Guat a great start to the week! After 9 hours of travel we arrived in Guatemala City on Saturday at about 7:30 pm local time (9:30pm Raleigh time). We met the orphanage missions coordinator, Vera, at the airport and she took us to get dinner at a local "taco stand" restaurant. It was delicious!! We were amazed at how modern Guatemala City is, as we were driving through from the airport to the restaurant and orphanage. There are so many stores and restaurants, many of them American chains, that are so nice! We drove to the orphanage after dinner and got settled into the volunteer house, where we will be staying for the week. We have a "boys room" and a "girls room" full of bunk beds and we can tell already that it will be a fun week! :)
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| Our team (minus Catherine) in the RDU airport, ready to go! |
On Sunday, we had the great privilege of worshiping at Casa de Libertad, the local church that partners with Fundaniños orphanage and several other ministries in the city. It is part of the Acts 29 church network, just like TCC, and we were amazed at how similar the service and preaching were to TCC's! (minus the different language!) We enjoyed worshiping with them and getting to talk with the pastor and several other people after the service.
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| Dana and her new best friend :) |
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| The Fundaniños property, looking down the hill from the volunteer house. The kids and staff houses, volunteer house, kitchen, and playground are at the top of the hill, with the soccer field and other open area towards the bottom. |
After church, we headed back to the orphanage for our first afternoon with the kids! We helped serve and clean the dishes, then had a brief orientation and tour of the center from the staff here. There are about 50-60 kids living here, mostly ages 4-20 (majority are teenagers and older elementary age). We have been playing soccer with them, four-square, making headbands, sidewalk chalk, and just hanging out and trying to build relationships with them. We love it here!
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| Hanging out with the kids |
On Monday, the kids were at school in the morning, so we helped with a project here: staining part of the fence for the chicken coop! We planned and cooked dinner for all the kids tonight, so we finished our shopping for the ingredients this morning and then a few team members spent most of the afternoon cooking (we made baked ziti casserole, salad, and garlic bread!) Another highlight of the day was an impromptu dance party in the kitchen this afternoon before dinner. Several of the teenagers living here love to dance, and a few of our team members decided to join the party! We had such a fun time together and are thankful to see the kids opening up to us more and more.
