Guatemala 2019 - FLIGHT DELAY

Hi everyone!

Our flight to MSP is delayed until 1:30 AM. Please check this site to track our flight: https://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/#/flightstatus/1/1130/2019-06-23/ATL/MSP

Guatemala 2019 - Day 8

Hola from Santiago!

Our team had our FIRST day of rest and relaxation and it was 100% a success!

This morning we left San Marcos around 9 AM. Before we left, some of our friends gave each and every one of us a homemade notebook! It was so thoughtful and sweet of them to do that.

We drove a very windey 4 hours to Lake Atitlan for a boat ride across the lake and it was absolutely breathtaking! After the ride that lasted about an hour, we docked at our hotel and had a lunch of hamburgers and potato wedge French fries. The students absolutely love it here and some even started chanting “This is heaven! This is heaven!”

After lunch was free time and most students found themselves in or around the pool. The leaders were challenged to a belly flop contest, so Erik, Chris S, Emma, Aaron, and Keely took turns doing belly flops off the diving board... We love our students, sounds like we’d do anything for them, right? :)

After the pool lots of us went to the saunas they have here which look like rock igloos! They also had eucalyptus plants inside from the trees around the property here which smelled amazing!!

Dinner was at 7 and we had chicken with salsa, rice, and guacamole! Delicioso! After dinner the kitchen staff came out with a birthday cake slice and candle for Emma since it was her birthday! Everyone sang happy birthday to her first in Spanish, then in English! It was so sweet! Then we gave Emma the secret card we had signed for her all week. She had to stop reading it because she was crying it made her so happy.

Then we had some free time so some played cards in the dining hall, chess, ping pong in the game room, and we all headed to bed at 10. 

Pray for one last fun day for us tomorrow in Antigua! The team did great today! Excited to finish things off tomorrow. :)

Adios! 

Guatemala 2019 - Day 7

Hola for the last time from San Marcos!

Today was our VERY LAST serving day here in Guatemala! We can’t believe it’s over! God has done some amazing work over these past 7 days, and we can’t wait to rest and relax these next couple of days before we head home on Sunday!

Here’s an update from our teams:

SPRAMA

• Today the Sprama team went to a school in both the morning and afternoon. They played 3 games this morning, and Colton G shared his testimony. Everyone did an amazing job and there were a TON of people there! They came back for lunch and had hamburgers with chips and Pepsi! This afternoon they went to another school and played a couple more games of soccer, then a game or two of basketball, too! Baldy, our interpreter, used to play basketball in El Salvador professionally, so he helped us a bunch!! We came back for dinner around 6 with the rest of the group.

CHILDREN’S

• The Children’s team had 400 kids for their first show, and then another 150 came while they were playing games. Controlled chaos and the students did great! See some of the pictures below. :)
• Rachel B: The children at the first school were wild. Fun, but wild. They do not understand the concept of staying in a line for jump rope, but Ellie and I (Rachel) managed to survive... At the second school we unfortunately did not have power, so we were unable to sing songs and do the puppet show. We improvised by singing easier songs and Jacob and Madeline read the script out loud for the puppet show. After we all had a swag, epic balloon sword fight with the children👶🏻 thx! Love ya!

MED TEAM

• The med team was the first team to head out this morning and get to work! We went to a school and set up our clinic there. It was really well organized! We worked for 4 hours and then had lunch of hamburgers like the Sprama team! Except ours were delivered to us and we didn’t leave the clinic. We worked until 5 PM and overall we saw 150 patients in total!! This includes 30 “kits” of ibuprofen, tums, cough drops, and vitamins that we gave to people that were unable to see Malia or Dr. Byron since we ran out of time. We are grateful we had leftover medicine to give them and bless them! We got back to the church at 5 and went to go get ice cream!

MIME TEAM

• The Mime team had another incredible day, too! This morning, the team went to a school about a half hour away. They performed outside on a basketball court! The audience consisted of mostly of older kids, like probably around 9th grade. The Mime team came back and had lunch at the church with Sprama and Children’s team as well! Then this afternoon was such a God thing the way things unfolded! Their second presentation today for 105 high school students.  The electricity went down, but the mime team kept rolling via backup sound. Seyoung gave her testimony in Spanish and it was awesome! It began to rain just after we finished. After this presentation, 41 students prayed and asked Jesus to take control of their lives. The power outage didn't get in the way and the rain held off until we were finished..and then it rained! God is GOOD! They headed back to the church after that.

