Hello Everyone!!!

I’m in our first country of six, Guatemala!! I’m so excited to get to spend two months in the land of eternal spring. It’s so beautiful and lush here. Fun fact did you know Guatemala is around the size of Tennessee and has 37 volcanos and 3 of them are active.

Getting here was a trip. I spent the night for the first time ever in an airport and went on my first plane ride ✈️. I very much prefer camping to airport floors. I’m currently staying at the Adventure in Missions base here in Guatemala. 

Today we went over some cultural and historical lessons for interacting with Guatemalans. We are coming into Guatemala during a very interesting time. Their independence from Spain is on September 15! Guatemalans live to celebrate and also loooove fireworks. Even now days before the 15th (or at least when I started writing this article.)You get a little pushed back in blogging when you leave your phone on a bus. Thank God it was a bus owned by the organization I work for or there wouldn’t be anymore blog posts.

Back to Guatemalan Independence Day, the people of Guatemala are running the streets with torches lit. When Guatemala declared independence they did exactly that they ran to every city with a lit torch so every year they do it again. For some reason that is more tradition rather than any historical meaning they also throw water at everyone on the road. There is so much joy and a celebratory spirit in all these people that is just so beautiful.

One of my favorite things that happened to me on my first full day in Guatemala was going into Parramos to go get money for our bus ride to the village my team will be working in for the next two months, San Antonio! We (my fellow squad mates Alicia, Shania, and myself) were taking something called a “chicken bus” back to the AIM base. The name is misleading. I’m disappointed to announce there were no chickens in the bus 🥺😭. It was in the misleadingly named “chicken bus” that we discovered it is a real issue to not speaking Spanish. It also not ideal to not have service to use google translate to tell the bus to stop so it doesn’t and drives past the location you gave them. We end up all agreeing to get off the next time the bus stops which ends up about a mile from the AIM base.

I had a weird amount of fun walking back and just trusting that the Lord would protect and guide us to the base. I’m very happy to testify He did exactly that!! I am having a blast here in Guatemala. I can’t wait to do another post that will hopefully be sooner God willing I don’t leave my phone anymore places.

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