Hello everyone! It’s been a while since I updated the blog, but I am off on another adventure and figured I would share! This morning myself and 42 others left Kansas City to make our way to Guatemala. The group is comprised of mainly high school students from St. Pius X High School and those of us brave enough to chaperone! This is the same trip I went on last year, so there are a few familiar faces and lots of new ones. I’m excited this year to be traveling with my dad (hi dad!) and showing him the amazing country of Guatemala. We will be spending the week serving the people of Chimaltenango, San Andres, Parramos and the surround areas. Some of our projects this year will include building tiny homes, repairing roofs and building stoves. Additionally, we will do a few food delivery/home visits to the sick and homebound. I’ll do my best to share about what we did each day, the people and places we encounter and ultimately where we saw the face of Christ each day in the Guatemalan people.

Our day started very early with a 3:00am arrival time at MCI. As you can imagine getting 43 people and all of our bags checked in is quite the feat, but we managed it and everyone made it onboard the plane. One unique aspect of this trip is that we try to bring as many donations with us as we can. All of our checked bags are filled with clothes, school supplies, toiletries, etc., that we bring for the mission we will be working with. This means that anything we as individuals need for the week has to fit in a carry on.

Our first flight brought us to Miami. I couldn’t fall asleep on the plane because my air vent wasn’t working and it was rather toasty. Starting the week off by offering it up. Once in Miami we had about a 2 hour layover, so we stopped for some Chick-fil-a and some much needed coffee before boarding our flight to Guatemala City. Guatemala doesn’t observe daylight savings (I think we should take a page from their book) so while they are technically in Central time, right now they are an hour behind Kansas City. So we went from Central (KC) to Eastern (Miami) to the equivalent of “Mountain” (Guatemala). The flight times were really throwing me off because we left Miami at 11:10 and arrived in Guatemala at 11:56, but it was just about a 3 hour flight. I got some much needed sleep on the second flight and we safely landed in Guatemala City where we were greeted by Yeimy, Maynor, Tony and a few other interpreters. It was so good to see them all again!

The drive from Guatemala City to San Andres Itzapa, where we are staying, took a couple hours. We are staying with a group of Carmelite Sisters at their convent. When we walked into the courtyard of the Convent all of the sisters were there to greet us waving balloons. After a few minutes to get settled into our rooms and drop off the donation bags we took a quick walk up to a convenience store to grab some snacks since we didn’t really get lunch. We walked back to the convent and had about an hour to relax before we took a group photo followed by dinner. One funny story, as we were walking back to the convent dad and I were talking to Tony and dad commented that there are a lot of car washes in town (which is true, there are at least 5 within 2 blocks of each other – and for context the buildings say “Car Wash” in English rather than Spanish) and Tony said “yes, we have a lot of car washes, it’s also the only English words that everybody in Guatemala knows.” 🤣

The sisters seriously spoil us when it comes to meals. Tonight we had chicken, rice, black beans, tortillas, a squash soup and cantaloupe. After dinner we was free time, I took the opportunity to shower and read and now I’m in bed and ready to get some long awaited sleep before our first full day of work tomorrow.

Please keep all of us in your prayers this week, specially for health and safety for all of us. As well as pray for those that we will encounter!