Guatemala. What a place, what a time, what a God.

Well you know what they say, all great things must come to an end. But calling these past two months “great” is the biggest understatement I’ve ever heard. Seriously though, calling these past two months “great” sounds straight up insulting. 

“Well how would you describe it Caleb?”

Awesome question! How about life-changing? Mind blowing? God moving? Unlike anything I’ve ever experienced? You see what I’m gettin’ at? But honestly, I’m not even sure if these words do this time justice. You would have to physically see everything we did. But obviously the technology I have in mind to make this happen doesn’t exist, so you’re just going to have to stick with these words, deal with it.

Jokes aside Guatemala surpassed any expectations I had before coming here. It took some getting used to but when you slowed down, looked around you at everything, lived in the moment, and carried God with you wherever you went, you would be as in love with this country as much as I am. I loved every single second being here. Even the hard seconds and days were awesome, because I learned and grew so much from these. In general I learned so much. My identity, hearing the voice of God, being called by God, committing to God, being empowered by the holy spirit, evangelizing, the authority we carry, speaking life into any situation, and the list goes on and on. I could spend hours talking about these things and many other things as well. 

Reading and studying scripture has also been very awesome. One book I was in for awhile was Psalms. There were so many passages that revealed things to me about myself and God. One of my favorite things I read is Psalm chapter 18 verses 1 through 19. And I want everyone who reads this post to go read these verses themselves and see what you get from it. In the future I might post a blog where I give my interpretation of these verses and talk about them, because this is one of the coolest things I’ve ever read in scripture.

Now getting back to Guatemala I’m sure y’all are wondering what exactly I’ve been up to here. Me and my team, El Perseguido, worked with this ministry called One Way Community. They’re located in a village called San Lorenzo. They’re a group of around 20 Guatemalans and they are such awesome people. Working with them was such a blast. We grew so close to them to the point where we weren’t just friends with them, but brothers. And they were so incredibly nice to us. They took us on two different trips that were some of my favorite moments in Guatemala. The first place was a beautiful lake called Aititlan (I’m not sure if that’s how you spell it). This was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. It was gigantic and surround by volcanoes. We rode in a boat around in this lake and went to different places. The first was a city called San Juan where we took a small hike to this awesome lookout point. The views there were breathtaking. Best way to describe it is that it literally looked like something straight out of heaven, it was that beautiful. You could spend hours upon hours just looking at everything around you. After this we hiked back down and took a boat to a place where we did cliff jumping. This was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done, it was terrifying and awesome at the same time. The second place they took us was a place called Peten in North Guatemala. I loved this trip so much because it happened during my birthday (the best one ever). We went swimming in so many different beautiful places. On the night of New Year’s Eve they took us to a rooftop restaurant so we could see all the fireworks go off. In case you didn’t know fireworks are a huge thing in Guatemala and when it was midnight, more fireworks than I could imagine were going off in every direction. My favorite part of this trip was when we explored Mayan ruins. This day was so cool. There were so many places and buildings to explore it was do epic. Best way to describe exploring these ruins would be they were like a playground for adults. 

Now getting back to working in San Lorenzo, we worked there with One Way Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday every week. Monday, Tuesday, and Friday were spent in San Lorenzo, doing house visits, teaching kids english, delivering food bags, and soccer training. These are what we would typically do. Teaching english was probably my favorite thing. It was really fun working with kids, which is sayin’ something ’cause I’m someone who’s not the biggest fan of kids but I had a blast working with Guatemalan kids. Another reason I loved teaching English is that not only was I teaching english, but I was also learning Spanish at the same time. Occasionally there would be other unique projects that I loved doing. One of these other things was building a house. This was one of my favorite things we did. At first I shoveled a lot of dirt around to make the ground as level as possible so the foundation could be made. Then I helped mix together concrete for building cinderblock walls. I never actually put the walls together I just helped mix the concrete, which was a great learning experience. My favorite part came next with nailing walls together. I was a carpenter before I came on the race so it felt really good to use my skills for this project. 

These kinds of projects were spread out throughout our time in San Lorenzo and I loved doing them. But I want to talk about Wednesday’s. Every other day we work in San Lorenzo but on Wednesday’s we drive about an hour to a different place called Comolapa (there’s a chance that’s spelled wrong, sorry). Here we play with kids, and it’s very fun. We have different stations with different activities set up and the kids are divided up into groups based around their age and they rotate between stations. We do this for about 3 hours then we pack up and drive another hour to a mountain village called Palima (again I’m not sure if that’s how you spell it, sorry). Here we do the exact same thing for around 2 1/2 – 3 hours. Wednesday’s are longer days but they’re very fun days and I grew a lot in them.

So you might be wondering what we do on Thursdays because we’re not with One Way these days. Thursdays are for something called activation. It’s something the staff at our base do every Thursday. It’s very simple what we do, we learn something and then we do it. One of the staff members gives a teaching on something that’s meant for us and then whatever we take from it we apply it to our lives. These were my favorite days as they were the days where I learned everything I mentioned earlier and where God moved a lot in my life. Every teaching impacted me in some way, shape, or form. I might share about these things some day.

“Caleb this post is runnin’ pretty long can I take a bathroom break real quick?”

Sure but I’m gonna start wrapping this up now. Like I said earlier, I don’t think words can do this time justice. As I’m writing this I feel like I’m missing so much and the only way for you to truly understand how amazing these past two months were is for you to physically see them. But unfortunately, I don’t have anything I can show you so you’ll have to settle for this post. 

Our next country is South Africa, and I’m very excited for it. I love Guatemala so much and I hope I get led back here someday, but for now I’m ready to move on. There are some opportunities I learned about, that would bring me back here, and may have been called to. If this does end up happening I’ll share it. I’m going to miss this country so much. I’m so grateful for everything God has done for me here. Every day I’m filled with so much gratitude. I’m so excited for the rest of this trip.

We’re just getting started, the best is yet to come.

Caleb.

“Contend, Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me. Take up shield and armor; arise and come to my aid. Brandish spear and javelin against those who pursue me, say to me, “I am your salvation.” Psalm 35:1-3.