April 16

Greetings!
Today we got up early to do a devotion at Micuan and Poululau. We worshiped with the children and participated in the activities. We formed a line at the front of the school and the grade one children prayed for us. Les translated the prayer, and the words were really meaningful to us. We learned a bit about what had happened as the school was being built. Some of the history was amazing because God had really been working to have the school built.
After finishing the devotion, we went to Pumbach to do more children’s ministry there. Yesterday the children were shy and weren’t sure if they could trust us. However, today they were open and wanted to shake our hands and play with us. I learned today that the children hadn’t ever really seen white people before: the only ones they had met were the ministry workers who had come up before. They were intrigued because of our different hair colors. Our hair is all different colors, while the children at Pumbach have mostly black or very dark hair. We stayed in Pumbach until lunch time and had a great time with the kids. We did coloring, face painting, paper crafts, and soccer with the children. They really enjoyed being with us and learning about Jesus. When we finished children’s ministries, some of our group went to see the medical clinic in Pumbach.
We went to Les’ house for lunch and had tortillas, meat, and cabbage. All of us were hungry and the food was delicious. We weren’t sure what we were going to do after lunch because there were a few options. We decided to work for a while moving dirt to build the school in Tactic. It was a cloudy day, which meant that we didn’t get as hot as the first day. After working for a while, we went shopping at the stores in Tactic. Some of us wanted to buy machetes and others wanted to buy Guatemalan shirts and soccer jerseys. We came back to the guest houses successful.
We went to Les’ house for supper. It was our last meal, so the teachers all served us and also washed the dishes. It was good to have a break, as we had been doing all the dishes. After this we had some time to relax with the others in our group. We also had a time of prayer and worship at the end of the day. We shared some of the moments from the trip so far that were meaningful, and discussed other feelings that we had. It was good to get different opinions from everyone in our group.
Mostly everyone is doing well so far. We’re really learning a lot and growing as a team. Amanda and Jordan are still feeling a little bit down from their colds, and a leader, Karen, is also a little bit sick.
God bless.


Submitted by Kristi