After everyone got back to the church, we had a dinner of chicken, rice, and vegetables! Another great meal!! It also came with a cookie, which we were all very excited for. :) After dinner we walked to another church to have a worship night for our last night here!

There were not one, not two, but THREE bands that played tonight! The first was the local church’s worship band. We sang “Alive” by Hillsong Young and Free as one of the songs!! Then a more alternative band played and one of the songs they did was “God’s Not Dead!” So fun! Then the last band was the pastor’s sons Nery and Pedro along with some of our students singing “Reckless Love” and a couple others songs, too. 

After that, Mike preached and did an amazing job! Then the Mimes performed for the LAST time! Our home stays picked us up from there and we headed there for the last time.

It was one amazing day! We can’t wait for tomorrow.

Please continue to pray for our students and leaders. People are getting tired, and we want people to stay healthy and happy for our last days of the trip! Thanks everyone!

Guatemala 2019 - Day 6

Hola from San Marcos!

I’m currently writing this post from the host church where many of our students are singing worship songs with some of our Guatemalan friends. They just finished singing “How Great Thou Art” and “This is Amazing Grace.” This is truly a glimpse of heaven I wish you all could see... It has been such a privilege to spend the last 6 days with these students and leaders and I can’t wait for the next few days!

Today all of the teams went to Tejulta! A small town nearby.

The Med team had a much more easygoing day, thankfully! This team has been working so hard and they deserved a little break! The team was at the church there and had lots of room to have their clinic! It was a great space. Malia and Dr. Byron saw 47 patients today, and it was so awesome. A highlight of the day was from Sydney C who got to play soccer with a small boy named Josue. They even got done early (!!) and headed back to San Marcos with all of us around 6 PM.

The Sprama team played soccer on a very nice, covered turf field! We played 3 games this morning and then did the skit for about 50 people. The students watching were very engaged and seemed to really like the skit! On the comment cards there were many encouraging comments such as “We love you, please come back!” Jack E and Chris B shared their testimonies and did a great job! We came back to the church for lunch at 12:30 until 2:30 and had chicken sandwiches with chips and Pepsi! They were so good! We went back to the field and played another several games, one of which Braedon Z made an AMAZING goal and the crowd went wild! We went on to win that game! One of the first games we’ve won on the trip. We performed the skit again and many students in the audience had their phones out to record! They loved it! Then Lauren H and Noah H shared their testimonies. It was so amazing to have siblings share one after the other! We played a few more games then headed back to the buses to head back to San Marcos for a dinner of beef with yummy sauce and rice!

The Children’s team this morning was at the same church the Med Team was at, too! They performed  for another HUGE group... More than 200 kids! Jacob K shared his testimony in Spanish and did an amazing job!! After their program they played lots of games with the kids such as basketball and soccer on a big cement court! There were also a lot of balloon animals that were made... Many of them popped, unfortunately, and left a colorful confetti of sorts on the court once they left. The team had lunch, then headed to another school of 1,200 students and saw almost 150 of them! This team is amazing! Aaliyah R shared her testimony and also did a great job! She does an awesome job connecting with the kids and other Guatemalans here. They wrapped up and headed back to the buses to head to San Marcos.

Lastly, the Mime team! The team first performed at a school outside in Tejutla. They performed for 120 younger kids at the school. They had the same lunch as the rest of the team, but they brought it to them at the school. The second performance was at the same place but with a lot of older children and there were about 200 of them. Sara L shared her testimony (in Spanish!) and was awesome! There were 27 first time decisions to follow Jesus and a LOT of rededications to Christ! Praise God! They finished their performances and talking to people afterwards and headed back to the church and we all went back to San Marcos.

Please pray for health, energy, and understanding for our team! We have one more service day left then a couple days of fun!

Thanks everyone!

