My first week in Guatemala! 🇬🇹

Hello Everyone

Hello to all from Guatemala!! Or as I have been saying to everyone as I walk by while am here, Buenas!

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Life Update

I flew into Guatemala on the 18th and stayed at the AIM Base here in Guatemala for about two days assimilating to the time, weather, culture and was excitedly awaiting the day we finally got to meet up with our host and their organization, “Reindom” in Sumpango! We met our host late in the night of the 20th and though I knew about the host and org, little did I realize the expanse and diversity of works that Reindom was doing for the kingdom, the intense and dedicated love of both Jesus and the people of Guatemala their hearts were overflowing with, their drive to share the knowledge of God’s love and foster and promote everyones relationships with Him, and the affect it was having on the people and places around them!

This is the snack our host made us on the night we arrived. We also drank the oat drink that night

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What God is doing in Guatemala!

The morning of the very day we got in with our hosts we hit the ground running.

Our first service activity was helping with “Kingdom Table” which is where we rent a space and set it up very pretty, then go and walk the streets, inviting people we meet to come sit, talk, and have a free meal. When we got in and set up I was surprised by the fact that a local school that taught English was partnering with them and I was joined by a student who was practicing their English and would help me talk to the people of Guatemala who were there. The boy I was partnered with for the walk was such a kind and lively kid and had very good English as He had been practicing for 3 years but because the tables were divided for boys and girls separately, I got to sit with a little girl ho was very sweet and shy to help me talk to who sat at my table. On the walk we had two groups and each talked to and invited a handful of people. Once I got in and was given a table the only people who sat there was a lovely elderly couple. I talked to the woman and she told me she was 92 and her husband was 93. The program started with worship and a message before we served food and ate with them and it was a really cool experience. You could really see the care and heart the people at Reindom had to love people well and everyone was treated with such dignity and respect.

Here is a shot of us carrying supplies down a hill.

Here is a shot of the Kingdoms table program during worship

Our second service activity was the same day as we traveled into a small village outside Sumpango. We were cleaning and setting up a house they had got there to run programs with all the local children. I washed tables, swept, washed dishes, cleaned walls and best of all I got to meet so many of the children who lived there! There were so many and they were so sweet and wanted to help, so we let them help wash tables with us and we all had a blast scrubbing, teaching us the word for bubbles, rinsing and playing around the tables. I don’t speak a lot of Spanish and they don’t speak a lot of English, if any, but we all had so much fun together.

Here is a shot from the roof of some of the boys playing soccer in the schoolyard

Our third activity was the next day after our Bible study all together, when we went out on the streets to pray for people. My team found a man on the street who had had a very hard life and we were able to encourage Him in Christ and pray for Him. We ended the time with buying him some water and food to take with Him. It was a very spiritually heavy experience to see all his pain and fear, and I was very happy to debrief with my team and hear the cool things God did with the other groups of people who went out.

We had a worship night in Antigua that night and took (as we always do) a chicken bus (I will explain later). It took 2 busses and 2 hours and we were late but we got to worship with the people from all over the area and even was able to meet up with one of our other teams from the squad. It was so helpful to have our host with us and showing us the area. It was a long but very blessed day!

