Saturday Thoughts

Buenos Noches from Guatemala! This is Hannah speaking. :)
What a day we have had! Chelsea recapped what our day involved, so as you probably can tell, there is a lot to process. You cannot possibly go to such places and see such things and NOT be affected in some way. After our day, a few members of our team found themselves asking one question: Why? Why are there so many hurting people? Why did a mother abandon her child, leaving her to beg on the streets? Why isn’t there a better solution to all of the hurt? After processing with each other, we concluded two simple truths: we live in a broken world, and we are all broken in some way. Yes, there are hurting people; and yes, there is sin; and yes, as long as the world continues to spin there will not be complete healing. Our world is broken. Sin is so consuming that it broke our covenant with the One Holy God of the universe. As a result of this broken world, I too am broken (and you are too). I may not be confined to a wheelchair with no stimulus all day long. I may not be continually deprived of a loving touch. I may not live in a landfill. But believe me, I am broken. There are times when I am prideful and judgmental, stubborn and arrogant, selfish and spoiled. Sound broken yet? My brokenness may not come in physical form, but it is brokenness all the same. Thank GOD alone that He heals brokenness. He is the Healer!! He is the Redeemer, Restorer, Reviver. I have peace knowing that not only does He heal emotional brokenness, but He heals our spiritual brokenness, our physical brokenness, and our mental brokenness. There is HOPE! I may not understand the Lord’s purpose for a lot of things, but I understand this: HE alone restores ALL that is broken. Bring Him your brokenness.
Psalm 34:18 “The Lord is near the brokenhearted; He saves those crushed in spirit.”
Psalm 51:17 “The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart.”
Psalm 147:3-5 “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them. Our Lord is great, vast in power; His understanding is infinite.”
Psalm 103:2-4 “My soul, praise the Lord, and do not forget all His benefits. He forgives all your sin; He heals all your diseases. He redeems you life from the Pit; He crowns you with faithful love and compassion.”
Psalm 73:26 “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever.”

Obedience

Obedience is not easy. It demands our entire selves---including the deepest parts of our heart. Love has a way of messing up our lives. Love demands that we see differently. As I walked through the landfill and the special needs hospital and orphanage today I find myself asking two questions:
God what is your heart for this women or this child or this man?

And

God help me to see how you see. I want your eyes.

I can't say that I have an answer yet. But these two questions are sure changing how I love.

I keep thinking how would the Father see the little girl with burns all over her face from being abandoned and having to beg?

Or how would the Father see the landfill? Or the feeding last night?

How would the Father see the babies with cleft lips?

I want what He sees. Eyes of compassion that penetrate deep into hearts and finds glowing beauty. Eyes that see goodness. Eyes that love and hold nothing back. Eyes that serve. Eyes that really see.

Maybe missions is really a refocusing of our vision?
-Allie Pohlmeier


"The art of abandoning ourselves to what God's love might have for us is not an elegant process. It is not a strong and steady one either. Sure, it produces elegant results. Strong results even. But this process is haphazard and unpolished, with bumps and rabbit trails and discouragement, misheard and misunderstood messages, and all-out tugs of war across the threshold of the door of our hearts." Jan Meyer

Saturday in Guatemala

Hola from Seteca! Today was a fun and busy day. We left Seteca around 9 and headed to Antigua to visit the Special Needs Hospital and Casa Shalom (where Ali Souther will be doing her internship). We also had a chance to walk around the beautiful city of Antigua. We did a little shopping, mainly Matt since he will not be with us when we go back. By the way is a very good “bargain” shopper. On to the good stuff J, the special needs hospital was a huge step for most of us. I know that I left with a heavy/sad heart, but I had to remind myself that they are loved by God and they hold a very special place in his heart. We also had the chance to see the babies in the hospital, which was super tough for me as a mom. All I could think to myself was, “Why these babies??” But I know God has huge plans for them and I can’t wait to go back and love on them some more. The short visit to Casa Shalom was amazing too. I am so excited and happy for Ali and her experiences that she will have there. This was also hard because most of these kids don’t have parents, and this I could not imagine how it would be to not have a relationship with my parents. While we were there we were told that they recently found one of the kids in a dump. This breaks my heart into a million pieces and I can’t even wrap my brain around this. So leaving there was a little tough too, but I know the ladies there love the kids and are taking care of them along with God’s help. I know the kids are happy there. I know that Matt touched on the land field a little in the previous blog, but being back there again just reminds me that God is at work in the land field on a daily basis. I had the chance to be reunited with a family I met last time I was here and one of the kiddos. The picture from the previous blog was the family that I really connected with. Jefferson and his family hold a very special place in my heart. I also got to see Nelson aka “spiderman” again. It was great to see how much they had grown and how well they were doing. Once we returned from our adventure for the day we came back to Seteca and ate our Wal Mart dinner and continued to prepare for the arrival of the team. It’s now time to go make 30+ PB&J’s and set up the rooms. So until next time, ADIOS!!

