Hola!
It’s hard to believe it’s already been one week since I left for my trip! What’s been happening in this past week of my life?? Well, I’ve already been through many ups and downs: long travel days, (several) lessons in patience, and the building of an amazing community around me that I get to live with for my remaining 23 days here in Guatemala.
My saga begins last Monday, June 28, when I caught an early morning flight to Atlanta, where I met my squadmates for the first time. We were taken from that airport to Gainsville, GA where we stayed for training camp until Friday, July 2. This training camp included deep dives into scripture, times of worship, hearing the stories of and building relationships with my squad, learning more about the ministry and the culture that we would be stepping into in Guate, and intentional time spent listening to the voice of the Lord. We also had the opportunity to go to downtown Gainsville for one day of training camp to evangelize and ask the Lord for divine appointments with people. This was fun because we got to put what we learned in our training sessions to practice on the streets of the U.S. first.
We shared freezing cold showers transformed from old shipping crates, and we washed our clothes in buckets (only to have them soaked again by rain after stringing them up on the line). We prayed for each other and for the Guatemalan people and we received advice and encouragement from the elders at Adventures in Missions.
After this training camp ended on Friday morning, my squad headed to the Atlanta airport, feeling prepared and elated to be going to Guatemala! We found out about 30 minutes into being at the airport that our initial flight to Miami had been canceled. So, we decided to hang out at the airport until we could find a new flight out…we ended up laying on the floor for about 9 hours, until we were finally told that we were staying at a hotel. That night we arrived at a hotel, only to wake up 4 hours later to catch a 7am flight to Houston. In Houston, we endured a 12-hour layover, awaiting our flight to Guatemala. That flight got delayed an hour. And then it was delayed another hour.
At that point, I was reminding myself that God’s timing is always perfect and that He knows what He’s doing, but I was feeling discouraged and frustrated, because I had been waiting for this trip for SO long.
When we finally arrived in Guatemala City on Saturday night, I was dead tired but thinking “Praise God, at least we are here!”. We got off the plane, and after braving the painfully long, single-file line through customs at 12 am, we were ushered onto this old school bus, which took us over an hour away to the city of Antigua. We stayed at a hostel in Antigua, with all 10 of my squadmates in a tiny room. The next morning, we were taken on another bus ride about an hour away to the Aventuras en Misiones Guatemala base. Here, we met lots of incredible people and underwent an orientation specific to the customs and cultural norms of Guate, including some do’s and dont’s of street ministry.
After this orientation and a brief lunch, we hopped on ANOTHER bus which took us about four hours through the most stunning mountain passes to Panajachel, the city on Lago de Atitlán. This is where my squad will be living for the entire month. So on Sunday July 4, we finally arrived at our new home and could enjoy a relaxing sabbath all together, without the feeling of needing to pack everything up and leave again.
Needless to say, we were all very excited on Sunday to be here and to start working with the ministry, Orphan Prevention Community. Although we haven’t been here long, my squad and I have been out and about the city and to the lake a few times. And I would be lying if I said I wasn’t already in love. God was working with my patience (or lack thereof) last week when travel wasn’t going the way that we had planned…at all. But now I see that it was absolutely worth the wait!
My first impressions after being in Panajachel for three days now:
1. The people are sweet, sweet. They are so kind, love each other so deeply, and it is evident that community is everything to them. I have loved being able to walk down a busy street and say “Buenos!” as I go, and always receiving cheerful responses and smiles in return.
2. It’s slower here. Life is just simple. The people obviously work incredibly hard to make a living, but everything is done in such a way as if they are just in a constant state of rest. You just don’t experience that in the U.S.
3. Just like in any nation, there are strongholds here, whether the people can see them or not. In Guatemala, the most apparent strongholds are alcohol and lust. Please, please join me in praying for the people, that their eyes would be opened to this. And pray that my team would respond to catcalling or other “uncomfortable” situations with Love!
During my time here, I hope to post weekly on this blog. Every Monday-Friday I will be working at the Orphan Prevention Community ministry helping teach the children, evangelizing, cleaning, painting, and whatever other jobs the ministry hosts have for me. My team and I have been very blessed with nice living arrangements (aka no more bucket laundry!), and we do not take that for granted! On Saturdays, we have free time to explore, go on adventures around the country, and just have fun together. And Sunday is our Sabbath; time to be filled by the Lord however He sees fit.
Thank you for any and all prayers for myself, my squadmates, and the ministry. Your prayers mean more to me than you’ll ever know. I am so in love with Guatemala and its people already, I am simply overjoyed thinking about my remaining days here.
Thank you, thank you. Pictures to come!
-Cayla