Our third service activity was running programs at the main village with the house! The kids were so excited to see us again! We went in to set up, before the kids were allowed in officially, and I helped sweep the second floor, place and wipe tables and chairs them sweep the street out front. My team has such a servants heart, and, as with everything asked of us, went above and beyond to do it well. We were given our assignments for what to help with for the day, then it was time for the kids to come in, and we were all properly introduced to them so they knew all our names. They were split up and sent to sit and we served them the food one team of us had been cooking while the others cleaned. I was on drink duty and filled up each cup with a very cool oat drink that is drank here often. To some kids it was going to be the only thing they ate all day so we made sure it was a big portion each. With the amount of tables and chairs there were I estimated it was about 93 children in all that were there. I chose to eat my meal with the littlest ones and spent my meal making silly faces, playing rock,  paper, scissors, and telling people not to fling rice at eachother. The second half of the day I was on kitchen clean up and cleaned the kitchen and did dishes until I was surprised by the news of “you havd to go over to the school, you are doing sports with the little kids”. I had no idea but it ended up so fun, we played duck duck goose, Red rover and soccer. The boys team was much bigger than the girls team for soccer and so I took over goalie to even out the 0 to 12 score lol and the boys really upped their game (to no avail). It was so fun and after it ended I got a giant group hug so agressive it basically knocked me to the ground. There was a Bible study with the older kids going on about that time and was able to catch the end where they used the symbolism of breaking a bottle with the kids to keep them engaged while they gave up their bad habits the wanted to and asked for forgiveness from God. It was so crazy to watch a group of kids get to use a hammar to break a glass jar (in a glass safe bag for safety), and you could tell that it was a very impactful exercise. I was in the back praying for them as they did the activity. We cleaned up and got a huge goodbye and went home for the day.

The last service activity I have done so far was a VBS that Reindom has been working to expand to two other small villages other than the one with the house. We took the bus to the farthest village out and cleaned up the open square that we were going to do the program on and then played loud music so the kids knew we were there. We were told the general plan and to be ready to help with anything as always. Probably about 50 kids had gathered so we invited them in, introduced ourselves and started the program. We played a ship game all together in a big circle and the kids loved it. Then we got into smaller circles with the kids and sang worship songs in Spanish with hand motions (lol I did not know the songs, words, or motions, but I did my best and kept the kids engaged with high energy, smiles, thumbs up, and the occasional “muy bien!” The boys in my group sang with such gusto! We prayed and started. The leaders did a modern skit of Cain and Able that was very entertaining and interactive and the kids followed along amazing. Then they told more of the Bible story and explained sins and bad things with a demonstration that I was toss into. I helped stuff balloons into a large shirt that one leader wore and each had a bad thing that the kids had inputed then I played Jesus and when the leader came to me I would pop a ballon with a pen and it would (of course) basically dissappear and leaving the leader looking much more happy and like herself and the kids were very captivated with it. Then we colored pictures of Cain and Able in our groups and kids were asked which was which and did a great job of telling them appart. Then we ended and said goodbye, cleaned up and rushed ro the next village to do it all again. The next village one had about 15 kids come. We did the same thing and I was much more confident in it and the kids in this town took in the story even better than the first! Once we finished and said goodbye we went back to the village with the house to do a special VBS since they take Bible school classes often. We set up in the school courtyard and everything was the same except the story was Jonah and the whale and the game was a balloon popping game. My team did not win but my heart was so happy when they divided the kids and some were so excited to be on my team that they yelled my name while running over to me. (They call me Anahbella, it is pronounced like Anah Bay yuh). It was so cool to see the connection created over just two days. We left for home after closing up.

Here is me talking to some kids as they gathered for VBS

And here is me playing the balloon game with the kids

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What’s it like in Guatemala?

The food: The food here is very corn and rice heavy with some veggies and chicken.

I have had a very cool kind of tamale like food called “Chucitos”. I have had the oat milk drink, horchatta, and blended watermelon as a juice for drinks. And I have had chicken and rice in many ways and we had some pupusas from a streaat vendor yesterday that was very good.

The weather: It is known as the land of eternal spring for good reason because it is never ridiculously hot and only ever lightly chilly but unlike a NY spring, it hardly ever rains.

The traffic: People drive with very different rules, you can pile into cars and truck beds, roads are lightly marked, they have a honking system to communicate, they don’t really have crosswalks so people and street dogs cross as they see fit, and in all the chaos I have never seen a single accident of any kind. They take turns on small one way hill roads so close to cars and walls that you may sweat, but they are all so talented that no one is even a little worried and it only took one day for me to feel the same. I am so confident in their driving and attentiveness that I basically believe I could cross blindfolded and spun in a circle and I would be just fine. Chicken buses are a main transportation style you will se nowhere else in the world and they are so fun. They are left over busses from American things in the country, modified and painted and used as a central bus system. They have usually Mariachi music playing and it is 2 or 3 to every seat and packed as tight as possible in the aisles, then the man who collects money goes through the fully packed bus to collect and you just have to squish somewhere/anywhere to let him by. It is so fun.

This is a chicken bus we rode

The people: The people are all very friendly and kind as their culture is very big on relationships. Conversations are open and people are happy to tell you about their families and spend time chatting with you, or helping you find your destination. And everything is slow paced and people take thir time. The relational based culture is very different than home and I am really enjoying that even in places of my own discomfort.

The clothing: The cultural Mayan clothing is so bright and beautiful and I love to see it. I would love a shirt like they have with the embroidery and the colors.  Other than the traditional dress the clothes are very similar to average American dress, except you will never see people in shorts or tank tops. They wear pants and long sleeves or dresses and often have jackets or hats on because they get cold by the end of the day dispite the temp never being all that cold to me and my team. We sweat and they wear jackets and sweaters during the day lol.

Other: They have street dogs everywhere that you can’t pet and it is so hard not to because they are so sad and cute. Pets are “Perros” but street dogs are “Chuchos”.

They have such colorful fun decorations hanging around in random places that just blow in the wind and they make everything look so fun! They are usually around the street markets with all the vendors set up.

This is the Chucho I feel in love with at the market because he was so cute

The colorful flags

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Fundraising Update

God has helped my get up to 59% raised and it is such an encouragement and a blessing to see people continue to give. I am so happy to be able to share here what your support and partnership is producing tangibly! We are pouring into the life’s of so many adults and children here! All those who have prayed or gave are now getting to see the fruits of their love and kindness and obedience to God and get to watch how God is using it to reach the nations. God is and has always been in Guatemala and will be here long after I go, but I am so blessed to be partnering with both Him and you in Guatemala right now.

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Spiritual Update

Finding devotional time has been hard but now that I know what my weeks will look like I can prepare better. Prayer room meet ups most mornings to worship God are a huge blessing and help set the day up well. And the Tuesday Bible study together and Sunday Sabbath help keep my focus on God. I am currently working on what it looks like to step out in faith with what He tells me. I can’t speak Spanish well but He has encouraged me that I can love people well without that, and, as always, He proves Himself faithful and good in all things and I can see the impact of my efforts in the lives of the children as I can only give so little and they are so overjoyed just to have me near.

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Prayers

Please be praying for Reindom as they do a lot of work with a lot of people for God and though they have a good sized team, it is a lot on a day by day basis.

Pray for Guatemala. It has a lot of heaviness and heartbreak that are on the people. Pray they draw near to God and He continues to draw near to them pray for healing in emotional pain (their civil war has only ended 27 years ago and there is a lot of hurt still there) and in physical healing and pray sobriety over them too as it is a large coping mechanism that is very strong here.

Pray for the children of the villages, for safety, health, and a strong foundation in Jesus.

Also pray for a grandma of a family I met (idk if I can say names) she has given up on church and has some hurt there. For the child of one of the mothers in the main village, He is very sick with a fever and needs as much prayer as he can.

Pray for the people who come to the Kingdoms table that God influences their lives and they let God come into their lives, and change and love them.

Pray for my team as we navigate a lot of new things and are still learning about eachother and what it looks like to be a team. Pray we can affective draw near to God in our individual lives and as a team and that we live out God’s love and reach people for Jesus.

Pray that I seek God in everything and do not get apathetic or stagnant, but my relationship with Him continues to grow.

I pray for you back home that you reach into your family and communities and live out the love of Jesus and reach people for Him. I pray that your relationships with Him grow deeper and He speaks to you clearly and you follow His voice and calling.

Thank you

I cannot thank you enough for joining with me on this journey. A week has gone by and I feel like I have done so much for God and started growing and seeing spots I need to grow in myself. I knew this opportunity was going to be life changing, but I can tell you right now I was not prepared for how much. Thank you so much. I can wait to tell you about next week!

(Maybe I’ll do some social media updates during the week, but no promises)