministry! The people we have met and worked with showed us so much love each day over the past three months that we grew to love them! My team decided to hosted a big Thanksgiving lunch for them! We didn’t know how to go about this but we knew we wanted to and we weren’t about to let this opportunity slip through our fingers! How were we going to pay for this? What food would they like? How will we get the food to The Spark? So many questions and so little time! Being in charge of my team’s finances I had an idea… “If we cut down on our food for a couple weeks we can save enough money to pay for this Thanksgiving.” Once that was decided we were positive we were going to do this!
We ate a lot less for two weeks, sometimes our stomachs grumbled and we wished for more to eat but we knew it would be well worth the sacrifice. Seeing the street people’s faces happy and their stomachs full was worth it in the end! We were able to treat the “street boys” with 9 big pizzas, five bucket of chicken, 25 packages of French fries, 3 pies, 2 chocolate cakes, 2 cheesecakes and one big batch of cookies!
We would see these people everyday and it was very hard keeping this a secret. They came in that morning and we had decorated The Spark with fall colors. They didn’t understand what we were doing, they thought we were being strange Americans! Before they left we told them to be back at 2:30 not later! When they came back we had all the food laid out and we were ready to serve them. Before we served them lunch them I led us all in a prayer. I told them as much as they loved us, we loved them twice as much they were no longer strangers that lived on the street, they had become friends who we hangout with and it felt like and extension of our family! We had built real relationships with them and whole-heartedly told them we would be back to see them!!! My team (Gen 7) has been counting down the day till we get to see them again! I may not have been home with my family for Thanksgiving but I was with my family here in Guatemala and I wouldn’t change that for the world!
