Annalise’s Story: Guatemala Pt: 1

Hello From Guatemala!

We just finished week 2 in the land of eternal spring! It’s been so amazing to see all the incredible ways God’s been moving in our ministry and in these beautiful people. We’ve been living at the Adventures in Missions base just outside of Antigua. It’s settled right under the volcano Acatenango, and we get some really pretty views of the mountains and the surrounding villages. For most of our weekdays, we are up for breakfast at 7:00 and leaving for ministry around 8:00. We get back from ministry right around dinner time, which is 5:30. We spend some time after dinner debriefing the day, and then it’s a couple hours of free time before going to bed! One of my favorite things about living out of the base is that we get to sleep in bunks! 

There are 2 different organizations that my team is partnering with for ministry. The first is called Reindom, and it’s based in Sumpango, Guatemala. Reindom is run by about 5 young adults, ages 18-29, who have a heart for serving their home city and showing the love of Christ to people who are usually forgotten. On Mondays with Reindom, we travel about 10 minutes outside of Sumpango to a village nicknamed “the forgotten town”. Here, the streets are filled with stray dogs and trash. Most of the homes consist of 4 sheet metal walls and a dirt floor, all the size of a small bedroom, and usually holding about 5-15 people. During the day, all the parents leave to work in the city or in the fields, and the children are left all alone. It’s not unusual to see children as young as 2 by themselves or left in the care of siblings who are barely older than them. Their parents may not be home for almost 12 hours, and the children are left to fend for themselves. Reindom comes in 3 times a week and provides a program for the kids and feeds them a meal. Usually as many as 70 children come out for this. Our role is just to provide a space to let them be kids, which we do by playing soccer, doing crafts, and just loving them as best we can. 

The second organization is called birdhouse ministries! Its mission is to spread the love of God by building houses for people who lost theirs. I’m really excited to get to join them in serving the village of Acatenango! We will probably be starting with them in the coming weeks, and I will keep you guys updated on that!

Every Wednesday, Reindom puts on a lunch for the homeless people and addicts living in Sumpango. It’s called “la mesa del Rey” or King’s Table, and its purpose is to make people who are typically looked over by society feel seen and loved. They do this by home cooking the food, putting tablecloths and placemats at every seat, and overall making it feel like a very fancy lunch. The first week that we got to be a part of this, I was asked to be on the connections team. My job was to sit at a table with a bunch of women and make conversation with them. Small talk has always been a challenge for me, but small talk in a different language is a whole different ball game. Hear me out, my DC education (shout out Miss Arnold) prepared me well for living in Guatemala for three months, but speaking in a classroom setting is very different from speaking and understanding in real life. Especially when you consider that many of the women were talking with very muffled voices, whether by age or condition. The most I could say was simple questions, but the women didn’t seem to care. They appeared happy that they had someone to talk to, even though I could understand very little of what they were saying. 

The following week I was asked to do the same role of making connections at the table, and this time I was much more prepared. I had been praying all week that the Lord would multiply my Spanish so I could speak to these women and actually carry on a conversation. So, like the previous week, I sat at my table and began with the awkward small talk. Immediately one of the women, Annalise, asked if I could pray over her. As she explained what was ailing her, I was surprised that I could understand every word of what she was saying. As I began to pray over her, she grabbed my hand and pulled me into a very strong hug for a 4 foot 10, 70 year old woman. I realized very quickly that the words I was using to pray over her were words that I had never seen on a vocab list, or anywhere else for that matter. Yet, I understood them, and as she sobbed into my shoulder, it appeared she understood them as well. She told me after that she loved the Lord and that she believed He was the only one who could heal her from her condition.

For many reasons, Annalise’s story stuck with me. She clearly was suffering greatly and desperate for healing, and yet she had full faith that the Lord was going to heal her, whether in this life or the next. Not only that, but she was also overflowing with joy, despite her situation. She would clap and dance in her seat during worship, and every time you thanked her, she would respond with “gracias a Dios, no a mi” (thanks be to God, not to me).

Well that’s all for now! As always, I’d love to hear your responses or if you have any questions! Comment or reach out! Also if you’d like to support Reindom or just check out more of what they’re doing, you can either contact me or find them on insta (@reino.rndm). Thanks again!

-KJ