Tuesday

One Tuesday, our first day of actual ministry with one of our ministries, Birdhouse. I came into ministry with a bad attitude because we weren’t able to go to see the famous kite festival in Sumpongo, our other ministry host city. So I had a bad attitude coming in but it ended up being an amazing day. When we got to the house the sky was super clear so we got to see and hear the volcano erupting. We also heard it erupting all day and it sounded like thunder but it was sunny and clear out. Then we split into two groups to do house visits. At the first house my group went to, we got to talk to a lady and her daughter. We also got to hold her two month old baby. She really didn’t have any prayer requests and didn’t seem all that interested in what we had to say. So after praying for her we left. We had some extra time so we did ATL (ask the lord). The whole time while we were praying all I could think about was the house across the street of the woman we had just talked to. One of the other women in my group also saw red, which the little girl in the house across the street was wearing red. So we knocked on the door and went to talk to that family. We got invited in to the home and were instantly met with an overwhelming amount of hospitality. We talked to the mom of the house and her very old mother-in-law. We talked to the mom about her family, her 10 kids and how six of them still live at the house. She talked to us about her daughters mother-in-law, who passed away a week before we got there and how she was dealing with comforting her daughter. She said the funeral was a couple days ago but she couldn’t attend because she had so much pain in her legs so she couldn’t leave the house. She expressed how she was struggling with that. One of the women in my group, Soledad was translating for us the whole time. She asked us if we wanted to say anything to her and all I could think of was Psalm 18:2. So I asked Soledad to translate that for me. After I gave her that scripture, a weight was lifted off my chest. Then we prayed for healing over this woman’s legs. Elizabeth, my team leader lead the prayer and Soledad translated for the women. After we were done praying she said her legs felt better which was crazy. It is such a hard concept for me to grasp, but to see it in person was a whole different experience and opened my eyes to Gods power. This woman’s mother-in-law was deaf and really old and had a lot of pain in her arms and shoulders. So we prayed over her and before we started Soledad asked me to lead the prayer, which I never have done, but I agreed. So I lead and Soledad translated for us. It was a huge step for me. She said she felt a little better but the woman was just happy to have people to pray and talk to her. Then the mom told us about her 11-year-old daughter who has a disability but doesn’t know what it is. So we went to talk to her, you couldn’t really have a conversation with her but she loves hugs! The mom said some days she’s really happy ( like the day we were there) and other days she hits and bites her siblings and will tear up her clothes when she’s mad. So she asked us to pray for peace over her daughter. Even though we weren’t able to see the fruit right away after praying, the mom still highly appreciated it. After we left that families house I broke down sobbing all the way back to our ministry hosts home. I don’t know why but I guess God really put those people in my path for a reason and was breaking my heart for his people. Later in the afternoon we taught English and at first it was discouraging because only five kids were there 30 mins late but then ended the day with 36 kids. Crazy. It was so much fun and just a great day loving on the community of Acatenango!

As always here’s some photos: