Now that we're all home safely, I'll try to update you on all of our adventures during the week.

On Sunday morning, we loaded our luggage onto the top of a rickety old school bus and departed for Retalhuleu. Around 11:00 we stopped at the farm family's house. The young girl whom Pastor Diane baptized about a year ago was starving. Our two nurses, June and Theresa, stepped off the bus and used everything they could muster up to help the family and this poor young child. The rest of us visited with the other young children. It was amazing to see how happy they were when the had so little and so much could and would go wrong. They were gorgeous and so tickeled that we came to visit them. We left a little later than we were planning too, so we didn't worship with them, but instead we went to Hotel Astor and worshiped in the lobby after we settled into our rooms. Our first night eating at the familia Dardon's house was a little wet, but enjoyable none the less. Mami was extremly welcoming to all of us and her cooking was delicious. Before we departed for our own rooms at the hotel, we broke into three different work groups: one would work on Escuela de los Santos (painting the school of the saints), another would start painting the library at the Jungle School, and the last one would start building desks and shelves for the Jungle School.

On Monday and Tuesday we started our normal schedual of working. After breakfast around 8:00 we all went our seperate ways to our worksites. On Monday everything got off to a great start, but instead of working in the afternoon, we had to take a very long siesta since we were out of primer for Escuala de los Santos. On Wednesday we worked in the morning and went to the beach in the afternoon. Thursday we had a normal work schedule and on Friday we had a couple hours in the morning to finish up our projects and then we visited the other work sites to see the progress. In the Jungle School, we made about a classroom full of desks (i think) and finished the shelves for the library which was painted and decorated by our artsy people in the group. In the School of the Saints, we finished painting about four classrooms (again, i think that is correct) and the computer/library room!

All of you have given so much. This trip was an amazing experience in a different culture for all age groups. Thank you so much again.

Apologies for not updating the blog spot in a while, but access to a computer with working internet has been hard to find. We´ve also been extremely busy and tired. Everyone is safe although a few people in the group have come down with the infamous "Guatemalian Crud". It getting late and we´ll need our rest for tomorrow, so we will try to update you about the last couple of days when we get back from the beach.
Thanks for the prayers and support.

Day One- Guatemala City

At six o´clock on June 22, we loaded the charter bus with all 60 suitcases and started our trip to Chicago´s airport. Check-in went reasonably well at O´hare despite a few mix-ups on names (woops! but don´t worry, we all made it safely and soundly). We departed at 3 in the morning and arrived in Guatemala City around 630 am. We loaded a small van and then were told that we too were somehow suppose to fit with all our luggage! We squished in and had a LOT of quality bonding time. The back tire was somewhat flat due to our somewhat large amount of weight, so we held our breaths as we flew through the streets of the city. Once we arrived at the hotel, we had a quick but delicious breakfast. Then it was off to work sorting the supplies we brought for Safe Passage and those that we were taking with us to Retalhuleu. At 9:30 we all climbed onto a rickety old school bus and traveled to the Guatemala City dump. There was garbage everywhere in this gigantic wide open space of land. It was extremely eyeopening and unreal seeing so many people working there for a living. Freddie informed us that about 7Qs or $1 was made per person per day. From there we went to Safe Passage, a ministry developed to help the dump kids get off the street and receive an education. Some of the families visited with their sponser children while the rest of us learned more about its mission. We all rejoiced when we heard that a spiritual program was being added this fall. After thanking Freddie and saying adios to the children, we all boarded the bus and went back to the hotel. Back at the hotel some of the group had Pollo Campero (Guatemalan KFC!!) while others of us just crashed (and burned). All afternoon was devoted to regaining energy for the trip tomorrow and we all used it for some much needed R&R. Supper time was Dominos Pizza in the hallways (can anyone say group bonding?) and then we packed into Diane and Estuardo´s room for devotions (again with the group bonding comment!!!). So far the trip is going great and we are all excited to start our work in Retalhuleu. (sorry for the spelling mistakes and bad grammer, but we only had about 15 minutes to figure out signing in on a spanish keyboard and then finally typing the entry. Thanks again for all your prayers and support!)

Group Packing 6/20

Group packing was successful. Tonight we finished packing our extra suitcases filled with 50 pounds of supplies to take down to Guatemala. The group is excited and anxious to leave on Friday. The blog will be updated as much as possible during our 10 day mission trip.

Thank you for all of your thoughts, prayers, and support as we venture into Guatemala.