There are so many different things I could write about. I could write about the emotional roller coaster I have been on the past two weeks. My team's little saying is that we feel like we have already felt the highest of highs the lowest of lows. One moment I am so excited to be here and share God's love with the people of Puerto Barrios, and literally the next moment I have no desire to be here and I just want to go home. Thankfully, the longer I am here, the feeling of not wanting to be here lessons. I could write so much more about this roller coaster ride, but now I want to share a little bit about what Guatemala is like and what ministry here looks like.
The best way I can describe Guatemala is beautiful and broken. Guatemala is filled with natural beauty, some very kind people and a ton of precious children. But Guatemala also has a police force that is corrupted, prostitutes that think that sex is the only way they can provide for their family and children who call a garbage dump home.
We started the week off in prayer. We went to the areas in Puerto Barrios where we would be ministering to and prayed over them. Then on Saturday we went to the market and asked each vendor (and there was a lot of them) if we could pray for them. All but one vendor said we could and were happy that we were there. Some even prayed for us. The fact that most of them allowed us to pray for them is amazing because many of them do not have a relationship with God and are heavily involved in witchcraft.
On Monday, we went to an elderly home where the people weren't given enough food and there were about six or so beds per room. Many of them do not have family and as a result, never have any visitors. They were so happy that we were there and wanted to know when we'd be back.
On Tuesday, we went to the garbage dump. It had rained two full days prior to going so it was extremely muddy. As I thought about the mud getting on my white shoes, I looked down at the little girl beside me with black open-toed shoes covered in mud. This is her life. She is not going to go back to a clean house with food and showers. She is stuck in a garbage dump and she doesn't think that there is anything wrong with that reality because she has never seen anything else. There is, however, something extremely wrong with that. It's easy to ignore the fact that people live like this when you haven't seen it with your own eyes, but I can assure you, those starving kids that you see on commercials and get emails about are real. The fact that kids live in garbage is still hard for my brain to comprehend even though I've seen it.
The easiest thing to say after seeing a garbage dump is "How could the God of the universe let this happen to his beloved children?" But our leader Julian encouraged us to think about it a different way, "How could we, who God has blessed so richly, let this happen?" We, as Americans, are extremely blessed with wealth, and we need to do something for the people of this world that don't have enough money for food.
I think I went past the 500 word suggestion, so I am going to leave it at that for now. Thanks for your prayers. We feel them!
Kathy 🙂
