The experience of a lifetime

It has already been two months since we returned from Guatemala. Before we left, none of us really knew what to expect or even much about everything we would be doing, but we all decided to trust that it would be fun no matter what if we all went together. But we were wrong, it was more than fun. It was the experience of a lifetime that I wouldn’t trade for the world. While we were there we had the pleasure to build smokeless stoves and latrines for a few of the families in a community. However, I feel as if everyone there had given me far more than I could have even imagined giving them, and if I was ever asked to return it would be the fastest yes I have ever given in my whole life. What had made the biggest impact on me was the people and families I met. Seeing their faith and positive attitude about everything they have and don’t have has been something I had been able to bring back home with me. I had always thought I was going to eventually travel the world, but this trip has shown me what kind of traveling I really want to do. It isn’t tourism, it’s mission trips. Based on how this trip impacted me, I know that this will not be my last mission trip, and I really hope that it won’t be my last to Guatemala. I am so thankful for all of the people I had met during my trip, especially Juan and Fredy, who were the guardian angels of the whole trip. Thank you guys for making this entire trip possible, it really would not have been the same without either of you. We miss you guys a lot and hope all is well! Thank you to everyone that came on the trip with me, making all of this possible. It really wouldn’t have been the same without any of you, and I hope that we can do it again sometime soon! -Anna

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gringos go to Freddie's

Image
Today was our cultural part of the trip. First we went to a Catholic mass in a beautiful church down the street from our hotel. It was all in Spanish but it was similar to the mass that we are used to. After mass, we took a boat ride to the village of San Juan. This village is the hometown of one of our group leaders, Freddie. He hadn't seen his wife in 4 weeks and today was their anniversary so he was very excited to be back home. First, we went to the market and we were all assigned foods to get for lunch. It was difficult using only Spanish but we eventually got all of the ingredients. After, we walked a couple blocks to Freddie's house where we met his wife, son, and a couple other members of the family. They were so happy to have us and welcomed us with open arms and hearts. We all worked together to prepare lunch with the ingredients we bought from the market. While the women in Freddie's family were cooking the traditional meal, "Pepian", we went down the s
Read more

Gringos Go to Work

Image
This morning we woke up and ate a delicious breakfast at 7:00. Then we left for our second work day with the families. We split into two separate groups  and were working across the street from each other. As soon as we entered the home we could tell that these people lived very humbly. They have dirt floors and tin roofs, and we ended up mixing cement on the floors. Despite this, the mother of the household made sure we were as comfortable as possible and even brought out a beautiful cloth for us just to set our backpacks on. They were so generous with the little that they have. When we sat down to eat, they took out all of the stools in their house just to make sure we had a place to sit. Before we started to work, the members of the families introduced themselves to us and we all prayed together. The work went a lot faster today than it did the first day because we knew what we were doing. We got a lot more used to working with the tools in order to build the latrines and s
Read more

The people we met

Image
When I first heard about this Guatemala trip, I had no idea what to expect. I heard from people on similar experiences talking about how amazing and life changing their trip was. I thought to myself that seems cool, but how life changing can a trip really be? Now after actually experiencing going to Guatemala my outlook on life is different. Guatemala was such a life changing trip in many different ways. What stood out to me the most on the trip was the people we met. The people in Guatemala are so incredible, especially the families that we worked with. It is so crazy how happy these families were even though they had hardly anything. They are so incredibly generous people and were more than willing to help us as we were working. We got the privilege of meeting many new people and were able to build relationships with them. I especially liked being able to see the kids everyday, and being able to spend time with them as they would help us work. Now that I
Read more