8 Days...

On Tuesday we went to an area of Guatemala called Villa Nueva.  It is a dangerous area and has been on the news often because of crimes so we went to shine some light in a dark place. 

Our first stop was a public school that had about 500 students.  We got to have assembles with the 1st-3rd graders and then with the 4th-6th graders.  It was really cool to be able to do this in a public school.  In fact, the government has been meeting with us and has been sharing their desire for us (YWAM) to be more involved in the public schools.  They realize that by bringing the Gospel in, the dark is driven away and they are interested.   It is pretty cool.  We cleaned bathrooms and painted as well in the morning and with 50 people it flew by! 

Speaking into young lives

The cutest sound man around!

Then in the afternoon we went to another public school.  There were about 1,000 kids at this school, but the teachers were really organized and the students were well behaved and ready to hear the truth.  The team that we are working with did dramas and shared testimonies.  They also replaced a roof, painted and cleaned bathrooms.  Again, it all went by fast with so many people working hard.  We even had a clown, who is a volunteer from a local church who wanted to help us out.  It was a fun place to be!

Painting away

The roof the team repaired

Thanks for reading!

9 Days...

I can't believe we are in the single digits!  It hit me hard on day day 9 that we are actually leaving.  Leaving this country, leaving these people. 

We had an orientation and time of worship with the El Paso team in the morning and then in the afternoon we went to the Christian television station, Canal 27, to pack bags of food that we will be taking with us to the village we are going to on Friday.  300+ bags of food is a lot to make, but not when you have 55 people packing them!!!  We made an assembly line and it felt kind of like Trick-or-Treating.

Then last night we went to our friends Guatemalan family, the Colom's house.  It was going to be the last small group for our church that we would be able to attend, since next Monday is Holy Week and they wouldn't be meeting.  After the devotion, Priscilla and Stuardo (mama and papa Colom) said that they have mixed emotions because they know that we will be happy in Bakersfield so they are happy for us, but that they are going to miss us so they are sad.  I, who was already fighting back tears, began to realize just how much I am going to miss them.  I began to cry as they asked us to come to the middle of the room and prayed for us.  What a great church family we have here in Guatemala!  We have been blessed time after time by them and they will always have a very special place in our hearts! 

Thanks for reading!

10 Days...

Saint Patrick's Day, or the day we had 10 days left in Guatemala was a full day.  We didn't go to church in the morning because the team of 50 people from El Paso, Texas came in so we went to the airport to pick them up.  They came in two groups because I am pretty sure that there is no way they could have come on one flight unless they booked the whole thing for themselves.  We waited a long time for the first group to come out.  We speculated about what they would look like and as each group came out we asked ourselves if that was them.  Finally, after seeing about 4 or 5 youth groups come out the airport doors, we saw the group.  The evening pick up wasn't too bad since there weren't as many people there.  We finally crawled into bed around 12:30, just in time to sleep and wake up to make breakfast for the team the next day. 

All in all it was a good day, but still no camera.  I did take a beauty shot for you all and am willing to share my St. Patrick's  Day 2013 self portrait with you all.  Enjoy!!!

11 Days...

Saturday we had 11 days left in Guatemala and it was good day, indeed!  We did laundry, got stuff ready for the team who arrives on Sunday, I went to Mega Paca (more on that later) and lunch with two other friends on staff while Mario stayed back and fix some stuff at the base, and we ended the evening off by hanging out with our friends the Coloms. 

So Mega Paca is like a second hand clothes store heaven.  There are clothes from the States that they bring down, sort into size, discount and resale for a ridiculously cheap price.  The reason we went yesterday was to look for long skirts because we are going to a village on Friday where we need to wear long skirts, plus we kind of used it as an excuse to go :)  Mario HATES the Mega Paca.  Why, you might ask.  Not because he isn't a fan of second hand clothes because he definitely is.  It is because he does not like spending the time going through and trying on clothes if the end result is me walking out of the store empty handed.  For me, the going through and trying on is half of the fun, but for him it is a big fat waste of time.  That is why I try my best to avoid having to go with him and I take full advantage of going with girls when I have the chance.  So yesterday we went and I didn't find a skirt but I did get two shirts for a super low price.  It was great! 

In the afternoon our friend Stuardo Colom called to see if we could give him and his family a ride to a 10K night run they were going to do.  We gladly agreed, since this family is like our family away from home.  They invited us to dinner afterward and we laughed late into the night with them.  We are definitely DEFINITELY going to miss this family.  They have done so many things for us and saved our sanity numerous times since we have been here.  They are like a breath of fresh air for us and are always looking to do something to bless us.  They are amazing!!!

