I was asked to complete the phrase “Guatemala is…” and while many of my fellow squad mates came up with various beautiful and master-crafted sentence and sometimes paragraphs, the thing that struck me about Guatemala is their relentless sacrificial giving.
Many times I have received food, candy, gum, and drinks from an individual who was definitely not giving out of their excess as such is the custom in the United States.
Many times have I stepped into a village home for one of the family members to sneak away and buy soda for us all to enjoy.
Many times have I been welcomed into a strangers house which is almost an unthinkable thing to do in the United States. We have too much at stake in the United States to be welcoming random strangers into our homes.
The ironic thing is most of the Guatemalan houses are heavily fortified by tall walls, glass shards and barred windows and yet they are willing to welcome strangers such as us into their homes while homes in the United States have none of these defenses and yet we hide behind our first and last line of defense, the front door, whenever strangers come a-knocking.
This week we ended up losing our main source of transportation to the villages that we visit. As such, we have had to use the bus system in order to reach our villages and they are quite far from efficient. This has turned my team’s 30 minute commute to the village into a 2-hour ordeal. The worst part of it all is that I am perfectly happy with taking the bus, as you can tell…
Seriously though, I have enjoyed the bus as it has given me an extra 1.5 hours of “Me-time” every week-day in an environment in which “Me-time” is hard to come by. Unfortunately, the kids are the ones who have to suffer from the bus situation as the increased commute time has essentially cut the kids ministry time nearly in half.
So in order to compensate: we cut the amount of worship songs we do by one or two songs, rush soccer and our educational programs and hope the kids finish at home whatever they could not finish while we were there.
As we are staring down the barrel of our last full week of ministry, at this point we can only pray that the gospel seeds we have been scattering are able to find their place within these children’s hearts and take root and sprout over their lifetimes.
Michael- Super substantive and highly encouraging Content in your blog mi mucho hombre hermano.
Your comment about their relentless sacrifice, out of their lack not out of their excess or abundance, with the example of someone sneaking off to buy soda pop really painted a vivid picture along with the shards of glass fix on top of their walls and yet their doors are wide open But in America the window dressing in pleasantries show that the door should be open to our neighbors and strangers but the security signs are posted just in case. It makes me think of the statistics here at UT Dallas that 70% of all the international students never darken the door of a single persons home while getting their masters degree or doctorate. This has got to change.
Elizabeth Elliot said, “you cannot love deeply without sacrifice. “
Lastly, I’m glad you had extra bus time with you and your father simply to be with him and enjoy him and let him fill you for the fast paced day and week you had with these kids. And yes, you can darn well guarantee none of your labor or humble efforts in both word indeed will ho in multiplied or unblessed.
Thanks brother