First of all, a big, ginormous THANK YOU to any and all of
you who supported me financially. I have
barely any money to my name so going on two international missions’ trips this
summer could’ve been a big drain on my already empty bank account. I physically could not have done them without
you and for that I am extremely thankful.
Another huge THANK YOU to all of you who prayed for me during the past 3
weeks. Both trips were physically,
mentally, emotionally, and spiritually challenging and draining; thus, I needed
an extra dose of Jesus to get me through.
Probably the cutest and most encouraging thing I experienced before I
even left was getting to see my 3 littlest cousins (ages 4, 3 and 2). I had dinner with them and they told me that
they had been praying for me every night for the past week prior to my trip
because they knew I was “going to Guatemala to tell people about God because
they didn’t know God.” My mom spend even
more time with these boys while I was in Guatemala, and she said they continued
to pray for me every night while I was gone.
What an encouragement that even the littlest in the Kingdom are praying
for the missionaries.
Guatemala (June 9-15)
My heart was captured by this country on the trip last year,
and I feel deeper in love during this year’s trip. We spent most of the week preparing a road to
be paved (which a team down there this week is actually pouring the concrete
for). This road leads into the property
of Engadi Ministries where the boys’ homes will one day be built. We were also able to go into a school in Zone
18 in Guatemala (one of the poorest, most dangerous areas of Guatemala). In this school, we were able to paint a few
of the classrooms. The children that
went to school there were so excited and encouraged that we were there. Most of these children live in one room
houses made from scrap metal. Seeing
paint on their school room walls make the rooms so bright and happy that they
children are even more excited to be going to school. As we left the school, all the students were
lined up by their classrooms shouting “thank you, thank you” to us as we passed
by.
Painting in the schools...I guess I had a supervisor.
Our team after the last day of work. We widened this road by 2 feet on both sides.
Honduras (June 22-29)
Orphanage Emmanuel is not what you’d first expect an
orphanage to be. First of all, most of
the kids have parents, but they have been taken away from them by the country
because of abuse or neglect. So it’s not
technically an orphanage, and you can’t adopt out of it. You can however sponsor children from the
orphanage, which is how Emmanuel gets the majority of its funds. The children go to school during the day and
while they did, we would do some tasks around the property. These included harvesting fish from their
tilapia farm, working in the greenhouse, butchering pigs, and pouring
concrete. I personally only participated
in the first two. The last three days we
were there, I spent a great deal of time around the toddler and infant house,
playing with the children on the playground.
During the afternoon, after the kids came home from school, we would do
a Bible story, crafts and play games with the “small boys” group (the ages
being around 4-9). These children loved us and only wanted to
play and cuddle with us. You’ll see a
few pictures of the children who touched my heart the most.
Santos
Josue
Oscar
Manuel (braiding my hair) and Richard (sitting in my lap)
People have asked me which trip was my favorite. I can’t
answer that because the trips were both so different. My heart has been gripped by Guatemala and
Engadi Ministries, but the children worked their way into my heart when I was
at Orphanage Emmanual. The real test for
me is “would I go back?”…and the answer is yes for both trips.
Isaac and me in Antigua, Guatemala (volcano in the background).
Isaac and me at Orphanage Emmanuel
No comments:
Post a Comment