We're Here!!

Hello from Guatemala!

I am so glad to finally be able to sit down and let you know that we arrived safely to Guatemala Tuesday around lunchtime. Everything ran smoothly…we were the first people in line in the airport to get our bags checked and made it through our Atlanta airport experience without any glitches, praise God :-).

A man (Tony) from the Impacto team, the mission’s organization we are teaming up with here, was at the Guatemala airport to greet us. I cannot tell you how refreshing it was to step out of the airport at lunchtime in Guatemala. The weather is absolutely perfect, such a refreshing break from the current cold Georgia air. It has been so, so good for our team to soak up the sunshine. The drive to the place that we are currently staying in was only about 15 minutes from the airport. Tony and his wife, Adrea, have been taking very good care of us. I think any of us would agree that the food definitely makes it on the list of incredible things in Guatemala. They have been so kind to fix us food that won’t make our tummies hurt :-). And let me tell you, it has been muy delicioso! We spent the remainder of Tuesday resting and organizing the shoes and supplies we brought along. Seeing all the supplies was a blessing in and of itself. It’s been cool to see what God intends the body of Christ to accomplish through him. One of my prayers for our team is that we would not set limits on how God intends to use us.

God, open our hearts to things that are bigger than we could have ever imagined. Break us from the chains of our minds, give us imaginations that are overflowing with victory, ones that break the chains of limited thinking, under aiming, and faithless worrying. God, I know that’s what you intend for us!

Yesterday morning we got up bright and early. Our team had a unique opportunity to spend time with children from an orphanage (we are doing it again today too!) and organize a day-camp for them. My heart gets really mushy just thinking about it. We arrived at the camp location around 9 a.m. and were soon greeted by a bus full of Guatemalan children. I have to say, we made some pretty instant, adorable friends. Along with their sweet friendship, our team collectively gleaned some pretty special things about God through our first full day in Guatemala.

Kristin and one of the kids!

One big awareness we are gaining is that the world does not revolve around us and that God cares about the injustices done to the smallest of people, that he has accounted for each and every Guatemalan hair on each Guatemalan head on each sweet little Guatemalan child. We learned that there are boundless people groups who don’t look like us, don’t eat like us, don’t smell like us, don’t talk like us, and don’t live like us and that God finds each part of their hearts completely an unutterably captivating. I think we each found that a bit more believable today than we thought possible because they stole our hearts as well.

We started our time at the camp by getting to know the kids, pulling out our long lost Spanish from somewhere deep in our brains. We played tag, soccer, limbo, really anything we could find. After a few solid hours of fun field games and kid-loving time we had a devotional and worship time. Juandi asked Stephanie and I to put together the morning devotional and Robby and Ben put together the afternoon devotional . They asked us to help the kids understand what it is to be a part of a family unit, a thing each of these kids is sadly unfamiliar with. Stephanie and I shared the story of Joseph and had the blessing to tell the kids that even though Joseph’s life was once in “the pit,” it was God’s intentional all along to redeem him.

“Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all of his benefits—who forgives all of your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion.” –Psalm 103:3-4

During the afternoon devotion, Robby and Ben shared how God intends each of us to be part of an active body, His body. They shared that God has no special criteria to ne used by Him and that all he asks is we be willing vessels of his. That we can, “…do all things through Christ who strengthens [us].”

Perhaps one of the coolest things we had the privilege of offering the kids yesterday is a small look of what it is to be unified, loved, and cared for. If God accomplished any of these through us, I consider our day fully blessed and successful.

Now, I really can’t refrain from taking a minute to brag to you all on my teammates. I know at least one of them is a best friend, son, daughter, niece, nephew, mentoree, or something else endearing to each of you. I want you to know what a called group of people this is, that I have had the blessing of observing each and every (and I mean EVERY) one of them serving with a full heart. I am seeing personalities shining and it just makes me so proud of them for you; you really would be proud. Your money and prayers have been invested into some wonderful people and I want to make sure you know that. I can assure you that I feel change pulsing in our group. I feel God using each of our personalities and at the same time, I feel him expanding on them.

So as I wrap up this blog, it is 6:30 a.m. and pretty soon each of us will be stirring to begin another day (our last day with these specific kids before we move on to something else) with this precious group of kids. There are some things that I ask you pray for us, in the next day specifically.

• Pray that we would continue to have energy to our out the love of Christ into these children. Let’s face it, most of their love languages is playing at this point in their lives :-).


• Pray that as we love on these children that something of the love of Christ would expand within our hearts, that we would begin to feel something growing there that we take home with us and lavish on the people around us.

We are watching a movie on the story of Jesus with the kids today as part of the camp. Pray that God would connect in the minds of the children about God’s compassion, that they would associate our being here with his compassion for them.

• Pray for a lasting sense of encouragement and empowerment and identity in Christ for each of the kids.

• Pray for the health of team, physically and spiritually. Pray specifically for Matt; he has a stomach virus but the doctors are taking very good care of him and he is beggining to feel better.

Okay yall, I’m off. I look forward to l recapping today. Look forward to hearing from some of my teammates very soon!!

Love,
Michelle