Buenos noches to all those tuning in back home. This is Amanda and Courtney with the Tuesday scoop from Guatemala.
Today we had breakfast just the way we like it... buffet style. Manuel led our morning devotion challenging us to really be intentional about relationships with other people and meeting them where they are. We then headed out to El Rincón, about 45 minutes from the mission house.
Upon arrival, we took a group trip to the bathroom we would be using for the day. Margarita's family graciously accepted us into her home... and that's when we met Carlos. Carlos had a rough past and due to an accident lost one of his legs and function of the other. Margarita willingly brought him into her home and helped to care for him. Through this experience he became a christian and now enjoys witnessing to all the visitors that pass through Margarita's home.
After the interesting experience that was the bathroom (aka a hole in the ground in a shanty type hut with a sheet for a door) we split into three groups and went for house visits. In El Rincón every group had a sponsor child's family that they were going to visit. (Courtney here) The house visit that I was on, was for the sponsor child of team member Melissa. It was an awesome experience to see Melissa and her sponsor child reunited after a year apart. (Amanda Here) The house visit that I was on was for the sponsor child of team member Kyle. Kyle just decided the night before to sponsor his child and it was amazing to see the joy on the child's face when Kyle would offer his hand to him.
We then ate our very well prepared lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwitches and were ready to start our faith lessons. We were both in the group (there were 7 of us in total) that helped to teach the kids faith lessons. We started off just hanging out with the kids... reading books, learning their fun little hand games, just getting to know them. Then when the faith lesson actually began we started off with music. We sang about 6 songs in spanish (including "Jesus Loves Me" and "I Got the Joy"). After music we taught them the memory verse. Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast.
After our memory verse we performed our skit. We had a lovely script (written by yourse truely (Amanda) and Melissa) but... somehow it did not make it on the ride with us that morning. For going into the whole skit kind of blind and having Oscar translate for us... I don't think our first try turned out all that bad. After we got through our skit we passed out the craft we had prepared for the kids. Many of the hearts seemed to mysteriously go missing because we ended up short by quite a few. After our craft we passed our snacks and said adiós to the kids of Rincón. Needless to say, our first faith lesson was a little bumpy but, we have three more to go and it can only go up from here.
We returned home to a waiting dinner of pasta and salad. George from the Only A Child ministry stopped by the house with samples of the wooden boxes and more stories about the young men in his ministry. Then we prepared a devotion for the night with some encouraging verses to try and help people stay positive and realize God has a plan for them this week. Now with our free time we write to you about the day as the house winds down.. and our team members wind up with a very loud game of dutch blitz in the next room.
This is Amanda and Courtney finished filling you in on our Tuesday in Guatemala. Buenos noches, heading to bed soon and not just because breakfast is served at 6am.
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