Emma

Guatemala 2019 - Day 5

CHILDRENS TEAM

An exclusive report brought to you by Rachel and Ellie

This morning, we got up from our homestay, ate breakfast, and went on our way. The first school we went to was the biggest yet- we put our show on in front of almost 350 kids. Rachel gave her testimony, and then we handed the bracelets out to 350 kids in a very efficient manner. The school gave us popsicles before we left. ¡Deliciosa! A lot of people got sunburned. Ellie and Rachel did not get sunburned because Ellie forced Rachel to put on her sunscreen. 

Baldy, one of our interpreters, bought us ice cream after lunch.

Then, we ate lunch and went to the second school. Ellie gave her testimony but the kids started getting up and walking away during because it started raining. Then we made balloon animals and they were demanding espadas left and right even though we were making them as fast as we could. We were able to chat with the kids for a while and use our Spanish. They gave us traditional Guatemalan rice water. ¡Deliciosa! 

MED TEAM

Much like the children’s team, we woke up, ate breakfast and left for our clinic. This was a church located in a warehouse around twenty minutes away from our homestay. We immediately set up shop and got right to work. There were a few notable things that were different about this service location in comparison to the previous location. The prayer area was a lot larger and was operated by pastors this were constantly praying for the patients. This was one of the most amazing parts of the trip where many of our team were touched by the gestures of the patients. 

Though there were many good things that happened today, we had a few hiccups. The first was that we were out of children’s ibuprofen. This was one of the most common medicines that were given out and were in demand. This problem was solved by a one year old. This girl was  asking what was in a box and tada...thirty bottles of ibuprofen. Praise God! We have absolutely no idea how this got there.

The next was that we had lost a bag with some more of our most prescribed medication. Luckily the bag was located by one of our trip leaders, Jaime. We were then able to work efficiently for the rest of the night and as usual were late to dinner.

Mime

Bryn

We woke up, ate breakfast separately at each of our homestays and then met up at the church. From there, we hurriedly put on our mime makeup and then jumped in the van/bus. (Also Mike rode with us). After a ride in the van we arrived at our destination: a school. We set up and performed for part of the students at the school. Afterwards, we had a Q&A session with the audience and Kayla gave her testimony. It was so cool to see how responsive the audience was to our performance. About 30 students accepted Christ!! We even had a little boy named Tyler bravely come up to us and start asking us about Jesus. It was a really cool conversation and really showed us the impact that we can make on the people here.

From the school we went to lunch, and then had some devo time. Before we left for our second performance, Mike bought us ice cream (shhhhhhhhh) and it was delicious! 

At our second performance, we once agin performed for a group of students. They were very inquisitive and interested in what we were doing. Several of us were able to have some really deep and thoughtful discussions about Christianity with the students, which was really cool.

From there, we headed to dinner- spaghetti!

Sprama

Lauren Sitzman

Today we went to two schools and played basketball and soccer at both. The first school we went to was smaller than the second one, and all of the students were so kind and were excited to talk to our team. We performed our skits, and then me and Lauren Stauffer shared our testimonies with the students. The students that we shared the gospel with seemed to be impacted by our messages and by our skit, which just motivates us to keep going. Today was a high energy, and very memorable day. The people we met, and the places we visited were absolutely amazing, and a great blessing from God. 

Guatemala 2019 - Day 4

Hola from San Marcos!

We had a full, full day of travel today. We left this morning after eating a breakfast of french toast and cereal!

We left around 8 AM and stopped for lunch at a mall in Xela City at 2 PM with a couple bathroom breaks in there, too. 

The mall had a lot of American food, so it was familiar to us! Many of us had Panda Express, Subway, Dominos, and McDonald's for lunch. We spent an hour and a half eating and looking around at the shops, then finished our trek around 6 PM. 

When we arrived at our host church with open arms! Pastor Nery and his family and members of the congregation had balloons everywhere and a live band waiting for us! It was such a fun way to finish our long day of travel!

We had dinner together, then had a dance party to Guatemalan music! We took turns going into the dance circle and pretty much everyone got in the circle... We have a great video of Chuck Knuth we can't wait to show you all!

After that home stays began arriving and we headed on our ways! We can't wait for our first serving day tomorrow in San Marcos!

