Waking up in Guatemala is beautiful!

Hello friends and family!
Waking up in Guatemala is beautiful! The mountains ??are green and gorgeous and there’s a thick fog off in the distance that is breath-taking as the sun shines in the morning! The weather couldn’t be more perfect! Nights are in the 60’s but when you’re sleeping in a room with several other people, it’s exactly what you want haha! During the day it’s sunny at a high of 80 with breeze and light rain coming and going. ?????

The road that we are building is VERY steep! Mr. George and the staff here on base refer to it as “Redemption Road” ????. The man overseeing the work, Juan, doesn’t speak any English, but he understands it really well and is communicating with the team what needs to be done and how to do it safely.
(I’m including a picture of the road with Jessie S. part of the way down from the top and a small group of us about 15yards from the bottom so you can have a scale to see what it looks like).

Our goal is to lay all 70,000lbs of limestone over 571 feet, carve out a drainage ditch for water to flow down safely to the road at the bottom, and put in an irrigation pipe to water a garden that will go at the top of the hill in the center. Boy do we have our work cut out for us! ????

The whole team has a great attitude and a fun/healthy banter that keeps everyone laughing and smiling! Enzo I. has been deemed the “rock king” after refusing to give up on busting a huge rock that was in the way haha!

This morning, there was an opportunity for Abigail S, Nick M, Rihanna C, Enzo I, and Piper E to partner with the Send Me ministry as they shared the Jesus film off site and helped work the VBS style activities they had in place for the local community. They had a great time sharing the Gospel and spreading the love of Jesus to the children.

After lunch, about 18 young children came here to the Daughters of God base for an after school program that runs twice a week. After their studies are completed, they were allowed to sing songs, play games and kick around a soccer ball with the Americans ????. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves! It’s hard to determine whether the kids love playing and interacting with the locals or working construction more- they are so enthusiastic about both!

There is a photo posted below of Josua A. (Yoyo) who flew to Boot Camp from his home in Germany, washing his clothes in a blue bucket. His dad took that same bucket on a Teen Missions team 29 years ago to Canada and now it has made its way all the way to Guatemala! How neat to see God work through the generations!

Personal testimonies:

“Today we had an opportunity to work with the kids from the local base. The missionaries gave us an opportunity to sing songs with them. We got to share the gospel through those songs that included motions that we learned at Boot Camp. It was fun to watch both older and younger elementary kids interact with the songs. By the end of our time we played soccer with some of the local boys- it was incredible to watch how much fun they had while also getting all of our team involved!” -Abby F.

“We have landed here in Guatemala and we are having so much fun! We have been laying rocks and leveling them and today we laid cement to harden the rocks together. We also got the opportunity to play games and sing songs with some younger elementary kids. We played “panto, panto, ganzo” which is Spanish for “duck duck goose”. I had so much fun! Our leaders are so amazing and fun and I have enjoyed getting close to everyone on our team. I can’t wait to see how God continues to work! P.S mom and dad I am feeling so so much better don’t worry about me!! Love you guys!” -Jessie S.

“I really enjoyed work today. We found a good system and made quick progress. The weather was nice. I laid and leveled stones using dirt and a leveling board.”
Philip M.

Thank you ALL so much for prayers!
Please continue to pray for our immune systems to recover from the flu that was going around Boot Camp. Everyone is on the mend. There are no more coughs or fevers (Praise the Lord! ????) and we are continuing to drink lots of Emergency C, and hot tea full of local honey, mint and lime…fun fact!, there are no lemons in Guatemala! ???? but the limes do the job!)