The Fashion of Theology and Hearts

this is me playing catch up on updates:

Guatemala

So I must apologize for how inconsistently I have been updating. I realize that I’ve only fully updated one out of the four countries that we are currently en-route, onwards to the remaining countries of Central America.

But despite all else, here is Guatemala:

In Belize, I had the opportunity to spend a few days in a spanish speaking community and while I was there, I was told about how terrible Guatemala is. “Mala” is spanish, actually is translated as bad, so it’s an unfortunate pun for Guatemala, to have the word “Bad” in its name. Within all this, I was told what an awful, dangerous, and unpleasant place Guatemala, and specifically, Guatemala City is.
It’s no great secret that Guatemala is known to be an excessively dangerous place, with Guatemala City being the apex of its precariousness. Look it up. It’s in the news, on the internet, and ask anyone that’s been there. Even one of my relatives has an unsettling story of what happened to her and her group of volunteers in Guatemala, just to show you how common and how close to home these things happen. Not convinced yet? Try this: everyone in Guatemala owns several cellphones; now, there are many countries where the people own several cellphones, but not for the same reason as Guatemala. Guatemalans own, at least, two phones so that when they get robbed at gunpoint, that they can give up their less-preferred phone without too much trouble from their gunman. A lady from a church in a particularly dangerous zone (Guatemala City is divided into zones) told us that we should leave because of how dangerous it is, especially when the sun starts to set.

Look, I could talk for an extended amount of time about it, but the point is: even in the darkest of places, God wants His light to shine.

Some of the most generous people, inviting and friendly, are Guatemalans, and exponentially more for the Christians of the Calvary Chapel Guatemala that we were working with. It’s thus far true, that everywhere we go, we connect hearts with people there to the extent that it hurts to leave them, which I think it’s a good sign of how the Church as a Body of Christ should work. To the degree that I could mention the dangers of the city of Guatemala, I could spend a much larger degree of time mentioning the endless love and enjoyment that we had in Guatemala with our brothers and sisters of the small church there, who constantly pour themselves out into their community, such as the poverty-stricken areas like Santa Lucia in the mountains, or Zona 18 where the drug dealers reign over the law.

The Light will always outshine the darkness, eventually and eternally.

So needless to say, Guatemala was amazing for us. We were blessed to be involved with the church, being able to do worship for them, to go into the city and passing out flyers and sharing the gospel, and to do construction work and social work in Santa Lucia, leading up to a outreach there with the entire community.

My time in Guatemala had its own struggles for me, being that I was the leader of our team of 9 people during that time (to hear more about that, email me at rootsofxistence@hotmail.com and ask for me email updates), and majority of the people we worked alongside did not speak very much english. Most of our team does not speak very much spanish, so I had to spend a lot of time figuring out what was going on, despite all the miscommunications, but we survived, and made our way to Roatan, Honduras, after a sketchy taxi ride and a shady hotel. But that - is a different story for a different update, but I leave you with one quote.

While we were passing out flyers, Corey Grueter managed to give a flyer to a jogger passing by; as the jogger passed by the pastor Francisco, and Francisco comically fake-ran after him, and Corey stated that he had already got the jogger, to which Francisco replied in his limited English, as dry as can be, “You save my life”.

They just great people who sincerely like to have fun and take seriously all aspects of life, including enjoying their lives. Guatemala was a trip, literally.

and so now i write you from El Salvador 2 days away from our departure to Nicaragua. we are still in dire need of financial support, but God has made out time in Nicaragua possible, just in the knick of time, so we are still looking to Jesus for the rest of the trip.

next update - Honduras