Guatemala: Part 1

I have been wanting to post about our trip to Guatemala, but things have been so crazy. Now that I have the time it looks like the trip will have to be broken into a few different posts. So please, bare with me. I will post them all eventually.

A few months ago an announcement was made in church about a mission trip that was being put together. The trip would be a 5 day trip to Guatemala City. The primary purpose of the trip was to work with a local church helping the community with everything financial: personal family budgets, business plans, marketing for personal businesses, etc. As soon as the announcement was made Mike immediately knew he wanted to go. Since Mike is a financial advisor this was right up his alley and I knew my strong suit would be family budgets. Thankfully we have jobs with flexible schedules or should I say flexible bosses, so within just a few weeks we had everything in order and were ready to go to Guatemala.

The Thursday before Thanksgiving we boarded a plane for Guatemala City. The trip was headed up by Doug Sanders and Steve & Magda Sherman (Magda is from Guatemala and Steve lived and worked in Guatemala the majority of his life). There were 8 people total from Otter Creek that went on this trip. Once we all arrived in Guatemala City, we loaded in a rental van and headed to "our place of rest." We stayed at Casa Emaus, a Seminary ran by the Mennonites. It was like a hostel, and Mike and I were lucky enough to have our own room and bathroom:) The Seminary fixed and served breakfast every morning and in return we were asked to wash our own dishes. Not a bad trade off.

The Group

The Courtyard at the Seminary

Breakfast

Eating Area

This was one of the walkways at the Seminary. The flowers

hanging from the ceiling are orchids.

After getting settled at the seminary our plan for the evening was to go to Magda's sister's house for coffee and snacks, eat dinner, and have a meeting at the church to finalize all plans for the seminar.

Once we arrived at the church, we met with the ministers and other members that would be helping us head up the seminar. One thing I can definitely say about Guatemalan people is that they are warm and loving. Every time we would arrive or leave the church it was a sea of hugs, kisses, hand shakes and to top it all off... smiles galore. After meeting with the church members Thursday night we had a better feel of the Guatemalan culture which in turn gave us a good sense of how the weekend would go.

Thursday Night Planning Session

Once the planning session was over we headed back to Casa Emaus to get some much needed rest.