First Thoughts On Guatemala

Hey everyone. As many of you know Ben and I recently took an incredible trip to Guatemala. We are working on our next newsletter but won't have room to include all our Guatemala stories. This will also be a great way to keep everyone updated on a more regular basis of what we are doing this year. God has a heart for the poor and forgotten in our society. In today's world immigrants are often some of the most forgotten.

The word immigrant raises a variety of emotions. It's easy for us to say close the borders, save our jobs. But it's harder to actually put our self in their shoes and try to understand why they even want to be here. Here in LaGrange we have met several immigrant families from both Mexico and Guatemala. Some are lucky enough to be living here with their families, but for many they have come alone, leaving their family behind because it's too risky. But the question I like many other have asked is why? Why would you leave your family and come to America. Spending time in Guatemala has helped me to understand the why question a bit more.

We spent about two days in Guatemala City. One of the first things I noticed was the barbed wire and broken glass above the walls that surrounded peoples homes and businesses. We visited the national cemetery and saw 1000's of vultures swarming overhead. I thought I was odd, but once we made it to the back of the cemetery I saw why. Just behind the opulent monuments constructed to remember the dead were individuals who were searching through one of the cities dumps. There they along with countless mutts and vultures were scavenging for food or anything of value. Your heart and stomach were in knots because of the plight of others. We are so blessed to live in America with our supermarkets and access to so much. It was sobering reminder of how wealthy we really are.

We left Guatemala City and traveled to El Sauce a mountain community in Huehuetenango. It was about a 7 or 8 hour ride from Guatemala City. The drive itself was pretty incredible. We saw more shanty cinderblock homes literally on the side of the road than I ever knew even existed. People seem to build homes wherever they find room. We made it to El Sauce at about 6pm. Well we made it to the base of the dirt road that let to El Sauce at 6pm. We had to get our of our van and load up in the bed of small 4x4 Toyota, in the rain, with about 14 pieces of luggage (not all ours we brought things from LaGrange family members). And we were traveling on a incredibly steep, narrow, now muddy up through the mountains. It was rather terrifying to peek from under the tarp to see the edge of a cliff! After about 30 minutes we made it to our destination and were greeted by the most gracious hosts.

When I have more time I will share more from our trip. I am going to try to upload a few videos from El Sauce if I can.