Internalizing Our Adventure

I can hardly believe that we have already been back for a week and a half. It is amazing to me how quickly life seems to fly by. Since getting back, many of us (in fact over 1/3 of the Guatemala team) were involved with leading Vacation Bible School at CPPC. It was refreshing to be able to communicate with the kids in English, but at the same time I miss the pure joy of the kids in the villages in Guatemala. In Guatemala, we could pull out a thing of bubbles and entertain 40-50 kids for 15 minutes. Here in the states, that is just not the case. When kids have so much more, they expect so much more. I have noticed that in my own life as well. The more I have, the more I expect.

As we begin to return to a life that "resembles" normal, I am forced to figure out how what happened in Guatemala fits into a my life here in the states. I want our time and our experiences with the Guatemalan people to be life transforming, and always on my heart, but I find myself to busy to think. To busy to breathe in all that was our trip to Guatemala. My prayer for each of the team members today is that they would begin and continue to internalize everything we did, saw, heard, smelled, etc. That we could each find moments to relive our experiences in our mind. Even as I am writing this update, my mind is taking me back to the local market in Antigue. The smells of the meat market so strong and so awful that you can taste it! The beautiful colors of the fabrics. The sense of being a little on edge, afraid that the group might get split up, and we would never find our way out. All of those senses, all of the memories, may God bring back such experiences to each of us, so that we can take the time to examine and debrief, and better understand what God was not just doing through us, but to us while we were in Guatemala.

Thank you everyone for your countless prayers and support. My goal is to have team members write stories from their experiences, and post them on this blog for the next few weeks or even months. Please keep checking back to see more of the world we experienced in Guatemala.

In Christ
Doug