Student Story - Madalyn Walters

God did some amazing things in Guatemala last week, and it was definitely the best experience of my life! One experience that had a huge impact on my life happened on the last night during the rain storm in the landfill. Between our afternoon projects and the feeding at night, we were waiting around for the rain to stop. While we were sitting in the building where we had VBS, I got to know two teenage girls (Glenda and Maritza) very well. We talked for an hour about all sorts of different things, and we had a really strong connection. They both went to Pastor Saul's church and they lived in the landfill. When it came time for the feeding, each of them only had one bowl that they filled up with food. When they brought it back, neither of them ate their food, and I asked them why they weren't eating. They explained that the food was for both of their mothers. Even though they were both hungry, they thought of their mothers before themselves. Luckily, I found a granola bar in my backpack and let them split it! When it was time to go, all of us were really sad because we didn't know if we would ever see each other again, so one of the girls gave me her earrings to take home and the other girl gave me her headband. I couldn't believe how unselfish and giving Glenda and Maritza were. Despite their circumstances, they were willing to look to the interests of others above themselves. That was a real wake-up call to me. Our culture teaches us that its all about me, when God tells us to give abundantly no matter how much we have. We should look up to the attitudes the people living in the landfill have, and God definitely spoke to me through meeting those girls. It's just another example of how God puts people in your life for a reason :)
- Madalyn Walters, Senior at Dawson County High School



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad