Journey to Jalapa

On Wednesday, we left the beautiful El Faro and began our journey to Jalapa, which was supposed to take about 4 hours. Like all our other car rides in Guatemala, the roads were bumpy and recently muddy after all the thunderstorms. Despite all that, we made it through without any difficulties. Thank you for your prayers. As it turns out, 6 hours later we were in Impala to make a pit stop at the house of our new dentist, Leonel. He joined us since we lost a dentist in El Faro. After eating some pizza, we traveled 2 more hours to the hotel in Jalapa. One thing we've learned throughout this week is that Guatemalan time is not the same as American time. We were very blessed in El Faro and the "nicest hotel in Jalapa" paled in comparison.

Thursday we drove 20 minutes to Monjas, where we had set up our clinic yesterday. The clinic was a lot more spacious providing a better set up, but we missed the fun interactions with the children that we had in El Faro. Here we are serving the pastors and their families. The appointments were scheduled, so the whole day was less chaotic and very relaxed. One of our most difficult patients today was a young woman, who needed two teeth extracted. What seemed like a rather routine procedure, turned into an hour and a half nightmare. Not only were both teeth difficult to extract, she had also received around ten shots of anesthesia and was still in pain. However, she was very brave, and by the grace of God, Doctor Grieco was finally able to extract them both. We finished around 4pm and then went to Chochy's cousin's house for a delicious dinner. After we got back to the hotel, the group decided to go to the corner to get ice cream and then walk a few blocks to the central park. It is a little unsettling walking around any city at night, but we felt safe in our group. The park was pretty at night, and we took a group photo by the fountain.

In other news, to give you a taste of our environment, while we were writing this blog post, Laura felt something on her leg. She turned to brush it off and saw a GIANT cockroach scramble under the entertainment center...it was completely terrifying! I don't know if any of us will be able to sleep tonight, but we'll try our best!

Tomorrow is our last day in Guatemala! We are very sad to be leaving so soon. God has really blessed our time here with so many wonderful things. Please pray, however, that we will have the energy and focus to finish well. Rachel has been struggling a little with some hives that have been causing her discomfort. Please pray that her symptoms would dissipate, and she will be able to assist tomorrow as her usual joyful self. Praise God that so far everyone else has been in relatively good health! Pray also for smooth travels over the next two days, as we travel back to Guatemala City tomorrow and home on Saturday. Thank you all so much again for your support and prayers!

Que Dios los bendiga

(P.S. The blogs are written by Heidi, Nikki, and Laura)

Day Two

¡Hola una vez mas! The last day here at El Faro was the busiest by far! We started our day with a nice big breakfast, a lot of coffee, and another beautiful boat ride. Upon arrival at the school there was already a group of people waiting for us. We quickly set up our stations and prepared for a long day. Laura and Nikki kept the crowds entertained with some singing and dancing while cleaning the dental instruments. The kids loved to watch and laugh. The dental stations worked as quickly as possible to accommodate our 68 patients. Some kids from the day before came back to hang out some more. We had loads of stickers with John 3:16 on them inside a heart and another with a broken heart covered by a bandage that said´Jesus´ on it both of which we used as tools to witness to the kids. It was interesting to see how the kids all know exactly who God is, but many had no idea who Jesus is. But with the help of the stickers, we could go through the gospel with them. The school building where we were working had no doors or windows with glass, which allowed the kids to be in the classrooms and watch us clean the utensils and sing and dance. Rami, our special pastor friend, also used the classrooms to sing songs with the kids and play frisbee. Nathan and Cameron unfortunately both received injuries from the wild indoor game of frisbee resulting in a swollen eyebrow and bloody nose.Thankfully we had a lot of gauze present! We worked from 9-4, a looong, HOT day. Cameron held the suction tube for Dr. Chorchi nearly the entire time, and Heidi pulled her first tooth! The afternoon was a lovely time of cooling off in the ocean. Unlike yesterday however, the water was really rough, so it was very exhausting. After our swim some of our group relaxed in the dorms while some played el futbol. Dinner was amazing, as usual.
   We are sad to leave the beautiful scenery of El Faro but excited to move on to our next location, Jalapa, tomorrow morning. Pray for safe travels for our group as we go, especially since it´s the rainy season and we´ve had a storm nearly every night! Please pray the roads are not too muddy for us to travel. Also be in prayer for the people we reached these past two days, and for our team to stay well rested and healthy.

