Life in Guatemala

HEY, HI, HELLO FRIENDS AND FAMILY!!!! I have now been in the beautiful country of Guatemala for 15 days, how WILD. My team and I arrived in Guatemala City on August 18th. All 25 of us together. Once we arrived, went through customs and grabbed our luggage, our next stop was… WENDYS. How American of us haha. We then headed to the Adventures and Missions (AIM) base in Parramos. We spent the night there together as a squad enjoying the beautiful scenery, eating a delicious meal cooked by a local Guatemalan woman and sleeping in BEDS. This was a gift from the Lord after sleeping in tents for the past 16 nights. The next day we woke up, enjoyed another delicious meal, spent time with the Lord, worshiped (in English and Spanish HOW SWEET) and enjoyed a Guatemalan customs orientation to learn more about the beautiful culture and history here. Then we slowly started leaving the AIM base to head to our individual team ministries.

My team consists of 6 beautiful, honest and God-fearing women. Alayna our Squad Leader, Amanda our Team Leader, Jessie our Treasurer, Emma, Anahbelle, Kelsey and of course me. Our ministry house is located in the city of Sumpango. Our ministry is a non profit organization that pours love into people that others would usually overlook (addicts, children from impoverished villages, the elderly and homeless). We serve with our ministry from Tuesday-Saturday. 

On Tuesdays and Fridays we head to one of the 3 villages we serve in, outside of Sumpango. Our ministry owns a building in which they use to serve and teach the children in the village. In the mornings, we prepare a large meal for all of the children as well as clean the building and prepare it for the afternoon lessons and activities. We split into two teams: those who clean and those who cook. I personally love to be on the cooking team, it brings me so much joy. Once the food is ready we serve the children a nutritious and filling meal. When they are finished eating we clean up and begin to start the afternoon activities. The ministry offers English, music, art, and Bible classes as well as sports/fitness activities. We help teach and support in these classes as well as build relationships with the sweet sweet children. 

Once the day is over we clean up and head back home to our ministry house in Sumpango. Our main mode of transportation in Guatemala is a Chicken Bus. You may be asking yourself, “Ryann… What is that…” Well, let me tell you!!!! Chicken buses are old school buses from America that were no longer needed/in use and shipped to Guatemala. The buses run all over Guatemala picking people up and dropping them off wherever they need to go. The fun and interesting thing about these buses is that they JAM PACK them. Like I am talking 3 full grown adults to a seat and people standing on top of each other in the aisle. They don’t believe in “maximum capacity” around here haha. They also play loud Hispanic music on the Chicken Bus and a man walks through the bus collecting money, as we stand in the cramped aisle, while driving 40 mph down the highway. It sure is an experience, but we love it! 

On Wednesdays for ministry, we again split up into two teams. One team heads to a courtyard space in the city of Sumpango where they help set up and run Kingdoms Table. This “table” physically and metaphorically speaking, is a place where anyone from the city can come, enjoy a warm meal, worship the Lord, participate in and receive prayer as well as hear an encouraging message from God. We help prepare the food, set up the space, go out onto the streets of the city inviting people to come and then serve them, worship with them and pray for them while they are there. It is a beautiful space that our ministry has created to serve and love people who are usually forgotten about by society. We focus on serving and loving alcoholics, addicts, the elderly, mothers and children, and anyone else who needs it. We try to show them a love like Jesus and invite them to worship him, pray to him, submit their lives to him and look to him for their comfort. God is our provider. He is our good Father who loves us and sees us each individually. He takes care of us and wants us to rely on him for all things. The other half of our team heads to the 3 villages we serve in and teaches soccer to the kids. We incorporate bible verses, stories and prayer into soccer with the children. It is such a sweet way to get to know the kids in the villages and be blessed with the opportunity to play “fútbol”, a beloved sport in Guatemala with them. All while sharing the Gospel and teaching them about their Father’s love for them.

