The second day began at 8:00 for breakfast, where most of us enjoyed left over pizza from last night's supper. The team was well rested and ready to go, and surprisingly awake and VERY full of energy! Our schedule includes 30 minutes for quiet time followed by 30 minutes for our students to get into groups by gender to talk about what God is teaching them through their Scripture reading and prayer. Mike Beard and Robert Puckett led the guys group while Steve Murray and I (Cliff) tried to find the airport by ourselves...that was an amazing adventure that I will wait to share at our share time on Sunday, April 15 at 5:00PM in the Lodge at Lakewood. Yes, that was a shameless plug!!
We enjoyed being able to worship with Pastor Saul, the local pastor that we have worked with for several years, and the people of Iglesia El Camino from 10:30-12:30. If I had to describe Pastor Saul, it would be that he is like the Central American version of the Energizer bunny. He is constantly serving the Lord in some way, so much so that a few of our adult men talked about paying for him to go on a mandatory vacation. But Saul insists that his strength comes from the Lord, and he continues to keep going, and going, and going (sorry I had too...)
During the worship service David Funk, Claire Smith, and Walters put their incredible talents to use by leading the entire church in The Desert Song, which I think is by Hillsong United?? And Claire and Sam Simpson shared a testimonio with the entire church. Both did an amazing job. By the way, Iglesia El Camino is a refreshing site after seeing a lot of the rundown buildings in the same general area. The building itself is well maintained and very clean. You enter the worship space through a set of oversized, black metal French-style doors that open up to shiny faux wood tiled floors, that remind me of an old school basketball court. The walls, painted in some simple shade of light yellow lead up to the stage, which has a set of drums, a keyboard, and a seemingly endless supplies of wires. On the wall behind the stage are the letters 'I D.' These letters are made of yellow and green construction paper which I can only assume is the current series that the church I'd doing or a reminder that their identity is found in Christ. But, I've been wrong before...if I find out I'll let you all know.
After worshipping with our good friends at Iglesia El Camino, our group traveled to somewhere near San Lucas (look it up on google maps and use the satellite feature to see what I am about describe). Casa Shalom, an orphanage that upwards of 70 children call their permanent home, was our first stop. We started with a tour of the stunningly beautiful campus, which is a narrow strip of land that has one unpaved road running along one side until slicing through the center in order to make it to the opposite side of the property. The whole campus is built on a hill, and as we continued to walk up we were able to see where the children had their meals, enjoyed recreation time (mostly soccer), the older children's rooms, and the baby house. As we neared the top of the hill (elevation 6500 ft. I believe), we came to a clearing that allowed us an overview of Guatemala City. It was well worth the hike up the hill! The view was almost breathtaking, and not because we had walked forever to get to the top, but because Guatemala City was laid out right in front of our eyes...reminding me of the view that God must have over His entire creation at all times. Our group led the children in games, crafts, a Bible story, and songs. Everyone did a great job!
From Casa Shalom we traveled all the way to a children's hospital...which was literally located right across the street. The children's hospital was very similar to Casa Shalom, built on a hill and seemed to go on forever. The first building on this campus is made almost entirely of what looks like slightly transparent mirrored glass. We were told that this building is home to a research facility for children with diseases. Our group led the children that live at this hospital, some of them for 15+ years, in a similar VBS to the one at Casa Shalom. The time we spent at the hospital was very short, but we had to leave in order to get back to a worship service in the landfill...which we didn't make it to because of traffic. The week before Easter shuts down a lot of things in Guatemala, including some streets, making it hard to travel and get to places on time.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment