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