Our Guatemala mission trip has come and gone. First off, we'd like to thank you so much for all your support. It was a great experience! Shawn Smith, the leader of this yearly mission, who we didn't meet until the end of the first week because he was performing, gave us some insight as to how we would feel when we came home. I am only speaking for myself, so you can get Carly's perspective in person. Shawn said that some of us may have trouble talking about what we saw and experienced for awhile. He said that for a little while we might feel out of place at home after the time we spent in Guatemala. I certainly felt out of place while visiting there. And I definitely felt a little weird that first week I was back. But first let me tell you about our experience.

We were greeted in Guatemala City in a new very clean airport. We met a Pastor from Pennsylvania joining our group, as we were finding our way to our baggage. We must have immediately looked like we belonged to Shawn's group with our old clothes and sparse luggage (as we were instructed). While he was looking for his suitcase we waited inside for him, not really looking forward to the hot humid weather we were expecting. When we finally went outside we were met by Damaris, Shawn's wife, holding up our names on a piece of cardboard, and ready to greet us warmly with a big hug and speaking English. (Thank goodness, because all the Spanish I practiced at home didn't seem to help too much, and Carly really didn't know more than "hello", "goodbye", and "what's your name?".) We were very surprised how cool it was outside; probably in the 70's and not humid at all. That was good news.

We waited a couple hours for the rest of our group to arrive at the airport and then we all boarded our hired passenger van, en route to the hotel we'd be staying in for one night. It wasn't at all like the "chicken busses" I read about online, with 2-3 times as many passengers than should fit, and as the name states, livestock on board. Although we certainly did see a few tightly packed minivans with natives leave the airport while we waited. The Hotel Candelaria was beautiful; not really like the hotels we're used to here but with a lot of character and old Spanish style charm. I have to say that the whole time we were there, Damaris, the van drivers and the hotel staff treated us like royalty. They made sure that we got everything we needed. They consulted with us nightly on appropriate food for Americans and they always made sure we were safe. Although the hotel was beautiful, there were many high walls lining the streets of Antigua with razor wire on top. We didn't have any mishaps but it was obvious that we needed to be careful.

The next day we made the 5-6 hour trip to Coban where we'd be staying for the week. The countryside and mountains were awesome, the roads were in excellent shape and every rest stop he stopped at was immaculately clean. The gas station bathrooms were cleaner than ours at home. I read that there are scorpions and brown recluse spiders in Guatemala. The spiders like to live in dark places, like under toilet seats. I spent the week inspecting every bathroom before I used them. In fact I think we saw only one very large cockroach the whole time I was there, in the second hotel we were in. The big mosquitoes and bugs that I was warned about didn't materialize. This hotel was also very nice, with private grounds and very safe.

I'm telling you all about what our accommodations were like because it is very difficult to feel the full affects of what the natives' in the village lives must be like when you're not forced to live among them. On Monday afternoon when we arrived at the school there was no one there. It was some type of Guatemalan holiday. We dropped off donations that we sorted the night before and just looked around a little. The little school which was originally intended to be a vacation cottage looked very comfortable. The exterior classrooms had no doors or windows and were furnished with old school desks and chairs. The rooms were very narrow and sort of dark. The school yard was basically dirt and mud, with various planks scattered around to walk when it got rainy and muddy.

We met the kids and teachers on Tuesday. They were a little tentative that day but we got hundreds of greetings of "Buenos dias!" that day and for the rest of the week. I felt like I was constantly trying to remember if it was morning to say Buenos dias vs. afternoon to say buenas noches, because every time you passed someone new, either in the school or town or hotel or stores, you greeted everyone. The kids looked mostly clean and happy. Many of the older girls wore the traditional dress of the native women in that village. But many of the kids, especially the boys had torn shirts and pants that were too short. It seemed to me that they may have been trying to wear their best the week that we were there.

Tuesday morning we listened to a tree expert teach us and the students' parents how to plant lemon trees. We also gave out one tree, one chicken and a bag of feed to each family. Later in the week we went to homes in the village to plant the trees. The families were very grateful and one man said a thank you for everyone, translated by Damaris.

Before Bible School started we began handing out donations. This is when we saw how little these kids had. We tried to give every child that had grown out of, or worn out their shoes, a new pair. It was so hard to take off their dirty sodden socks and soaking wet shoes (even on a dry day), have them try on several pairs of shoes, only to have to say "no mas" there were none that fit. All of these kids walk to school each day and back home for lunch and then back in the afternoon for more lessons. Some live miles away. It really broke my heart to imagine what they must go through each day. I thought about one of my own kids at 7 or 8 years old having to walk all that way, day after day, with soaked feet and clothes that don't fit, no raincoats or umbrellas in the often pouring rain. This is when their reality starts to sink in a little bit. So we tried our best to give each child who needed it, a pair of shoes, a shirt, pants, raincoat, toothbrush, toothpaste, socks and underwear. We also had some tote bags, a few pieces of jewelry and hair ties to give out when there were no more of the items they really needed.

Later that afternoon we had our first Bible School. We had prepared crafts for them the night before and reviewed the bible verse that they would learn. They were very good at memorizing, especially when we gave out prizes to the first ones to recite it by heart in class. My students were fifth graders, their ages seemed to be from 12 to 16, so we also tried to get them to learn the verses in English. Bible school was a real challenge for me, because as I mentioned earlier, whatever Spanish I learned over the previous three months, left me when I stood in front of a class of teenagers. The teacher really didn't seem to know any English and really couldn't help me out. I used a lot of made up sign language to get by, and furiously looked up words in my Spanish-English dictionary. I think Carly had it a little easier because her class was one of the younger ones and they did a lot more playing games and less talking and memorizing. Some of her kids probably didn't know Spanish all that well because their native language is Quichean (sp?) and they learn Spanish in school. After Bible School each day we played games. They loved anything competitive, especially soccer.

During the week we planted trees, painted the inside of the school and gave out donations of food to each student's family and the teachers. At snack time each day the kids got a cup of watery rice that they seemed to love. Some of the kids had a little money and would buy food prepared by the village women. I imagine that many of these kids didn't get much breakfast before school. We took many, many pictures and the kids loved having their pictures taken and then looking at the digital screen.

On Friday I spent the entire day in bed with nausea, diarrhea and fever. The nurse practitioner in our group gave me an antibiotic, some bottles of water and fruit and the group went back to the school. They did their painting and bible school, then had a party of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a big store-bought cake. These were treats they wouldn't normally get to have if we weren't there. The students made cards for each us in our group. They looked like they were done by hand but the pictures were copied out of a book. We were surprised at how good their drawings were.

By Saturday I was feeling better; we did some sightseeing in Coban, then returned to Antigua for my last night there. At breakfast Shawn asked about my impressions and I really couldn't talk about it without getting emotional. Maybe it was that I still didn't feel 100% but mostly when I was asked I'd think about my family living in those conditions day after day and then knowing how we really live and take for granted the littlest things that these people don't have, like clean water, dry homes, more than one set of clothes or shoes, and more food than most of us should ever need to eat.

You begin to feel overwhelmed that there is too much for anyone to do to help. But at least some of those kids will have dry feet for a few days and a few nights of good meals because we were there. We did put smiles on their faces and showed that we cared. As far as learning about the teachings of Jesus, I think they had far more to teach us about faith than we had to teach them.

All the pictures we took can be found here:http://picasaweb.google.com/guatemalamission08/Guatemala08

To check out Shawn Smith's website and see what we did click below then click on missions.

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