Last but not least I have to tell you that I do not have pictures to put in this post because I tried to take my camera out twice to get some photos of the day just to realize that our camera is slowly dying and it decided that it didn't want to play along.  It turned on, but pretended like it didn't have an SD card in it (even though it did- I checked and double checked), so there are no pictures from our 11th day left in Guatemala.  Hopefully I can talk it into working for just a little bit longer so that we can get pictures up for the rest of the days! 

Thanks for reading!!!

12 Days...

We only had 12 days left on Friday.  That means we have LESS than two weeks... eeek!!!  Anyway, Friday was a busy day because we have a team coming on Sunday.  We had a staff meeting all morning long to discuss details (not my or Mario's favorite way to spend our morning, but definitely a necessary thing to make sure all of us are on the same page).  Then in the afternoon I worked on getting the schedule perfected and Mario finished painting.  He has been painting around the base all week and it looks really good. 

This really doesn't do his painting justice because he hasn't taken the tape off yet and the lighting is horrible, but his creativity is great and he does such a good job!!!

 Then after lunch Mario got a shot and of course I had to document that!  Actually shots here are really common and he was getting a vitamin B complex shot. It was his second injection of the week.  It was super inexpensive to get everything for the injections and so we took advantage of it before we get back to the States and everything medical related will be more expensive.  I had actually gotten the same shots a few weeks back and had told him that it had hurt, but I guess he didn't believe me because after he got the first one he commented on how bad it had actually hurt.  I am glad we could go through the pain together.  Thankfully we have a friend here on staff who can give injections and she gladly injected both of us with the vitamins.  Here are some pictures of Sara and Mario after the shot...

 Mario decided that he would rather take pills than get shot, which for him is a huge deal because he HATES taking pills.  Now when he needs to take vitamins or anything else I have something to remind him of when he says he doesn't want to take them.

So that was our interesting Friday.  Everyday I start the day thinking that I won't have anything to blog about for that day, but something always comes up and I am glad it does!!! 

13 Days...

So Thursday we officially only had 13 more days of being in Guatemala before we move back to the US and here is what happened...

I got to eat MANGOES!!!  They are seriously my favorite fruit in the whole wide world.  I am sad to say that Bakersfield doesn't know mangoes because the 1 version (Tommy) that we have is good, but it is definitely not the best.  Here I am finishing off my favorite, one called Pashte.  It is really orange inside and is super sweet and juicy.  Someone said that they are the kind of mango that you eat at home where no one can see you because they make such a big mess.  To me they are so worth the mess!  Guatemala has around 13 different kinds of mangoes (!) and I have tried maybe 5 or 6 and have been a fan of them all.  Mangoes are truly a delicious fruit and I am going to miss them while we are in the States! 

14 Days...

On Wednesday we were on day #14 of our 15 day countdown to Bakersfield.  We had Street Ministry in the evening, like we usually do on Wednesday.  It was our last time going as just the staff because next Wednesday we will have a huge team with us and then the next Wednesday we will be in Bakersfield!!!

I must admit that I love Wednesday night ministries and it is one of the things that I am going to miss most about being here.  The people on the streets know my name, they want to share things with me and they know that if they ever want to get off the streets that we will be there to help them. 

one of our favorites, Juan

Last night was kind of a crazy one and many strange things happened.  First of all, during our weekly soccer game in the street, one of the guys from the streets kicked the ball and his shoe came flying off and went through a second story apartment window.  The person inside was NOT HAPPY at all and we did everything to calm him down as he threatened us with different things.  The owner of the building came and was not any happier with us and after accusing us of things and saying some not very kind things, we decided that we would pay for the window and they needed to give back the shoe. 

The hole where the shoe went in

The guy who lives in the apartment and us trying to calm him down

Not too long after the shoe incident, the street lights went out.  Just like that, they were off.  It was weird and we didn't really know what to do for a second, but we decided to play in the dark and not too long after that they came back on.  That has never happened to us, though, and so it was strange. 

Then, one of the last events of the nights was when a car came down the street, aka our soccer field, and didn't see the cinder block we were using as a goal.  It drove right over the bock and drug it a few feet before quickly driving away.  What a NIGHT!!!

Day 14 was interesting, to say the least!!!