11/13-11/29

11/13 week

The ministry part of this week was pretty typical week here in Guatemala, our ministry was pretty much the same as before. (Also, after riding my last blog, we had to go to our base in a cop car.) Nothing was too crazy or out of the ordinary. Honestly i don’t remember too much of it. As usual we played basketball with the kids, cooked the lunch and ministered to some people. The activation of that week was on the topic of teaching. We were taught of how important the teachers are in the body of Christ. We then went out to Parramos. It was really cool because one of the people I was with really wanted to talk to some Mormons. We were praying that we would see some. So we went to the church where they always go, but we couldn’t find any. So we were looking around and we seen three people sitting on the side of the street selling some fruit. We sort of talk to them, asked them about their day, asked about the families and ask them about their faith. They were all Christians, so we had the privilege to encourage them in their faith. One of the guys was a Christian and the rest of his family were Mormons. So he was really cool how we prayed to talk to Mormons, but instead we talk to a man who the rest of his family were Mormons. It was just an answer to prayer, and it’s so cool to see that you might ask for something and the board want you to actually talk to someone else, but they have the same saying that you were praying for. The same guy said that he didn’t know why he was sitting on the curb but he felt like he had to so he just sat there and he said that we were the reason why he felt that he should stay there. That was another cool thing to see is that the Lord will send people and even might send you to someone that you told them to wait because you were gonna go talk to them. By praying for each of them and two of them started tearing up because the Holy Spirit just touched him so much. The activation day was really cool and I learned a lot from it. We then had a basketball tournament at the base after we were done with activation on an 8 foot net.

That we can we had the opportunity to hike the volcano called Acatenango. It was an active volcano long ago, but it overlooks an active volcano, called Fuego. The volcano is 13,000 feet above sea level. The hike of the volcano was absolutely brutal. I wasn’t sure if I was actually going to make it, but it was so worth it. It was so cool to be above the cloud line and look on top of the clouds while the sunset and while it was day. I know I said this about the hike we did a Georgia but it was just so cool again to see God’s glory and it’s like someone said that was on my squad as we were looking out over the clouds, that God, who made all this beauty wants to have a personal relationship with me. That “got me because it is just so crazy to just look at the beauty of the Earth and the details, and realize that the creator of it cares about you in this big world. It was really cool to watch Fuego just the rock and watch the lava just run down the mountain. We stayed there for the night and then woke up at four in the morning to summit to the top. That was so beautiful because we watched the sunrise. The Lord really gave us such good weather for hiking up and for watching the sunrise. It wasn’t too cloudy, but it was cloudy enough to see the sunrise over the clouds, which was so so cool. On Sunday, we hiked down the mountain, mostly ran down. That was so much fun because you would run for a long time and then since it was an active volcano before the ground was loose so then you would slide for a long time. A lot of people took a tumble, including myself. Then we went back to the base.

11/19 week

Monday was our sabbath day, so most of us went to McDonald’s or a coffee shop for most of the day, and just chilled out at one of those. On Wednesday, we had Kingdom table again and my friend Malachi had the opportunity to preach to all the people there. Malachi has such an amazing story of how he was able to come on this trip and what he was doing before. He preached on drunkenness because before this he didn’t find any purpose in life, except when he had alcohol. It’s so beautiful because now he sees that he can be happy to need alcohol to live a normal life and be happy. So he preached on his life story a little bit, and it seemed like it touched some of the drunkards.

On Saturday we had our last VBS’s. We had to do a skit on the secret place. How God just wants to have intimate relationship with each person. And we told the kids that they can go anywhere to have intimacy with him. Importance of the intimacy with Christ and spending time with him. It was also really cool, though it was our last VBS. When is the kids? He was very shy and hardly came in. Was very attentive, and was listening to everything and was so engaged. It was so awesome to watch this happen after watching him just off to the side and not wanting to do anything with the VBS. In Santa Marta, we didn’t have a VBS because some people came from El Salvador and Guatemala, and I’m not sure where else to teach the kids graffiti, skateboarding, breakdancing, and just to hang out with them.

What’s the day we went with a ministry host, Ivan, to his church in Guatemala City. It was so weird because I couldn’t understand any of the language but yet I loved it so much. We used a little bit of Google translate and then I also just had my time with the Lord, because I couldn’t understand the sermon completely. After that we were able to go to Guatemala City and go to a massive mall for lunch.

11/26-11/29

My day was a free day again, so some of us decided that we wanted to go rock climbing. We weren’t hearing back from the guy so we decided going to Antigua and get food and just look around. We went to this Catholic Church, which felt really dark. There was just a really heavy atmosphere inside the building, but it was beautiful as well. One of my friends can’t see in spirit quite often, and I asked him afterward if he had seen anything in the church, and he said yeah, he rebuked quite a bit of demons and my other friend also can feel your presence a lot and where they are. It was really cool. We just went in there and just prayed for the people around us and prayed for the church. We also went through Antigua and we seen the statue of Satan and we didn’t know what it meant/why it was there. We asked Ivan why they set up sculptures of Satan around the town. Ivan said that it is a tradition in all of Guatemala that in December everybody Burns these sculptures of Satan. We then went rock, climbing what does painful but so much fun. Tuesday we went to ministry and we are able to stay with our ministry host this week and next week till Tuesday. It is such a privilege to be able to stay with your mystery host and see how they live and just build a better relationship with them.

Today was your last Kingdom table, which was sad. I’m go to message people, and it was announced that it was our last day and everybody that was eating breakfast this morning came up and read it us and hugged us. One of the guys that was drunk, just started bawling. I didn’t understand what he was saying, but I knew that the world was doing a work in his life because he was touched of the preaching and what we were doing. Also, my friend John preached on salvation that morning. We then went to Santa Marta and hung out with kids again and then came back to the house and got to play basketball against Guatemalans. It was much fun to play basketball again competitively.

Thanks for reading this, I hope it encouraged you and thanks again for wanting to follow me along on this mission trip.

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