Day 4 in Guatemala ~ Friday, August 14th, 2009

If you haven’t read day 1, 2 or 3 scroll down and read them first…

I went to bed thinking about how Blessed I am to not only have an amazing family, but to live in the house I live in with all the luxury items that I take for granted every day. I had a little trouble falling asleep anticipating the extra time with the girl’s that was on tomorrow’s schedule, but exhaustion soon took over and I faded off. I woke up at 5:30, took a quick shower and headed outside to enjoy the cool, crisp, quiet morning. I never go outside my own home and just walk around in the cool morning breeze without a destination and talk to God, but as I reflect on the mornings I did that in Guatemala and remember that feeling now, I think I will start. 

Enjoyed sitting on the porch swing and talking to Charles about the week so far, met the girls with smiles, hugs and encouraging words as they came down the hill for school at 6:30 and then enjoyed an excellent brekfast of french toast & fresh fruit.

Charles led the morning devotional… Question was “Can you think of a time when you have experienced Joy for doing God’s work?” All of us had experienced great joy over the past 3 days and were eager to share short examples of these times. The challenge was to pause and look for God’s Blessings as we go throughout the day and our lives.

Work plans changed slightly as it was determined that perhaps there was not enough manpower planned to take one of the old pilas (a concrete clothes washing basin with built in scrubboards) that weight approximately 900 pounds that was no longer in use at the home,

Pila, used to wash clothes with Lye soap

load it into a truck and bring it to one of the families in need that we had brought food to on the mountian the day before.

Jeff & I were asked to provide the extra bodies needed to lift the pila into the truck, ride up the mountain in the back of the truck, unload it and carry it about 50 yards down a dirt path

short walk unless your carrying a pila

 and place it beside the makeshift house

for the mother of 6 that had nothing to use to wash their clothes in. 

Pastor Steve, Karvin, Jeff, Juan, Salvador and I were all glad that there was 6 of us for this task and that noone was injured.

As God planned it, we arrived back at Prince of Peace at 9:30, just in time to enjoy recess with the girls. I played soccer with Lucia, Jaqueline, Esteafany, Estefania, Sandra, Yaneth, Jeff & others…

The game was the same as our kids play it here except, there was no arguing, no score keeping, no complaining about ball hogging and no bragging. Instead, it was just fun! Everyone truly happy to be playing with everyone else… even during a little game of soccer, the Love in these girl’s hearts is Overwhelming.

After recess, it was back to work to finish the gable project once and for all. A few finishing brush strokes by Jeff and I and we were done.

As we stopped for a moment to look at the completed project, the girls that lived in the house were heading in to prepare their lunch and stopped to tell us how thankful they were, how beautiful it looked and give us a thumbs up and a hug for our efforts. Another way to put it is this, we “paused” and God Blessed us for doing His work. 

We took a much needed break for Guatemalan Chow Mein (surprisingly good, btw) and then Jeff and I dove head first into the next work project. A few of the Bathrooms in Casa B needed shelves built into the closets to provide much needed extra storage. Iwas actually very glad that I was going to get to do another work project shoulder to shoulder with Jeff. We got started about 1:00, did a little measuring, figured out what materials were at our disposal, designed the shelves and started. Our goal was to measure the closets, cut braces and shelves, pre-drill holes in the braces and drill holes in the masonry walls, drive the anchors in the wall, mount all the braces to the walls inside the closets, slide the shelves in place and secure them to the braces all by 4:00 p.m. The fact that it was raining off and on and the workshop that housed all the tools and materials was located half way down a very steep hill from casa b was made much easier by the fact that there was a mule truck available and allowed us to finish with about 10 minutes to spare. The rain had stopped and I had just enough time to jump in the shower for a quick rinse off and start preparing for the picnic with the girls.

I had volunteered earlier in the day to help with the grilling of the burgers for the picnic and ended up grilling all 85 burgers on 2 grills. The entire time I was smiling and thinking,

I am grilling… in Guatemala

We all sat and ate and played and connected and built relationships…

And as the sun set at the end of an awesome day, it became too dark to play basketball anymore. It was time to say goodnight to the girls and let them head back up the hill to their houses. None of us wanted the day to end and as the girls came by one by one to say goodnight,  Lucia hugged me tightly (much like my own daughter does after such a fun time playing together) and Lucia looked me in the eyes and said “Te Quiero Mucho”. Estefany, Estefania, Jaqueline and Yaneth probably overheard Lucia and followed suit with their own tight hugs and TQM’s. As they said their goodnights, they all headed up the hill to their casas, but as I turned around, there was Lucia still standing there. I opened my arms up for her to give her one more hug that I think I needed more than she did at that point and as she hugged me with her head buried in my chest, she said “I Love You”. At that point, it was official… I went to Guatemala as a Father of 3 and returned as a Father of 4.

Evening Devotional led by Pastor Steve. He asked us to share a time that we paused and Thanked God for the Blessings we recieved for doing God’s work. Amber shared that Anay asked her “will you ever come see me again?”

I shared the exchange of TQM’s and I Love You’s with the girls I have become so connected with. 

UPDATE: As I write this blog on August 31st, less than 2 weeks from leaving Guatemala and I “Pause” to recieve the Blessings from this trip, I am Overwhelmed to be able to tell you that as a direct result of this Mission trip approximately half of the 53 girls at Prince of Peace now have new sponsors.

Our God is an awesome God and I have never been more excited about what HE is doing in our Church (www.oaklawnchog.com), our Community (Hot Springs, AR)  and Globally ( www.princeofpeacegt.com ) . Please pray about what part God would have you play in the lives of these girls. Our goal is to provide each girl with at least one sponsor at a cost of about $1 a day. BE Blessed!

Thank you for sharing this journey with me, day 5 will post soon!

Please leave a comment and tell me what you think?

 

 

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