Hola,
We are having an amazing time here. We walked around a mall a little and then they took us to the National Palace area. Our hosts asked us if we would like to go for coffee...Of course we said YES. We walked a short distance to a little coffee shop that is owned by our driver's family. The coffee was very good and they have people sign the wall so we all got to leave a piece of us in Guatemala.
We generally have breakfast everyday at 7:00am and leave between 7:30-8:00. On the 3rd we had three ministries. The first one was out in the country in a farm type community. At the school we had about 600 kids. It was kind of crazy with that many, but the team did great, Taylor joined Kevin (one of the guys from there church) at being a clown. Daniel has been amazing. He is very confident up front and is always volunteering to help out. He also is always carrying the ministry tote. Heather is also doing very well. She has been helping with the puppets, playing MC, doing the evangecube and more. Jamie is amazing a being up front, she is very comfortable in that and since she speaks some Spanish that really helps as well. Elizabeth is always willing to do anything and does such a good job at giving the Bible story. Justin loves doing his song in Spanish and the David and Goliath song. After we were done with the first ministry we went to a vegetable garden that was up a dirt road. We ended up straddling a small irrigation ditch to get to where we could see out over the valley. It was very beautiful. We got lots of good pictures.
We went back to the same church for the 2nd time and had about 100-150 older kids. They were really a tough crowd. They just looked at the team and did not join in with the songs at all. So, we decided to do games. First we did "cat & mouse" or link tag. Next we did the blob tag game that got almost everyone involved and it was a blast.
We are ending with presenting the Gospel using the evangecube with each team member taking turns leading it and the rest spreading out in the crowd with the other cubes. Then Ruben comes up and gives the invitation. He asks if anyone has made a decision for Christ for the first time and has them raise their hand. For the whole day we had around 200 hands raised, praise God, it is so cool!!
Next we drove to a church back in the city. We got there a little early so they took us to their coffee house. We had coffee and pastries, it was so nice. Then we went to the Awana program. We set up and after they did the opening ceremony we did a 30 minute program because the pastor wanted to introduce us in the main service. We are finding that the illusions do not work very well, but they love the pantomimes.
Later we went into two classrooms to observe the clubs. We all came back to the mission guest house, including all Awana people and had dinner here, and Margarita had gotten a birthday cake for John Yao (the head of YMI's Project Resonate who is with the team, capturing the trip through his photography) whose birthday was the 4th. He was really surprised.
On the 4th of July we sang Happy Birthday to John 4-5 times. After breakfast we headed to Juan's church. They were all so sweet and did a really good job at joining in with us. The Awana group was amazing, high energy and joined in with everything. They even taught us new motions to one of the songs the team does in Spanish, it was a blast. When we were done we had time so they took us to exchange money and on the way home our driver asked if we wanted ice cream, of course we did and it was very good. It was nice to get back earlier so the team can prepare for the three church services we are doing tomorrow.
Brad and Becky
Team Leaders - Guatemala