Chelsea Beard

Matthew 28:19-20

Friday Evening Perspective from Matt Babcock

Greetings from Seteca! Today was our first full day in Guatemala, as we continue to pray and prepare for the remainder of our team to arrive on Sunday. We were all blessed with a great nights sleep last night, which was tremendously needed as we woke up this morning full of energy and ready to go. We began the day with a short time of debriefing from Thursday and a discussion of how God was speaking to each of us as we prepare to dive into ministry. Most of us agreed that the most challenging part so far is simply the language barrier. Thankfully, we have Ingrid to translate for us and boy is she amazing! Without her, a few of us would not have gotten to Seteca or eaten a meal yesterday or today...literally! This afternoon we made another trip to Wal-Mart to gather supplies for the coming week of VBS. Later in the afternoon, we gathered in the landfill for a feeding of food donated by the local church. From the perspective of the two first timers, the experience was heartbreaking and encouraging all at once. Heartbreaking in the sense that no matter how many stories you hear or pictures you see of life in the landfill, you cannot truly grasp this level of poverty until you step into the middle of it. These people literally have NOTHING material. Despite this, strangely we all left greatly encouraged by the simple fact that many of these people have nothing, yet resonate with joy as if they had everything. You can't help but be broken by this redefinition of wealth. This type of joy in these circumstances cannot possibly come from anywhere but Jesus. As for the "Guatemala veterans", it was so cool to watch them reconnect with children they bonded with on past trips, some from years ago. For these kids, knowing that someone remembers their name is priceless. Our experience has been amazing so far and we cannot wait until Sunday when the remainder of our team joins us on the journey! We so appreciate and need your continued prayer and support as we continue our efforts here. It is nothing short of incredible to seethe efforts of so many Lakewood prayer warriors, missionaries, and givers bear fruit in so many lives.

Early Set Up Day One

The five of us, Chelsea Beard,Allie Polhmeier, Matt Babcock, Hannah Miller and I, Ali Souther began ourjourney early yesterday morning to Guatemala City, Guatemala. Got throughsecurity with no issues, got to our gate and had one of the smoothest travelsI’ve ever experienced.

On the plane, me, Hannah andChelsea were all in one row with Matt across from us. Allie was a row behindus. This is when the trip began. I would like to take a minute to mention andremind you all that God really has a sense of humor and that he puts people inour lives for specific reasons. Allie began talking to the man seated next toher and of course us three girls are listening in because we have a feelingthat this conversation is going to be good. The man was atheist; however he wasopen to religion. He had lived in Israel in a place where Jesus himself hadstepped foot. “You lived on grounds where Jesus was and you are an atheist?”asked Allie is disbelief. During the entire 3 hours, Allie and this man didn’thave a quiet moment. She gently shared Christ with him and even pulled out TheMessage to show him how cool and different it was.  We need to take every opportunity we arepresented with to share the love of God. That is what this entire trip isabout. We cannot pass up these opportunities. We are here for a purpose, for God’spurpose.

We arrived in Guatemala yesterdayafternoon around 11:30 in the morning Guatemala time. Ingrid, Ingrid’s brotherWalter, Pastor Saul Perez and his wife and daughter Olivia were all waiting forus outside of the airport. Walter drove us to Seteca to drop our luggage off sothat we could go to Walmart to eat lunch and to get the necessities for VBSsuch as snacks and juice boxes and any other personal items we needed.  We made our way to the back of the store tothe deli and eating area.

