Guatemala Mission Trip: Day Four

Our team had an amazing day at Safe Passage today!  We spent most of our time in classrooms working with students and it was a day full of joy, laughter, and deep engagement (both by our students and the students at Safe Passage).

This morning, we helped in English classes for several periods.  The English teachers at Safe Passage are all long-term volunteers – making a commitment for at least 6 months.  They are bright, enthusiastic, and deeply committed to the work of providing hope and opportunity beyond the garbage dump through education.  In the classrooms, our team is paired usually one-on-one with a student to practice English through games and activities.  Some deep connections have been made in only a few short days.  There are hugs and “Hasta Mañanas” (see you tomorrow) exchanged at the end of the class period.  Our youth have opened their hearts and arms to the students and have all been surprised how open the students at Safe Passage are to us.

Practicing English 

 One of the English teachers, Leah, has been particularly inspirational for our youth.  Leah is 19 years and came to Safe Passage just a few days after graduating high school (which she did early, by the way, so she could come down sooner).  She is remarkable to watch with the students.  Many of our youth have made the comment, “She is only a few years older than me!  I don’t have that kind of clarity about what I want to do with my life.”  Gaining clarity about our calling is the challenge for all of us.  Greg Murray observed yesterday that all of the people at Safe Passage are living intentionally.  That is certainly true, but they are living intentionally in a particular way.  We heard from the Program Director of Creamos, the social entrepreneurship program, yesterday.  When we asked her how she ended up at Safe Passage, we were all surprised to hear her winding journey. She is originally from Nicaragua.  From an early age, she had aspirations to go into finance and develop a successful career, wanting to eventually be a CFO of a large corporation.  She planned out her steps: education, experience, internships, and connections.  She studied abroad on multiple continents and received her master’s degree.  He degree was in Economics and Development – a program she thought would be more about the economic side.  But it was mostly about development, which she discovered she had a passion for.  She wanted to help others grow, she wanted to play a part in changing economic circumstances.  She has always been living intentionally, but the focus of her intentions has changed.  Where she was once intentional about her own growth and goals, she now directs her intentions towards helping others.  A preacher by the name of Frederick Buechner once said, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.”  Our challenge is to discover and discern where that place is.  As we reflected on our experiences over the last few days this evening, several of our youth expressed an inkling that they might want to give of their time and talent in a way similar to the long-term volunteers at Safe Passage later on in life.  Wherever God calls them, we hope that they live intentionally for others.

One of the English class teams with Leah (right)

After helping in English classes, we led our class projects with a seventh grade class and a fifth grade class.  We developed the projects several months ago while our team was away on a planning retreat.  They went great!  We did an egg drop with the seventh grade class and it was a ton of fun to see the students work together, get creative, and have fun.  Our youth were remarkable leading the activity – leading most of it with our limited Spanish and full of confidence in front of a group of strangers in a foreign land.

Working together to protect the egg! 

Getting ready to drop!

The fifth grade group led several math exercises.  The students were incredibly engaged and were excellent at math!  We even taught them fractions (and we did it in Spanish!).  We will be with the same groups of students tomorrow to lead different activities.  We are very excited to see the students again!

Who knew that math could be this fun?! 

Working out fractions with candy.  Everything is better with candy... 

When we got back to Antigua this evening, we had a thunderstorm and a lot of rain.  It is the rainy season here so that is not surprising.  What was surprising was the clap of thunder that sounded like it was right on top of us!  We ended our evening with a great dinner at Cactus, a taco restaurant in Antigua, and some great discussion in small groups.  Small group times are an important part of our time on mission trips to help us unpack and reflect on what we have seen and experienced.  Our youth are taking a lot in and are remarkably thoughtful.  There is certainly a mix of thoughts and emotions in us all: anger, joy, hope, helplessness, optimism, cynicism, and a confluence of just about every other emotion and thought you could imagine.  But even in that place of uncertainty and tension, we are all committed to pushing forward and seeking God in the midst of all we are experiencing.  The good news is that the work of putting our broken world back together again is not up to us.  That is God’s work and we trust that God is faithful in that…that the world is moving towards wholeness.  Our part is to find where God is working and join in.  That is exactly what we doing at Safe Passage this week.

Your continued prayers for health and strength are much appreciated.  We also ask for you to pray that we would encounter God and others in ways that change us so that we have more clarity about world, the God, and ourselves when we come home.

New friends