Guatemala Learnings – Summer 2013

First and foremost, this message is a thank you.
A thank you to God.
And a thank you to all those with whom we interacted in our three weeks in Guatemala.
This trip truly was a God send. It was a blessing in almost every way imaginable.
1. Spending three weeks with your family and encountering only normal levels of frustration with each other and each other’s habits.
2. Feeling at ease and at home in a foreign country.
3. Meeting and spending time with people and quickly feeling as if they were old friends.
4. Discovering God has a plan for us even while we are wondering if we are up to carrying it out.
5. Being surrounded by people serving God through serving humanity.
6. Talking and thinking about God’s plans and about putting God first.
7. Finding more questions than answers. If God had solved every problem on his own, what would our purpose here be?
8. The contrast between the vacation and the spiritual exploration segments of our trip. In my opinion, this is also symbolic of the choices we have the future. We can choose to follow the earthly path and be tourists in God’s land. Or we can choose to be workers, choose to be God’s hands in a world of need.

Thanks, God! For the trip, for the people, for the lessons, for the insight and for all those thoughts and feelings that are so difficult to put into words.