Guatemala Photos and Recap

Guatemala April 2012, a set on Flickr.

I'm finally posting my Guatemala photos today. You can see the whole stream here. I wanted to have this done two weeks ago, but that didn't happen. There's something about zooming back into real life with work, commitments and that pesky need for sleep that somehow overrides the best of intentions. Half of them were edited on the flight back...and the other half were edited last night. And last night, as I edited, the faces, places, sounds and smells came trickling back from the edges of my mind bringing with them a myriad of feelings. The entire trip was phenomenal and it was hard to leave.

God's presence was tangibly thick in the youth group, in preschool, in the church and in the landfill. He worked in amazing ways while we were there. However, because we partnered with a local church (watch that story here), I know that the work did not start when we arrived and did not end when we left. That is very comforting. God is still working in Guatemala City and I'm grateful for the small part I got to play for the week we were there.

I'm not really sure how else to sum up the entire trip...it seems impossible to compress such a huge experience into words. So, I've decided to simply share one story from each day over the next week. After all, these stories are the building blocks of the whole and I hope they will provide a glimpse of what God did in and through our team four weeks ago in Guatemala City.

Four weeks ago today, at this point we were standing in line at customs, waiting for permission to enter the country. After an hour or so, we got through, claimed our baggage (well, everyone except Cliff that is, but he found his later) and walked out of the airport to face a huge crowd of Guatemalans just standing outside the airport. People where everywhere, starring, selling something or begging. Thankfully Allie and a team from the local church were also waiting for us. They gathered us up, sang a welcome song and then herded all 24 of us into vans and cars to take us to the seminary where we were staying.

My thought process at that point was something along the lines of, "Hola! Me llamo Mindy...Como se llama? Repita por favor? Oh. Mucho gusto conocerlo...I mean, conocerla...argh, I already messed up the whole gender specific thing... well, at least she's still smiling...(In pure English: Hi! My name is Mindy. What is your name? Say it again, please? Oh. It's a pleasure meet you. ((In Spanish, certain parts of speech have to match the gender of the person or thing you are referring to, something I find very difficult.))) Names and faces swirled in my head as I tried to figure out who was who and did what (I had only met the team I arrived with 3 hours before in Atlanta). As we drove to the seminary, I sat back and tried to take it all in. Yes, this really was happening... I had finally made it out of the country on a mission trip...and I could not wait to see what God was going to do.

To be continued...