These past two months have been a whirlwind of emotions- filled with ups, down, twists, and turns. We went from thinking that successfully living with 19 people was unimaginable, to not wanting it any other way. The constant laughter, conversations and card games bring life to this little house on San Pedro el Alto.
Its been inspiring to see a group of young, college age, adults, who have only ever seen a glimpse of community, come together and choose to love one another. Truly, when one of us is hurting we surround each other with prayer and love.
In this short span of time, we have seen this team grow, learning what it means to look more like Jesus.
We’ve seen them go above and beyond our expectations through starting an “unofficial” San Pedro Ministry and spending longer hours at the Cerebral Palsy Orphanage.
The CP orphanage pushed our team to grow more than any other ministry. Most of us never worked with children with special needs before, but that didn’t keep us from trying. We pushed past the uncomfortable and allowed God to transform our hearts—to see the power that love has to change peoples lives. We saw these children come to life by our presence, a touch, a song, a hand shake and a hug. We witnessed the beauty of receiving love and the power love holds.
Many of us learned what it meant to let go of expectations and allow God to direct our time here. We had many moments of frustration, not knowing what was going to happen next. When things didn’t work out, our team was able to see the bigger picture as to why we are here—to bring Christ’s love to everyone that we interact with.
Of course we’ve our fun times—spending 12 hours hiking Volcano Agua, countless hours playing Mafia, getting locked out of our house and breaking in with a machete, dragging mattresses outside to sleep in the cool night air, getting knocked down by the powerful waves of the Pacific Ocean, the hundreds of batches of kettle corn made on our stove, the Wenis licking game, playing 1 to 10 (which led to Roni getting buried alive and Dan licking Mark’s beard), making sketchy cookie dough and oreo balls for girl’s night and playing poker for guys night, getting on a packed school bus with over 100 people on it, how the gas on our stove always runs out in the middle of making dinner, calling the locksmith 3 times in the course of 2 days because the girl’s locked themselves out of their room… again, and of course the joys of having 19 people and 2 bathrooms.
As leaders, our favorite part of this summer was hearing the beautiful testimonies of how God has worked in all of our lives. We’ve loved leading our team into times of vulnerability and seeing the freedom God brings. We are honored to have had the privilege to lead this team of 17 people this summer. To everyone who supported this team, thank you for allowing us to be apart of what God is doing in Guatemala. And we want to especially thank all of you parents for stepping out in faith and letting your children bring more of the Kingdom here on Earth.
With love,
Roni & Mark
