Within the past week God has revealed to me that I have been stuck in a prison of comparison.  In one instance, I had just finished praying for a numerous amount of people and was feeling so connected to God.  I have learned that the enemy strikes and feeds me lies when I am beginning to trust more and more in God.  As everyone else on the team started telling about their experiences, I immediately got down on myself with thoughts of not being adequate enough to be used by God.  As I snapped out of it I realized that God DID use me and teach me something, just in a...

Mannnnn Where to start?                 First blog of the summer!! Rachel and Don you have my apologies. J Anyway, where in the world should I begin?? First I would like to give a shout out to my team. I have grown closer to some people, but everyone is unique in their way of helping me become more Christ like. I would not trade any of you for someone else. BELIEVE THAT!! My second shout out goes to the most intriguing spiritual man I have met in all my 21 years. It is honor working under Pastor Ben in Panajachel,...

Wow, quel beau voyage ! Nous en proitons pour servir Dieu, mais egalement pour profiter du temps quon est ici au Guatemala. L autre jour, alors que nous etions suppose aller aider le pasteur a ravailler sur le bord du la,  Darren et moi sommes aller samuser dans un betau qui etait a moitie innode dans leau. Nous avons troue de la peinture, alors nous nous sommes empresser de nous couvrir tout le corps de peiture simplement pour niaiser. Ce que nous ne savions pas a ce moment, cest que la peinture etait faite a base dune huile puissante pour bateau, ce qui oulait ire que la peinture ne...

This past week families from the church adopted two people from our team and I got the opportunity to be paired with Megan. Our family consists of a married couple, Carlos and Miriam and their three sons Carlos, Abraham, and Isai (God works through this 4 year old already and its evident).  Miriam is such a strong believer in Christ and probably has the most faith out of any woman or man I have ever met. From just being around her a few times eating with her family, I feel like my faith has been strengthened so much more and have learned so much. Every word that she says I want to pay...

Well, we’ve past the half-way point for this incredibly life-changing summer!  I’ve done things I never thought I would, met some absolutely amazing people, and witnessed the healing hand of God.  There is simply no way for me to tell you everything that God has been teaching me, so I’ll fill you in on one of the “themes” that keeps reoccurring.  For those of you that know me well, you know that I am grounded, need a plan, enjoy being in charge, and thrive off of order.  Unfortunately (or fortunately), the word “plan”...

 Rachel Short here, checking in from the humble abode. The Lord has revealed so much to me these past few weeks.  As I live in this culture, community, eat what they eat, do what they do, see what they see, I can’t imagine going back to what used to be my reality.  I have been praying to the Lord about my future and where He wants me to go.  For so long I was not sure where I was going with my life, but coming on this trip I gave up what I wanted so that I could receive the gift that God wanted to give me.  I am so thankful that I chose to accept what...

My heart has been broken into fragments. Broken for the 32million girls in modern day slavery             but more specifically Broken for Mercy*, one of these girls,             whose spirit is dejected and hopeless             whose eyes lit for such a brief second             when she thought she saw her son, who she hasn’t seen for 7 months. Broken for the...

´´May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.´´  Romans 15:13 Everyday here in Panajachel has been filled with so much joy and peace.  I am constantly learning new things about Gods character, but for the past few days it has been compassion.  At the beginning of the week I was drawn to John 11 where Jesus is comforting Martha and Mary for the loss of their brother.  When Jesus saw how deeply saddened they were, he was deeply moved and he...

On Sunday, Team Panajachel had the opportunity to visit a hospital in a neighboring town; our objective was to pray for the patients there and ask that the Lord’s powerful hand would heal their bodies and transform their hearts.  After a curvy and slightly nauseating “chicken bus” ride up the mountain, we arrived at the hospital in Solola.  I didn’t really know what to expect, just that it would be different than the state-of-the-art hospital where my mom works back home; what we saw was far worse than anything my imagination could have conjured.  In...

The Lord is doing awesome work within our team! Our weeks are basically set with a schedule right now but starting next week we are about to start doing more outreach and be able to pour God into people’s lives. As of right now we have been working with Pastor Ben on two projects, building a retaining wall for a family whose house gets bombarded with mud from landslides, and also completing a well at Pastor Ben’s house was just now completed after 3 years of being worked on. The wall should be done sometime this week as well. Pictures of working at the wall Alaina, Nic, and...