Before this trip, I thought I knew what community meant. I mean, I lived at college for 3 years. But let me tell you – living in a house with 19 people and 2 bathrooms 24/7 for 2 months is a completely different story than sharing a room with one or two other people.   Community is messy. It’s overwhelming.  But I’ve learned to love it.   Community is using the toilet while someone is showering and someone is brushing their teeth and someone is fixing their hair. Having 25 bottles in the shower. 2 lines and a table full of everyone’s laundry,...

Let me start this blog out by saying that I am completely in LOVE with Jesus.   This week was different at the cerebral palsy orphanage. They asked us to come a little earlier so that we could help the nurses bathe them. IT WAS SO HARD. I am not comfortable at all, but somehow I was able to make it through carrying, washing, dressing, and loving 8 precious orphans. When I went to help her undress the last child she stopped me. First, she handed me gloves (which we hadn’t used on any of the other children) and looked at me with a look of sorrow that immediately broke my heart....

When I first walked by Ever in the Cerebral Palsy orphanage, he pretended to be asleep. I obviously responded immediately by pretending to fall asleep on his face, and lemme tell you… He has a laugh that I'm never going to forget! The way he lights up every time I walk over to him, the way he starts to bite his hands so that I'll stop and pay attention to him, the way he lifts up his arms every time I tell him "Brazos!" so that he can experience what it's like to stand… he's perfect! Within the first week of laying on his mat...

Life here in San Pedro, Guatemala in a house with 19 people definitely gets interesting. Random dance parties happen. Spontaneous worship happens. I’m not shocked anymore to find myself brushing my teeth in the bathroom while someone’s on the toilet and someone else is in the shower. It’s easy to get caught up in this community. These 19 awesome people. This family. But today, yet again, God stepped in and reminded me of the larger community we’re called to be a part of. We’ve dubbed our newest unofficial ministry “San Pedro Evening Ministry.”...

What did we do this weekend? We went on a 14 mile hike. On a HUGE volcano. At 5 in the morning.   Exercise and silence with 19 people at 5 am is not exactly my idea of fun, but nonetheless I ended up there…and I am actually glad I did it.   Considering this would be such a huge challenge for me and it was exactly one month from my Uncle Dan’s next brain surgery, I decided I would do it for him. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease just a few years ago and has been one of the most encouraging and inspiring people I have ever met. So, I threw on my...

It was Sunday night, we were about to hear our ministry assignments for next week, and I was stoked. That was, until found out I would be doing manual labor for a week. I walked into our room, ready to have a serious talk with the Lord. To show him how disappointed I was, I even started tearing up. "Are you serious, God? Why?" —-I have a plan. "But the work's hard, it's…" —-Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these… you did for me.      Matthew 25:45 He began to mold my heart of stone into...

Yesterday, I was reflecting on our lives here and I started listing all the things that happen here regularly that we don't find too strange anymore, but y'all back home probably will. Regular things that aren’t regular back home. 1. Taking a shower in constant fear of being electrocuted. Just Google “Guatemalan shower heads”… 2. Squeezing into school buses that already contain at least 65 people. Not that I counted or anything. 3. Dipping dishes into bleach after washing them because the water is so contaminated. Because that doesn't defeat the...

This trip has been amazing. Every single part of it has been different than what I thought it would be. Normally, I would have been disappointed the entire time, and honestly I was in the beginning, but this year I’ve learned that life is never what you expect and regardless of what happens, Jesus is faithful every time.          I’ve never been comfortable in any type of medical situations. Nevertheless, I ended up in a cerebral palsy orphanage being challenged and stretched in crazy ways. I started out timid, but now I’m feeding blended...

The last two days we went back to hoeing dirt, and it was hard work, but I wouldn’t say I was as uncomfortable as when I danced with grandpas at the “grandpa house.” I have never really danced with a guy my own age, so when 75-year-old Oscar held out his hand and started moving his hips faster than I could follow, I was a little uncomfortable to say the least. The live band playing a gigantic xylophone played for a couple hours and by the end I wouldn’t say I would want to dance with a bunch of grandpas again, but I did have a new friend (One who would give me a...