 After smooth travels and no problems we all realizedthe trip wasn’t going to be just as perfect as the travels. Our primarylanguage was not the primary language here. As we struggled trying tocommunicate, we chose what we wanted from rice, beans, chicken, tomales,chuchitas and a few other items. Thanks to Ingrid’s help with translating, wewere more at ease. After eating a delicious authentic Guatemalan WalMart lunch,we went to the bank in the front of the WalMart to exchange money from USdollars to Guatemalan Quetzales. We each exchanged a portion of the money thenwent to another bank so that we could do the same. We headed back to theWalmart to shop.

5 full buggies later we had whatseemed like endless amounts of waffer vanilla crackers, juice boxes, water jugsand bottles and mini bags of Tortrix.  The strange and confused looks we got from thelocals also seemed endless. There was no doubt that the five Americans stuckout like sore thumbs. Not only did we look American, but we struggled to speakthe same language as the Guatemalans. Allie speaks Spanish and I speak Spanishbut it’s still difficult. While trying to find what we needed, many of theworkers who were offering out free samples on every corner continued toapproach us with the offer. Hannah and I learned that it’s easiest to just say,“No Gracias.” That seemed appropriate at the time.

After unloading piles of groceriesand taking time for ourselves to mooch off the wifi and Skype our families atSeteca, Oliva met us and we all went to Miraflores, the local mall (which Imust point out is huge and pretty nice) to eat dinner in the food court. We allgot something different to eat but all had the same satisfaction. The fast foodhere is unlike American fast food. It’s not greasey and it doesn’t make youfeel heavy and sick after you indulge.

 Matt and Hannah struggled with the guy at TacoBell and really couldn’t understand what he was saying. Although it was tough,the two tried as best they could to communicate. Matt still isn’t sure if theman asked if he wanted any sauce or not. I guess we will never know. When Iordered a “McPollo, numero cinco” at Mcdonald’s (Which is a McChicken, numberfive for you non Spanish speakers) I thought I was doing pretty well with myspeaking. Next thing I know the lady asked a question that I had not a singleclue what it meant. After maybe 5 or 6 times repeating and breaking down everyword for me, I realized she was asking me if I wanted to eat in the food courtor if I was taking it to-go. They looked at me like I was so incompetent. Aftereating we called it a night and came back to Seteca to settle in and get a goodnight’s rest.

                Thismorning, we four ladies unpacked the five crates of school supplies, organizedmore money to exchange, did a few little tasks here and there, and beganorganizing the supplies for the days at the preschool and the days at theLandfill. Matt came in and helped make the sack lunches for the rest of theteam when they get here on Sunday.

                Afterwe wrapped up everything, we all went outside and discussed what the Lord wastelling us through our quiet time this morning. We shared then prayed for eachother specifically and then went over tomorrow and Saturday’s schedules. Lunchwas at Miraflores mall again. And the day wouldn’t be complete without pickingup a few more items at WalMart.

Tonight we are going to theLandfill for the Feeding. We distribute food to the people who live in thedump. Following the Feeding, we are taking Pastor Saul and his family out todinner. Overall, the past two days have been stressful, busy and overwhelming,but the thing is, it’s not about how we feel. Of course we are going to gettired; that’s inevitable. We didn’t come down early to have a relaxed couple ofdays to vacation. So what if we are constantly busy or overwhelmed? We are doingthis so that the rest of the team doesn’t have to be constantly overwhelmedduring the week. We are doing this because we want to do it. We want to help.People have to realize it’s not all about us. Sacrificing some things is notgoing to make the world end. 

I have high hopes for these next 8days. I feel the Lord is up to something radical. I just know He is going touse us all in different ways but to really impact people and glorify Him.“Greater things have yet to come. Greater things are still to be done in thiscity.” Pray for our health and stability, mentally, spiritually, physically andemotionally. God is at work here in Guatemala.

Hasta el tiempo proximo. (untilnext time)

-Ali Souther