Hey friends! In case you wanted an in-depth saga of my trip to Guatemala, welcome. Here we are. Enjoy! I hope you can pretend you were with me on this journey!
1) What did I do?
Of the
8 families Redeemer’s House has “adopted”, I had the joy of mainly working with
2. I was able to help give Dominga and Katarina’s families’ basic food needs
and work on several projects for each of them.
Dominga
was a single mom with 9 children and an elderly mom and 6 pets to take care of,
and all of them lived in a house the size of your living room. Her landlord
evicted her the first day we were there because she couldn’t pay rent, and we
helped her move 50 feet down the road to a new home that she also couldn’t
afford. Someone in the States would have called their possessions trash, but
every item was treasured and we had to make sure it all arrived safely at the
new house. Three of the younger girls, Irma, Melissa, and Miley, stole my heart
with their sweet smiles, songs, and beautiful laughter! We got to play with
them, read to them, and let them do our hair. The last day that I saw them,
Miley clung to my legs and called me “Mama” and told me she loved me—in
English. Needless to say, I wept.
Katarina and her two kids, Giovanni and
Deborah, lived in an old boat shack with one room, two beds and an outdoor
stove. Their neighbor’s pit bulls wandered free and were dangerously close to
the kids, who were home alone most of the time. We had the opportunity to build
Katarina a shelter over her outdoor stove, which was incredibly difficult work.
When we gave her family the food for the week, little Deborah ran out saying
“Food! Food! Food!” and started eating a cantaloupe through the rind. It broke
my heart to think this might have been the only food she’d eaten in days.
Twice
a week, we volunteered at an after school program that Redeemer’s House
started. This program teaches children about the gospel of Jesus, but also
teaches them basic skills they need for survival such as reading, writing, and
dental hygiene. We taught the kids how to sing Jesus Loves Me in Spanish and
taught them that Jesus is their friend, and seeing them understand and then
sing with joy melted my heart. Since I speak Spanish, I was asked to read a
Bible story to the kids in Spanish. It was cool to use that gift that the Lord
has given me—and actually be good at it! I also got to lead a group of 7-8
preschoolers, and teach them to use fine motor skills by coloring. It’s amazing
and heartbreaking to see that some of the kids can’t do basic crafts because
they are so developmentally behind due to malnutrition and lack of care.
Twice
in the afternoons, women from the community came to our mission’s house to
teach US something. Dominga and her family taught us how to make tortillas,
which she normally sells for 1Q (about 12 cents). This was SO difficult and
humbling. Little Miley could make a tortilla in under a minute, and it took me
a good 15 minutes to make a misshapen lump. We then bought all of the tortillas
we had made from her, giving her about 150Q, and then we ate them for dinner!
Let me just say…they were delicious. Another day, a sweet woman named
Sebastiana taught us how to crochet flowers that are generally used on
clothing. Only one person on our team was able to make them, and she was an art
major (so it wasn’t even fair!!). This teach-a-trade program enabled the women
to have dignity and respect for themselves, seeing the rich white people not
being able to do what they do every day for a living!
Fun
Things and Facts:
·
The last
day we were in Guat, we kayaked on the Lago de Atitlán (Lake Atitlán). Some
brave girls (myself included) swam in the lake! It was cold, but so worth it.
·
We got to
go shopping on la calle de Santander, which is essentially a tourist trap, but
gives a lot of families income. Not only did we get cool things, we got to
bless people financially!
·
In
Panajachel, you travel either by foot or by standing in the back of a
pick-up-truck. I prefer the latter.
·
Stray dogs
are everywhere.
·
Some of
the kids we met had already lost their teeth to decay, either from lack of
hygiene or excess sugar.
·
You can’t
flush toilet paper in Guatemala, and sometimes the water doesn’t work.
·
To drink
fresh water, you either have to buy a purifier or drink water out of packets.
All drinks are lukewarm, always.
·
“Te
extraño” can either mean “I’ll miss you” or “I think you’re strange”. I’m still
unsure which one I got told, but I cherish it either way!
2)
How have I been impacted?
Gosh. I think a better question would be how
HAVEN’T I been impacted? I’m so humbled. How dare I take anything for granted
anymore? One day, there was an elderly woman digging through our trash to find
food, wrapping our days-old BBQ in our used toilet paper. The fact that I can
flush my toilet paper and eat 3+ meals a day makes me feel so blessed. I’m
always quick to complain, but remembering seeing people I love with literally
nothing snaps me out of it very quickly. Lord, let me not be blind with privilege.
Give me eyes to see the pain.
Although the families I worked with had
nothing, their faith was incredible. If they knew Jesus (some of them didn’t),
they CLUNG to Him. They knew what it was like to have Jesus be their literal
daily bread, and to have Him fill them up because they have nothing else. I,
who have never been empty handed in my entire life, don’t understand this utter
dependence on Him but I PRAY for it. I desire it. I am so quick to replace
Jesus with meaningless things in this life, but He is the ONLY thing that will
truly satisfy. I pray to someday have faith like a Guatemalan.
Above all else, I’m inspired to DO SOMETHING.
We had the opportunity to pray over several brothels, and to look inside and
see real women in sexual slavery. Some of these women were trafficked there
from other countries, but some were just desperate to put food on their tables.
I listened to the men, calling out to our team in Spanish degradingly, and my
heart broke for the way these women are treated everyday. I pictured my sweet
little Guatemalan girls ending up this way in the future, and couldn’t handle
it. I have to do something about this. We, as the Body of Christ, MUST do
something about this. Now, more than ever, I’m in it to END human trafficking.
To be honest, I’m still processing all the ways
that the Lord moved while I was in Guatemala. I see Him changing me everyday
more into His likeness, and I am so grateful for that. But until the day that
He calls me back to Guat, I pray that I would serve Him on the mission field
HERE in Kennesaw. It would be foolish to come home and treat my peers the same
as I did before.
Thank you for going on this journey with me! I
pray for you, that you would be influenced by my story and seek to glorify Him
in all that you do today.
Peace, blessings, y Jesús te ama!
-Anne
Nadie tiene mayor amor que este, que uno ponga su vida por su amigos.
-Juan 15:13