Please pray for health for our teams, a few of us aren't feeling too well. Please also pray for the community here and that we are able to serve them with great joy and that they receive us well! 

Gracias! Catch you guys tomorrow!

Guatemala 2019 - Day 3

Med Team

Hello loved ones of the 2019 Guatemala team. This is Maddie Lego, an avid cards player as of Thursday and member of the medical team on this trip. My first remarks are directed towards my parents, sister, brother and beloved cat. I want to say that I love you and...so far..I have not fallen ill (don’t worry I am taking my probiotics). Anyway, Emma has tasked me with writing the med team update, this, as you may imagine, was one of the most exciting thing that I have done all day. This is, however, mostly due to the fact that Emma speaks english, a language that I have been asking...more like begging God to hear all day.

… Emma here, now. Maddie didn’t finish, so I’ll update you with what I know of the Med team’s experience today.

The Med team went back to the same church we did yesterday and did another clinic. It’s voting day in Guatemala, so Dr. Byron was back in his hometown voting today, so Malia was our only physician. She did a great job! Yesterday we saw 127 people, and today we saw 70 people. Becca S said that a highlight was playing with the kids… There was a time where Megan, Sydney, and Becca were at the prayer table and a boy came up and kissed their cheek! They thought it was so cute of him to do that. They were at the clinic from 8 AM this morning until 7 PM tonight! This team is working HARD and hasn’t complained one bit! So thankful for them!

Hello amazing people looking at this blog, its Lauren Stauffer. It’s already day 3 and it has gone by so fast! One of the coolest things I’ve seen so far happened yesterday (the 15th). We were at this field in the middle of the mountains, on some far away field playing soccer. For our skit we need electricity to be able to use the speaker and hear the music but there was no way to get any electricity to where we were. All of a sudden this car drives by blasting some spanish music from this amazing speaker set up. After they drive by, they turn back around and pull onto the field… Some of the team had an idea to ask these random people if there was any chance we would be able to use their speakers. To all of our surprise they said yes! We were able to share the story of Jesus in each of our lives and show others how forgiving He could be. Everyone seemed to be captivated by the skit and people were even videotaping it. It was truly God’s way of working through us to show others His word. Just thought I’d share that story because it was really cool. Today, we got to play soccer a LOT and perform our skit twice. It rained super hard (we thought it was hail) but it ended up just being lots and lots of rain. This rain wasn’t all bad though. It helped us to become closer with the Guatemalans we had been playing against because we were all huddled a little awning. They were so sweet and wanted pictures with us. I love the people here and hope to keep making new amigos. Love you mom and dad!!!! Tell Ella I miss her.. There are so many dogs here!!!! I love them all.

Childrens team:

Abby, Rachel, Ellie, Madeline reporting

This morning we got on the bus and the first location was in a little church right off of the road. We walked in and there were balloons on the ceiling so we were excited! We walked on the street knocking on doors to invite kids to come. Once we got an audience, we gave the kids temporary tattoos, my favorite being the monster truck. We did our presentation and sang some songs. They also served us a nice lunch.

In the afternoon, we joined the Med Team at a church. We set up our presentation outside and played with the kids while their families were being treated by the team. All of a sudden, there was a HUGE blast of thunder and lightning. We had our entire speaker system set up and our puppet show stage, but we put our hands together and prayed the storm away. El fin.

SPRAMA Team

Mime Team

Hi! Sara here. For breakfast we had pancakes and/or cereal. We packed our things after that. We then talked about the book of Revelation in our team. It was a very fruitful conversation. We loaded the bus and then got to our first location which was a church. We did the Mime skits, Seyoung shared her testimony, and Emma bought us ice cream, go Emma! We came back and had beef for lunch with rice and broccoli. We left then a couple hours later for our second location. It started POURING rain! Our van was trying to get up a hill and we bottom-ed out, so we were stuck and it was also still raining. We had to get out help push in our mime outfits which was a funny scene. We eventually got it out and went to our next performance. We performed, then met the EPPIC Guatemala City team here! It was really cool to talk to people who had been doing this for awhile and could relate to our mime struggles. The hosts there made us tamales and ponche!!!!! Which is fruit punch but with actual fruit. Then we came back, had fried chicken for dinner, very tasty, and mashed potatoes. We then had team time with everyone and shared about our experience in Guatemala so far, and now we are playing cards before bed!

