San Pedro Evening Ministry

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.” My teammate, Brent, and I first began this by taking our laundry down to the community “tanke” and attempting to do our laundry.

This tanke is like a huge tank of water with built-in sinks all around where the local women come to wash their clothes. First off, we got a lot of stares. In San Pedro men don’t do laundry at these tankes. Neither do white people.

So between me and Brent we had the taboo covered.

He dipped his shirt into the huge water tank (not the sink like he was supposed to) and immediately the women all around burst into laughter. We realized how silly we looked and laughed with them.

It didn’t take long for an old woman named Bacilia to take pity on us, come over, and explain to us step by step how to wash our clothes the Guatemalan way.

But San Pedro Evening Ministry looks different every day, and that’s the awesome thing. Today Brent, Aaron, Joybelle, and I walked into San Pedro and decided to ask the Lord what He wanted us to do. So we were led down several streets and finally I saw the people I was supposed to talk to.

Paola is 7 and David is 9. They’re cousins and they were hanging out outside their grandparents’, Fidelia and Nicolas, house. They were sweeping away the mud and rain water in preparation for the procession that was going to pass in honor of San Pedro.

It’s incredible to me how open these people were. It felt like God has prepared their hearts to meet me and mine to meet them, almost as if they were expecting me.

While Brent, Aaron, and Joybelle talked to a neighbor man, I met Paola’s pollito (baby chick), two dogs, and cat. I learned about their lives and got invited to visit again. They were eager to answer the questions I had for them and to ask me about myself.

This is the community we’re called to be a part of. And it’s awesome, literally standing in the cobblestone street, holding hands, asking for God to lead us to the people He wants us to encounter.

I was thinking back on training camp when we did “Ask the Lord” in Toccoa. During that I didn’t really hear anything, and I really wondered how in the world I could go up to strangers and have meaningful conversations that would lead to lasting relationships.

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:7

The old me would never go up to people in the street, boldly presenting myself to them and relying completely on the Lord to Lead me. But I’ve found that the more I lean into Him and let Him show up like He wants to, the more I feel my heart changing. I want less of me and more of Him.

…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17