so it’s been a week since we got back from Guatemala. and i miss it so much
i just had a fantastic time there. our team only had seven people. two of which i didn’t meet until the day before we left. and another girl i knew, but not really. but over the ten days that we were there, we all just got really close. it was a cool experience since we all didn’t know each other beforehand. and then the guatemalans that work at the mission house and the translators too. seriously, some of the sweetest people i have ever met in my entire life. i just loved all of the friendships that formed. because while we all were having fun and doing silly things, we were all there with the same purpose. when it came down to it, the reason we were there was to spread His love with all of the people that came to the clinics. We were there to minister to them and tell them about the Gospel and pray that the medicine they received will heal them and to love on them.
at the last clinic that we did, me and my translator Patty, got to help someone read the Bible for the first time. she was sixteen and sang in the choir at church and knew how to read, but had never read the Bible before. so we gave her one and showed her how to navigate it and about the different chapters and verse numbers and such. and she read us a few verses, and it was just so cool. that she now had something so important and so influential, and that we were there to witness her reading it for the first time. sorry, that was a random side-note, but i really just loved that moment.
one of the things that we talked about when we first got down there was how, while it’s awesome that we are helping the people in the clinics and stuff, our experiences down there were really to benefit our relationships with God too. like in reality, the people at Medical Missions don’t need us. they don’t need a bunch of American’s who don’t even speak Spanish and have to use translators to speak to the villagers. they could do it all themselves and just have a bunch of people from Guatemala come and help. but they want us to come. they want us to have those experiences because of what it does for us too. honestly, the gospel stations scared me to death. the thought of sitting down with a stranger and being like “hey do you know the story of Jesus?” seemed so awkward. but it’s things like that that strengthen our own relationship with the Lord. we talked about how the whole process was us pouring out on them what the Lord had poured into us. and you can’t pour out if you haven’t been poured into, so you have to seek the Lord. you have to spend time just you and Him. and it was just so awesome that in those awkward moments in the stations, when you’re totally out of your comfort zone, that the Lord just works within you. and gives you or your translator the exact right thing to say to make the person understand. because it’s not about us. our words don’t have to be eloquent and we don’t have to know everything, because it’s the Spirit working through us. we’re just vessels. and just the fact that the Lord gave me the chance to be apart of that is so awesome. like even how i got plugged into this team and how it all came together, it was all God.
this post is really scattered. oh well. just a lot of thoughts that i didn’t feel like organizing in my head. ha