Our ministry day on Thursdays is a bit more relaxed (praise the Lord). It runs according to a biweekly schedule, we either have an activation training or fasting and prayer. The activation training contains a teaching lesson, an open discussion platform to go over what we learned, prayer and THEN having the opportunity to hit the streets and apply the skills we learned. Our first activation training was on casting out demons. They don’t mess around here okay. We are walking with spiritual authority! We cast out anything that is not from the Lord in the name of Jesus Christ. We walk in the spirit of light, okay, okay! (This may seem weird/unfamiliar/down right crazy to you based on your spiritual background. I totally get that. Reach out if you would like to learn more or have a discussion with me, I would be honored!) We only have activation training every other week. So on the weeks we don’t do training, we fast and pray in the mornings. 

Our ministry home has a worship room and it has been such a sweet place to experience the Lord and spend intimate time with him. Thursday afternoons are usually ATL time baby. ATL = Ask The Lord. This means we use prayer and reply on hearing the Lord’s voice to guide us in what we should do. This may mean rest, blogging, hitting the streets to minister to people, cleaning our home, doing laundry, literally whatever we hear the Lord asking us to do is what we partake in. We do this after both activation training days and prayer and fasting days. It is a sweet time to rely on the Lord to guide us where he needs us and be open to hearing his voice and following his plans. We also usually head to Antigua (literally my favorite city so far in Guatemala) on Thursday nights for Worship Room at Serve Hope. This is a coffee shop, which is run by another ministry, that one of our other teams serves with! This is a sweet opportunity to praise the Lord, in both English and Spanish, as well as see some of our other squad members! Y’all the only downside is it takes us a solid 2 HOURS to get to Antigua from Sumpango (2 chicken bus rides and a total of 3 miles of walking), but we just love it there so much it is worth every minute of the crazy travel it takes! The best part is we have to Uber home because it is unsafe to take the Chicken Bus at night and it only takes us 35 minutes… Uber is just more expensive so that is why we opt for the 2 hour journey to get to Antigua. We are in it for the memories okay!!!

We have finally made it to Saturday, wooohooo!!! On Saturdays for ministry, we head to all 3 villages and run VBS (Vacation Bible School) for the children. The ministry will preach a message to the children and they do such an incredible job of making it so interactive and engaging for the kiddos. We also worship with them, play games with them and pray with them! It is such a beautiful end to our week and incredible to see God at work in the lives of so many children in the 3 different villages. Our God is so personal and intimate! Like he knows me and you and your mom (shout out Amanda, this one’s for you), your grandma, your brother, and all the children and people in these villages and in Guatemala!!! Woah God, you are just so big but at the same time know us so personally and intimately. He is just so incredible!

Sundays and Mondays are our days off from the ministry. We chose one day as our Sabbath, where we rest with the Lord in the ways that feel best for us individually and one day as our Adventure Day where we take time to be with one another as a team and enjoy the opportunity to explore Guatemala. We are intentional about not “taking off our ministry hat” on these days. We are aiming to always be listening to God, serving his children wherever we go and following in the plans he has for us. We put lots of prayer into these two days and ask God where he wants us to go and what he wants us to do. 

Our time in Guatemala has been nothing short of amazing. The culture is so rich here and we are seeing the Lord show up in so many ways. My fun fact for the post is that we have a pila in our home. This is a cement sink situation in the middle of our living room. This pila is where we wash our hands, do our dishes, brush our teeth and wash our laundry! We have no other “sinks” in the house! We love our pila and she is a valued member of our household. ANYWAY, that’s all I have for now folks. I could truly go on forever but this thing is already long so if you made it to this point, THANK YOU AND I LOVE YOU. Reach out to me with any questions or prayer requests or comment them on this blog post! It has been a pleasure giving you a glimpse into what my life looks like in this beautiful country that I get to call home for 5 more weeks! 

That’s all for now friends🙂

Love always. In all ways.

Ryann