Hello! I am off on another adventure, back to Guatemala! I am excited to be back and see some old friends and be able to serve the people there again.

This year is a little different in that I’m not going with a specific group (in years past I have gone with St. Pius X High School). But this year it is just a group of friends and I that are going. We are a much smaller group, only 10 of us, but that also gives us the freedom to do some things we hadn’t been able to do in the past bringing 25+ high school students. The crew this year is myself, my dad, friends I know through St. Andrews (Lilly, Charles and Ezra), Charles’s father-in-law, Roy, and two of his kids (Matthew and Josie) as well as two of their family friends (Noah and Eli).

Day one (yesterday) started very early, 2:30am wake up time to be at the airport by 3:30am. Unfortunately, the airport was packed and the lines to check in and check bags at American were quite long! Our flight began boarding before most of us were even through security. While many of us had TSA Pre-Check, unfortunately, not everyone did and the plane ended up taking off leaving Roy behind. We tried our best to convince the gate agent to wait for him, but they were not having it and refused to wait. Knowing we had a short connection in Miami and that it would be harder to find new flights for 10 people vs. just one, it made more sense to continue on our journey and hope Roy was able to catch back up with us later in the day.

We made it into Miami and heard from Roy that he was able to catch a flight shortly after ours left that routed through Dallas and that would get him into Guatemala City about 2 hours after we landed! Luckily both flights were uneventful. I got some reading in, a short nap and listened to music.

When we arrived to Guatemala we hit our next snag in that two of our bags didn’t make it on the flight and somehow ended up in Detroit?!? One was a bag of donations (so not a big deal) but the other was Roy’s bag…if he didn’t have bad luck he wouldn’t have any at all! The bags should arrive sometime tomorrow and they will deliver them to the convent for us. We were picked up by Yeimy, Tino, Favio, and Cuzzie. 

We had some time to kill before Roy was arriving so we drove down the road to grab some lunch. With the bus we had it was hard to find somewhere to park so we ended up at a Burger King! After lunch we went back to the airport to pick up Roy and then started making our way north to San Andres Itzapa. 

Our group came in a day earlier than typical so that we could attend the Quinceañera of Emelin Melinda (Tony’s daughter – Tony is one of our interpreters.) Unfortunately, with the delays of Roy and a ton of traffic we didn’t make it to the convent in time to make it for the Mass, so we had about an hour or so to relax and get changed before we walked up the hill to town to attend the dinner and celebration.

This was a party unlike anything I have ever attended! I don’t know a lot of the significance behind many of the traditions, so I plan to do a whole post about it later. For now, enjoy some pictures of the party and I’ll report back more later!

I was exhausted after the party and long travel day! We made it back to the convent around 10pm, I showered, got a little bit of prayer time in and then went to bed!

In my prayer I was reading from the Gospel of John and this verse in particular struck me: 

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.” 

– John 1:6-8

I was struck that we are here to serve the people, but we are not the light. It could be very easy to want to take credit for the work we are doing. But it isn’t ours to take credit for, instead we are to point everything back to the Lord. When we are tired we should call on the Lord. When we are sore, we should offer that up to the Lord. When we are uncomfortable we should be reminded that the Lord did not promise comfort and when we are thanked or praised for our work we should instead give glory and praise to God! We were brought to this very particular place, to serve these specific people at this exact time, and none of that was a mistake…it was God’s plan. So, no, we are not the light. Jesus is the way, the truth and the light, we are simply here to bear witness to His love. To be His hands, His feet, His heart, for His people here on earth.

Please pray for us!

St. Andrew, Pray for us!

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Pray for us!

Sacred Heart of Jesus, Have mercy on us!