has it really only been a week?

So we’ve only been here a week, and yet it feels like we’ve been here for months. My team along with another team on my squad are currently staying in a hostel, Los Muchileros, in Antigua, Guatemala which sits at the base of an active volcano. The city of Antigua is so beautiful, words and pictures don’t even do this place justice.

This first week we’ve been visiting children with cerebral palsy in a hospital nearby, and also visiting the elderly in a old folks home known as the “grandpa house” or Casa des Abuelos. I gotta admit, at first I was a bit intimidated, and didn’t really know what to say or do. But soon I realized that just being around these children and these elderly people, all they really wanted was someone to be there with them…to talk to them, to listen to them, to hold them, to just simply love on them.

One boy in particular I visited with at the hospital, held my hand through the bars of his crib. Anytime I tried to pull my hand loose he’d clutch on tighter and his eyes said it all: “please don’t leave me.” My heart couldn’t help but break for him. Another child stole my heart the first day we were there…she's super sweet and gives a mean high five.

When I was at the grandpa house, I would show pictures of my family to them and just tell them about my family in broken Spanish. (My Spanish is getting better though!! Yay!) While we were visiting at the grandpa house, there was music playing in the background and this one lady, (Arosa) that I was visiting acted like she wanted to dance so I asked her, “Te quiero ballar?” She nods excitedly, and so…we danced. This being my first time on a missions trip and really first time doing volunteer work of this sort, I went into it not really knowing what to expect…but I soon realized that, really people of all walks of life, whether young or old, with disabilities or not, have one thing in common: the need for love and that they are worth paying attention to. Who knew that mission work could be as easy as just holding a child, or dancing with an elderly woman? Who knew that living for God could be as easy as just loving someone?