From Starkville With Love, MCRAY: Guatemala 2015

This summer I was blessed with another opportunity to go to Guatemala.:) Eek. Guatemala is an extremely beautiful country full of people with big loving hearts and I love it!

So I'm just going to write a kinda quick summery of my journey this year. Like last year, I went with The Avenue Church in Waxahachie, Texas to work with Engadi Ministries in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Engadi Ministries Intl. exists to provide a safe and nurturing environment to boys who have been trapped within the cycles of poverty and violence that characterize Guatemala City’s slums, helping them to achieve their full potential in Christ Jesus. We believe all children deserve the chance to pursue a brighter future, and we strive to make that hope attainable through community-wide services that include education, home construction, and healthcare. Specifically, we strive to identify boys with a drive to succeed, and to support their growth as “mighty men” who will value family, love God and change their communities for the better. A comprehensive, sustained approach is critical. So we serve boys’ spiritual, physical, and intellectual needs over the long-term, encouraging them to pursue ambitious goals. (engadi ministries.org).

So yeah. To start out our trip we helped host a family festival in Zone 18. It was basically to bring children and some of their parents out of their homes and just have a fun day playing around and having fun. We painted faces, made bracelets, played soccer, and a lot of different games with them.:)

That night our church group at supper at a fast food "chicken"(it's not really chicken) restaurant called Pollo Campero and then we headed back to the team house, where we stayed.

The next two mornings we worked on the road (like we did last year) leading up to where the engadi property is (where the boys will stay). We were wheel barrowing large rocks up a hill, wheel barrowing mescala (concrete) down a slight hill, and placing the rocks/mescala in frames/boxes on the road. So yeah I'm pretty sure I got some new muscles on my trip! The scenery surrounding the road was sooo beautiful so we took a lot of artsy pics and super cute selfies

The next day (day4) we painted an elementary school in zone 18 for half of the day, and we played with the children in that school the other half.

On day 5, we worked on the road again and then walke up to the property.

We hiked a volcano in Guatemala on day 6!!! On our (I think) 3 mile hike, we stopped and roasted marshmallows on lava rocks (wow) on the way! So that was pretty crazy. Once we started to get to the top, it was steaper to walk and the air was super thin so it was extremely hard to breathe! We had an option of riding a horse instead of hiking butttt I didn't want to be a wimp and the horses were super skinny so I opted out of that.