Guatemala 2019 - Day 2

Hola from Guatemala!

We had SUCH an awesome first day of serving here in Guatemala City!

Here's a recap of what each team did:

Children's Team - Actual quotes from Children's Team members

• The first group was flexible, because we didn't know how to face paint. - Rachel B
• Lots of small kids and dogs. - Rachel B
• "A lot of kids wanted balloon animal snakes, which is good because we didn't know how to make much else." - Ellie B
• We had to relocate because it was raining at the first location we went to it rained, but it went well at the second location! - Rachel B

Medical Team

• Today we saw over 140 patients!
• We set up in a local church, and when we got there, there was already 100 people waiting for us,
• We held the clinic from 9 AM to 7 PM. The physician we brought with us, Malia, worked with Dr. Byron (our Guatemalan doctor) to see all of these patients today. 
• Not only were there many adults who came, but many children, as well! There were probably 50 children running around laughing with team members such as Sydney C, Rachel K, Kayla K, and Maddie L. 

Mime Team

• The first part, when we performed in the morning, was off the side of the road. There was a lot of kids that showed up with their mom. There were about 75 kids there! We did a couple of skits, there was a sermon, TJ did his testimony. 
• Baldy, our Children's team interpreter, came with this team today and they played games and hit two pinatas together!
• After lunch, the team headed to a church nearby and did a couple of the skits there. It was a smaller group of people.
• "There were dogs there that were really cute but we couldn't pet," - Bryn H

Sprama

• We went to a soccer place that was just a 5v5 arena... Like 10 year olds beat us really easily. We played 4 games, but some of the other teams played each other and not us. We performed the skit and it went really well!
• After lunch we went to a field that did not have any electricity... So we weren't sure how we would be able to do the skit since we didn't have music to perform to. We went on to go play soccer when a car drove by with a really nice sound system. We thought they would just drive by and leave when they actually came and parked at the field.
• A couple of our students went over to ask them if we could use their speakers to play our music and they said YES! We were able to do the skit and God provided in such an amazing way!

After we all arrived back at the church, we had dinner (beef, rice, salsa, guacamole, beans, and chips with a Coke!), had a worship service with the local church which included worship music, the mime team performance, and Mike doing a teaching!

We are now back at the retreat center where we are staying and lights out is in 10 mins! 

Thank you again for your prayers! Please continue for energy for the teams, for open minds and hearts of the Guatemalan people, and flexibility. 

Gracias! 

Guatemala 2019 - Day 1

Hello everyone!

We made it! We are officially in the country of Guatemala and we couldn't be more excited!

We had a LONG day today... We arrived at Wooddale at 1:30 AM this morning, got to the airport and security by 5 AM, hopped on our first flight at 5:20, got to Atlanta, left at 10:45, then arrived in Guatemala at 12!

Our Global Partner, Jaime, met us at the airport with our two "Chicken Buses" and we left for the retreat center where we will be staying for the next couple of nights.

We were very excited to eat lunch, which was spaghetti and meat sauce (yum!), then relax for the remainder of the afternoon. Many people took naps to catch up on sleep, explored the views, the Children's team made bracelets, med team packed more meds, the Sprama team prepared for tomorrow, and Mime team and practiced their skits.

Dinner was chicken, rice, and cooked vegetables, and there was coffee and cookies and sweet bread as dessert!

We are now showering up and getting ready for bed so we can be prepared to wake up and be ready for breakfast and our FIRST day of serving at 7 AM!

Please pray for a great first day of serving, teams to work together to glorify His name, and for safety and health.

Catch you guys tomorrow!

Guatemala 2019 - Welcome!

Hello!

This will be where you can find daily updates on our work in Guatemala. Photos, stories, and other information will be posted here.

Feel free to comment on the posts to say hello to your student, share some encouragement, or anything else you think would be helpful for our team to see while in Guatemala!

Thank you so much for your prayer and support of our team! Can't wait to see what God will do!