WEEK OUTLINE:

Monday:

Travel day meeting - I, along with my logistics team, got to present the travel day details to our squad.

Team debrief - our squad coaches drove down to camp and joined us for a reflection on our first week of ministry.

Ballet class - a goal of mine on this trip is to maintain my dance strength and skill, and the Lord blessed me with a teammate who also loves ballet, so we did a YouTube ballet class together.

Tuesday:

Walmart run - we are given a food budget for travel days, and I stayed within the budget with items at Walmart!

Packing - packed up our tents and somehow fit all my possessions into 2 backpacks.

Left training camp - went to the airport! I wish I had taken a photo of my sleep setup at the airport on my sleeping pad.

Wednesday:

Travel day - got up bright and early at 3:30 am (yup, only two hours of sleep) and landed in Guatemala at 12 pm!

Thursday:

Orientation - we met the Adventures in Missions staff and were briefed on everything we need to know for our time here. Culture, norms, history, ministry, and even how to use “chicken buses”.

Friday:

Met our ministry host - Our team will be working with Dar Para Dar (our ministry). We went up “Prayer Mountain”, which is a place based on Haggai 1:8 and a retreat location to seek the Lord. There, we met the team, learned more about what we will be doing here, and had some individual time with God.

Greta’s birthday - We celebrated her birthday with two cakes and some games!

Saturday:

Adventure day - For our “adventure day”, my team went to the beautiful city of Antigua. What a dream seeing all the sights in person. We went to a coffee shop (yay Wifi), walked around, and went to Taco Bell (an extra celebration for Greta). It was, in fact, THE NICEST Taco Bell I had ever seen, and had very reasonable prices.

Groceries - on weekends, we are given a budget and are responsible for our own food and transportation. It was pretty amusing asking the workers for assistance finding marinara sauce and salsa for quesadillas, considering the word for sauce in Spanish is just “salsa”.

Sunday:

Sabbath! - time w/ Jesus, ballet, and coffee shop productivity.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS:

• Reading! With so much free time and no Wifi, I have been reading my Bible a lot, as well as one physical book, one eBook, and an audiobook for school.

• Weather! Guatemala is nicknamed the “Land of Eternal Spring” for a reason!

• Scenery! Man, I missed seeing mountains! Every direction you look is either volcanoes, plantations, or colorful buildings.

• Spanish! My Spanish is not great, but I have two months here to learn as much as I possibly can. I love practicing speaking with anyone I can, and it causes a lot of laughter. 

• Sabbath eve! Our squad starts Sabbath the night before. We read scripture, sang, prayed, and discussed.

• Meeting new people! Our ministry host, our cook, another mission group staying at the base, other people on base, and staff at AIM. 

• Helping in the kitchen! On our very first day, Trinity (a teammate of mine) and I met the woman who cooks dinner for us on the weekdays and helped her out in the kitchen. She doesn’t speak English, so we got to practice Spanish. She is so joyful, loves photos, and makes the best-tasting food for our squad!

There’s so much more I could tell about, but this is an overview for now! Thank you to everyone who has been praying for and supporting me!

~ Anna :)