The flight and most of the van trip to our ministry sight in Guatemala were seamless. Our squad got a great flight to Guatemala with no layovers. One 3-hour flight later, we were in Guatemala City. We met our caravan organizer and all 46 members of the squad piled into three vans and a bus.
I had a great seat in the van where I could look out the window and feel a nice breeze, try to understand the Spanish conversation of the bus driver and a team member in front of me, and stretch my legs out over some day packs. The scenes outside were fantastic– four men playing cards in the back of an open semi-truck, street dogs scavenging for scraps, men climbing down from moving buses to rearrange stored luggage, etc.
A few hours into the drive, we stopped for lunch at this very nice restaurant and had a meal which greatly exceeded my expectations with guacamole, freshly made corn tortillas, steak (or goat?), soup made with broth and fresh cilantro, and a dark purple juice. With our stomachs satisfied, we started the second half of the drive.
A couple hours went by when traffic came to a halt. Our driver, Lester, at first told us part of the road might have “fallen off” (It was raining pretty badly.) After some time, we found out there had been a very bad accident which might take the entire night to resolve. I stepped out of the van to stretch my legs and walk around a bit. I heard some Spanish worship music from up ahead and decided to investigate. Some squadmates and I found a little church right where the first van of our caravan had stopped for the accident. Several people from our group had already entered the church and were worshiping. The women who led worship was so passionate for God. I couldn't understand much of what she said, but I think at one point she said “You must accept (respond to maybe) God's grace! You must accept God's grace!” (I could be way off, but something like that.) Even though I couldn't make out much, it was a blessing to hear her sing and preach.
After about 45 minutes we headed back to the caravan to see if there had been any progress. We found out that five people had died in the crash. My van prayed for the families and we prayed hymns and praise songs. A group of us went to get water at a gas station up the street, and by the time we were back to the vans, the traffic cleared and we were on our way.
It was dark, cold and rainy when we arrived at the ministry sight, and our hosts were kind enough to not only let us stay indoors in the commons for that night, but for our entire visit here. We have hot showers, beds, coffee in the morning and a beautiful property to live in.
