Greetings from Guatemala Thursday

Group 1: Marge, Jona, Dawn, Kaitlyn, Bruce ,Aracely, Carlos:

This group visited a  68 year old mother who was hit by a bus.  They had to amputate her arm and she was in the hospital for 6 months.  She has been home for one month.  She has 8 children; she is living with one of her daughters, and 2 of her daughters take turns caring for her around the clock.  She is bedfast and very frail.  She had a feeding tube in the hospital and they pretty much sent her home to die, but her daughters have been able to start feeding her food and she is doing some better.  This family asked for prayers for her healing and strength.

Group 2: Sharon, Artees, Margaret, Luann, Daniel, Sandra, Marvin:

Sharon and Daniel met with Sharon’s sponsor children: 1.  Angel, his mother and his little sister; 2.  Jefferson Emanuel who was a sponsor child, but is currently not being sponsored.  His mother came a litte later and she met with her.
3.  Dulce, his mother & baby sister.  Visits went very well and the families are very appreciative of her love and support.

While Sharon and Daniel were meeting with these children, Margaret, Luann and Artees were waiting for them when 2 different women came and told us how appreciative they are of this group and our visits to their country.  They told us stories of how their children have a chance to obtain an education and havea different life.  They are greatful to God and this mission for the support and love.  We met one of the women’s daughters; very lovely girls with bright smiles!

Once the team was together, we went on our house visit.  After knocking on a few doors, Sandra found a woman who wanted us to come in.  She used to go to Bible Study, but drunk men scared her, so she does not go now.  She had worked in the kitchen at school, but one day at work she got sick and ended up in the hospital for 4 days.  She lost her job and now needs income.  She has a large family – we met a few children and grandchildren today.  They asked for prayer requests to give them the wisdom and understanding to continue to be faithful in following Jesus.

After this, it was time to meet back up for lunch.  After lunch, we all headed to the children’s area since they arrive at 1 and the faith lessons do not start until 2PM.

We had so much fun interacting with the children!  Dawn and Luann were swinging the jump rope for the kids, and we have to stay low so the rope is at their height.  Luann decided to go grab a plastic stool to sit on, and Dawn asked for one too.  Dawn sat on her stool and the legs broke and she fell gracefully to the concrete patio.  Well, n one of the children witnesssed this and told another one of our group members ‘Grandma fell off the chair’.  Once we knew she was ok, it was quite numerous.

Soon, it was time for us to all get ready for our faith lessons, so all headed to their areas.

Children:

The place we met today did not have cover, so they put up ‘easy ups’.  Our area had about 10 of them.  Of course, as soon as the lesson started, it began to rain…..and then pour.  And since there were gaps, the rain would pool on the top and then pour down…..it was a challenge doing our lesson and the craft, but we all survived.  Other than that, all went well.

Teens:

The teens met inside a house with a tin roof, so they were protected from this rain.  The rain was very loud on the roof….they had to talk over this….but such a neat sound!  The lesson went well, but they did not want to take their shoes off, and they had to wake up one boy who fell asleep in the corner.

Adults:

The adults had the same setup as the children, and also had to deal with the rain.  Lots of ‘Dios le Bendiga’ (God Bless You) and lots of hugs!  Lesson went well.

After this, we all loaded up the vans and headed back to the mission house.

Written by: Luann

Approved by the group