Lutheran Church of St John Groundwork Guatemala Mission

Today has been an eye-opening experience for our team.  We began our day with devotions after breakfast.  Devotions were led by one of the Guatemalan missionaries, Carlos.  Carlos burst into a song of praise during his devotions and touched many of our hearts.  We then visited a ministry focused on "street boys", called Only a Child.  The boys live 24/7 in this ministry and work by crafting beautiful wooden boxes.  They attend alternative school on the weekends so they can receive an education.  Many of the these "boys" are in their 20s and are still working on their junior high education.  This ministry is started by a man who was a pastry chef in Boston, George Leger, but now he works full time with this ministry.  The boys have to follow strict rules in order to receive their lodging, food, and education.  The team was then introduced to the Guatemala City dump.  This is a very large dump where people scavenge for anything that they can sell for money.   People f

We had a great day yesterday.  We had a wonderful breakfast fixed by our hostess Ginny then we went to a Guatamala Church, Sendero de la Cruz. We know the last word is cross. It was a great experience to see how the Guatemalans worship.  They had about 30 minutes of just praising and singing before the church service.  The service was about two hours in length. We spent the afternoon preparing a craft that will be used next week and unpacking and storing all the supplies we brought.  We also rehearsed our faith lesson we will be teaching the children in the villages this week.  The temperature was in the low 80's.  We are a mile high here so it seems warmer.  Connie And Greg visited their Quincy friend and family for dinner. The rest of the team remained at the mission house.  Bedtime devotions were on Beautiful Feet, Romans 10:12-13.

We arrived in Guatemala City at about 9:30 PM. We passed through immigration and customs with no hassel.  No line at this time of day.  Guatemala does not do Daylight Savings time so we are an hour behind Quincy. It was beautiful flying in over the city at night.  We saw fireworks from the air. I'm sure they were not there for our arrival. Our hosts Kevin and Ginny met us at the airport in a truck and a van. It was a short 15 minute trip to the mission house.  We got oriented to the house and sleeping quarters tonight. It has been a long day and everyone is tired but still excited to be here. We will attend church at a Guatemalan Church in the morning. Good night to all.

We leave for Guatemala in the morning. We are meeting at the church at 10:00 AM and carpooling to St. Louis with our flight to Houston leaving at 2:15 PM and then on to Guatemala City with arrival at 9:30 PM. We have been planning the trip for over 6 months and it is finally here. Pray for safe and problem free travel as we journey to Guatemala.

Three days to go until we depart. Everyone is so excited! Sunday, March 23 at the 10:30 AM service we had our Service of Commissioning.  Each team member received two strips of  cloth from the "sending" cloth the church received from Groundwork Guatemala.  One strip the mission team member is to keep and the other they are to give to a prayer partner. Following the Commissioning we sang a Spanish Praise song "Alabare" for the congregation and then the congregation sang the song in English as the Sending Song.  Following the service the mission team members divided up the supplies we will be taking for Groundwork Guatemala. We are all very blessed and encouraged by the many church friends who will be praying for us during our week long trip.

Ten days to go!  Thanks to all who supported our Lenten meal last week.  We raised a little over $200.00 for Groundwork Guatemala.  Sunday, March 16, 2014 was a fun family night (see adjacent pictures). Thanks to all who attended.  The Guatemala Mission Team shared the faith lesson they will be teaching in Guatemala, "The Good Samaritan", taught everyone the Spanish songs they will be using and shared memory work. Lastly, everyone helped us assemble 500 craft kits we will be using during our sharing time with the children. We had quite the assembly line.  Young and old alike were able to help us. Please  pray for us who are traveling to Guatemala City March 29 for a week to work alongside the Guatemalan missionaries in reaching out to the people of Guatemala.