Back to school!

Hi everyone, I’m back! Sorry it’s been so long, as you know from my last blog I was fasting my phone for three weeks and then we spent three whole days traveling from Guatemala to Romania, and now I am finally feeling recovered enough from the jet lag to tell you all about it. In this blog I’m going to pick up where I left off in my last blog and recap our last three weeks in Guatemala which were our ATL (ask the Lord) time.

For the first half of ATL we felt like the Lord was calling us to go to San Pedro, a small town on the beautiful Lake Attitlan. So we packed our bags, booked an Airbnb and a shuttle and made the 5 hour trip to the lake! We showed up with very little plan or expectations, trusting that the Lord would direct our steps. And He did just that. On our first day we stumbled upon San Pedro Spanish school, a beautiful place right on the lake, with little huts surrounded by gardens where people were learning Spanish. We learned that they had a home stay program where you could stay with a local family who would make traditional food and teach you about the culture, while taking 1 on 1 Spanish classes at the school during the day. We prayed about it as a team and decided that this seemed like the perfect way to form relationships with a local family, get immersed in the culture, and improve our Spanish which would in turn help us connect and share the love of Jesus with more people! We decided to enroll at the school for a week and take 3 hours of classes each day. It was such a great experience and the Lord used it in ways that I couldn’t have even imagined. On the race we talk a lot about that “ministry is life and life is ministry” meaning that we should be looking for ways to partner with the Lord in our everyday lives and even the things that may not feel like “ministry” are opportunities to reflect God’s love to others. My time at Spanish school was such a great example of this. Everyday I got to spend time with my teacher Rafael and we had some really meaningful conversations (in Spanish of course) during our lessons. I had the opportunity to share with him about what I was doing on the race, my testimony and how I’ve seen the Lord work in my life, and how a relationship with Jesus is different than rules and religion. On our last day together I had the chance to pray for him and even though he did correct my grammar it was such a sweet moment. I am so thankful for our time in San Pedro and how God used it such unexpected ways.

For the second half of ATL we spent a couple days in Antigua before heading onto Chimaltenango, a city about an hour away. A couple weeks earlier, as we were preparing to go into ATL my two teammates, Megan and Rachel, met a woman in a coffee shop who said she was a teacher at a school in Chimaltenango. When hearing about why we were in Guatemala she told them that if we ever wanted to partner with her school they always needed volunteers to help teach English. When we were praying about where to go next after San Pedro we all felt like the Lord was leading us to Chimaltenango to partner with Colegio Mesoamericano. Our first day at the school we learned about their history and vision. Colegio Mesoamericano is a bilingual private school that seeks to give under resourced kids opportunities through education with an emphasis on preparing them for further education at a university. Many of the students are on scholarship to attend the school and they have partnerships with universities both in Guatemala and the U.S. that make it possible for these kids to pursue their dreams. We worked with kids of all different ages and levels in English. We practiced reading, writing, speaking, and listening with them and their excitement was contagious! The staff was so kind and appreciative and truly made us feel so welcomed. I think something that I have seen on the race and become really passionate about is how important education is and the opportunities that it can provide. Through volunteering at the school and also working with One Way Community in Poptun, I’ve seen how providing kids with a good education and teaching them skills, like speaking English, has the ability to open doors for them and break cycles of poverty. I am super grateful to have had the chance to work with those kids and take part, if only for a few days, in what God is already doing in their lives.

Our last 3 weeks of ministry in Guatemala were full of adventure, new experiences, and the Lord’s faithfulness! I will always remember all the people we met, places we called home, and ways that God showed up again and again during this time. I am thankful for the ways that we as a team grew in our trust in the Lord and our ability to hear His voice. It was such a special way to end our time in a country that will forever hold a special place in my heart.

More updates to come soon! I promise!

B🤍