Que Dios los bendiga

El Faro

Sunday began our 6 hour drive to El Faro with our team of 21 people! Which included: The Ruano family, Rachel Miller, Rami the pastor, our 2 translators- Heidy and Liz (ages 11 & 12), 2 Guatemalan dentists - Chorchi and Candi (and her adorable baby Monserat), and Mr. Zellner's brother - Dan and his wife. Driving in Guatemala was an exciting and terrifying experience. There is no speed limit so most of the cars on the road were going at least 80 mph on 2 lane roads..winding through mountains. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking, but there were a few times that God protected us from colliding with other cars on the road. During the car ride, there were many amusing conversations in Spanglish and lots of singing! Towards the end of our journey, we traveled up a one way dirt/mud road with our 2 twelve passenger vans to our final destination: El Faro (The Lighthouse). This place definitely lived up to its expectations! After unpacking our luggage, we trudged through a jungle like forest to the soccer field to play some good ol' Guatemalan FUTBOL. It was very humid but a lot of fun! When the game was over, we headed down to the beach. On the way there, we ran into a mischievious monkey named Poncho that escaped from his cage on the property. He tried to steal our clothes while we were swimming, so someone had to stand guard. We then enjoyed a delicious dinner, had a meeting & time of worship and prayer for Monday, went fishing on the dock, and called it a day.

Today was our first official workday! The place we were going could only be reached by boat. After breakfast, we loaded up the boats and headed to the first village. The view of the coastline was beautiful from the boat and there were lots of rickety houses built over the water. We arrived at the school around 8:15 and were ready to start taking patients at 9. We all had various jobs including: dental work, assisting the dentists, sanitizing the equipment, and sharing the Gospel with the people. 
Nikki and Laura were sanitizing equipment with our mini translators, and while handing out stickers were able to talk to the children, teach them some American dances (the wobble), and play soccer (por supuesto!). We finished around 2:30 in the afternoon, and were able to assist around 40 patients. Rami the pastor had a lot of great spiritual conversations with the people, and prayed with some to accept Christ as their Savior. It was an amazing day! Praise God, Joe's suitcase made it back to him today! We are all very happy. Please pray that God would work through us to communicate the Gospel. Also be in prayer for the people we interacted with today as we will be returning one last time tomorrow. Thank you for your prayers!

Que Dios los bendiga

We made it!

Hola de Guatemala! We arrived at Dulles this morning. Two flights and six hours later we touched down in Guatemala City! Most of the trip went smoothly. However when we went to claim our luggage, Joe's bag was missing. We left information but still haven't heard anything about it. Please pray this gets returned to him. Dennis, his wife Chochy, and their family met us at the airport along with Rachel Miller. Already, they have shown us a grand time. The highlight was celebrating Nikki's birthday with firecrackers and "an impossible cake" - half flan, half pastel. She was very surprised but very pleased. After dinner, Dennis invited us all out to watch his team play  football. They were excellent players and won easily! Tomorrow, we leave for El Faro at 9am sharp. We are all well and blessed to have such a gracious and welcoming host family. Please pray as we set out tomorrow as we have a long six hour drive on some small dirt roads!

Que Dios los bendiga

¡Bienvenidos!

¡Hola y bienvenidos! Welcome to our blog, where we hope to be posting regular updates about our trip. We are so excited to be leaving for Guatemala this Saturday! To all of you who have supported us thus far, muchísimas gracias! However, we still face a few challenges leading up to our departure, so we ask that you would be in prayer for our preparations and also our travels this weekend. One of our members, Nathan, left today already. Please pray for his safety. We look forward to telling you all about our trip in the coming week! We know God has great things planned.

Que Dios los bendiga.

Prayer Requests:

• Three of our team members are traveling back from the retreat on Friday. Please pray that they arrive safely and get enough rest and can regroup before we leave.
• Pray that God would bring in the funds we still need.
• Pray for our team's health while in Guatemala, especially our stomachs!
• Pray that God would be working in the hearts of those to whom we are going to serve and for the unity of our team in ministering with the Guatemalan team.