Lutheran Church of St John Groundwork Guatemala Mission

Friday, January 22, 2016 Our day began once again with morning devotions with the Guatemalan missionaries and Kevin and Ginny Holmes. The missionaries are all Guatemalans who live here in Guatemala City with their families. Many of them travel 1-2 hours (some mornings it was three hours due to traffic) by bus each day to do the work here at Groundwork Guatemala.  They are such great people working for the Lord, each with their own unique talents and abilities. We will keep them in our daily prayers from here on out and ask that anyone reading this blog do the same.  At the end of the devotion time we each shared a bible verse with them to encourage them in the work they do here.  We had a special prayer time to pray for each of them and for the work they do here.  We took many group photos of our LCOSJ team with the missionaries to share with everyone on our return. Another nice experience we had was walking to and through the Kaminaljuyu (Mountain of the Dead) Archaeological Park.

Today was our biggest, busiest day of the week.  We returned to the city of Amatitlan, about an hours drive.  But to a location known as Gonzalez Park.  If you see the pictures on Facebook you will see that they use "park" very loosely.  Just a concrete slab with some concrete walls on two sides and an old broken basketball hoop.  Today we were joined by a group of students from Spring Arbor University in Michigan.  They are here in Guatemala for a 3 week cross cultural experience and spend one day with the ministry.  There were 20 college students in the group.  They went on home visits with us and then helped with the faith lesson.  They were a great group and an amazing help. , especially since today we had around 250 kids in the faith lesson.  It's amazing how you can actually get 250 kids from 6-11 years old to sit down, stay quiet and listen, but they do.  Everyone on the team continues to do an amazing job, having fun with the kids and leading parts of our faith le

Wednesday, January 20, 2016 We had another awesome day here at Groundwork Guatemala. Our day began really early as we left with the mission team at 7:00 AM to travel two plus hours to the village of Buena Vista.   Buena Vista is on the costal plain, approaching the Pacific Ocean.   The main “street” in the village is an old railroad bed minus the tracks. We saw trucks loaded with sugar cane on our way into the village.   The morning after our arrival was spent visiting Connie and Greg’s sponsored child, Jorge Ramon Hernandez (he is 10 Years old and he is in 5th grade) during his break from school and then he took us to visit his school.  The school is nothing like what we know.  It is just an open air cement block building with six rooms (open doorway) and a tin roof. They were modestly decorated and had desks for the children. Several of the boys were playing their football (soccer) during the break and Ramon joined them while we were there. We next  went to visit Ramon's

Tuesday, January 19, 2016 So we started off the day by waking up between 7 and 7:30 in the morning because breakfast was served Holliday Inn style (minus the waffles).  From there we went to the location that we were having our faith lesson and working with the children.  The location was called El Rincon and when we arrived we unloaded our gear and left the vans to find the bathroom.  First of all the bathroom was in the yard of this nice man who's name is Carlos.  Second of all it was basically a hole in the ground with raised walls around it so you could sit down.  That was interesting, definitely didn't plan on going #2 while I was there.  After we learned where the bathroom was I got to pull some water out of a well that was extremely deep.  The thing about this water was the fact that because we were so close to an active volcano it was all hot water not cold.  From Carlos' house we went to Francisca's house who is the little girl that Bill and Linda sponsor.  T

Monday, January 18, 2016 It was a beautiful day in Guatemala City.   The temperature was about 70 and the sun was shining brightly all day.   Breakfast was ready promptly at 7am.   Ginny made pancakes and they were delicious.   We were all very excited for today because the Guatemalan missionaries would be arriving shortly before 8 so we could join them for their daily devotions.   All of us, except for Harrison, had met and worked with the missionaries in at least one prior year.   It was good to hug our friends and to get caught up on their families and lives.   Manuel gave the devotion on Romans 5 verses 1 through 11.  Since Manuel does not speak English, Cesar translated for him.   Carlos, who has a beautiful voice and often leads the music at his church, led the singing.  After devotions we loaded the van driven by Manuel and went to the woodworking shop of Only A Child.  This is a ministry for street boys and men which was started by an American from Boston.   His name is Geor

Sunday, January 17, 2016 Today was a very relaxing day compared to yesterday. We woke up around 8:30 and got ready for church before breakfast at 9:00. After breakfast we finished getting ready and had a few minutes of downtime before we left for church at around 10:15. We got to church safe and sound thanks to our awesome driver Manuel. At church we got to sing some songs that we know, just not in our native language. The message was very good, coming from Nehemiah chapter 9:1-38. After church we visited with Carlos and his oldest daughter. Then when we got home we ate a delicious lunch of grilled cheese and organized all of the donations. Thank you SOO much to everyone who donated something to this trip, it will be used for great things! After organizing the donations the ladies spent some time getting crafts ready for the kids to do during their faith lessons later in the week. Then we had about 2 hours of downtime to nap and reorganize our bags. I spent some quality time with Beq

January 17, 2016 Hola! We arrived in Guatemala City at about 1:00 AM. We had left church at 3:30 AM and drove to St. Louis in the church van.  Thanks to Aaron Clark for driving the team to the airport.  It made it much easier for unloading the bags that is for sure.  Thanks again to everyone that donated supplies.  We were able between the seven of us to get the donations to Groundwork Guatemala. Our first leg of the journey lead us flying into Atlanta, GA. There we had about a 2 and a half hour layover.  Our next leg was to Mexico City. We arrived there around 3:30 PM and then this is where our "fun" began. We were tied up in long lines for immigration for two hours and consequently missed our flight to Guatemala City. Once through immigration we then had to rebook new flights, get boarding passes and check our luggage again.  This all took an additional two hours.  We finally flew out of Mexico City somewhere around 10:00 PM and then did not arrive at Guatemala City unt

Monday, January 4, 2016 We are starting this blog as an easy way for family and friends and church members to track our journey as we work with Groundwork Guatemala in Guatemala. This is the third year we will have a mission team from the Lutheran Church of St. John traveling to Guatemala.  Our departure is less than 12 days away and the team is getting excited about the trip and the opportunity to share the gospel with the people in Guatemala. We have been preparing for the past several months for the trip.  We want to thank everyone who supported our efforts by attending the fundraising western night, advent meal and by donating the needed supplies.  We are still in need of some additional items which can be found in the weekly announcements. Donations are needed by January 10, 2016. We thank you for your prayers, support and encouragement. 2016 Guatemala Mission Team