We were thankful to be here for the last 2 of the clinic days. There is so much to share, but I will share just a few details here.

Our days have started with spiritual strengthening through Dr. Alb\'s inspiring talks and prayer. We’ve delighted in his stories of how he started and led this ministry for the past 40 years.

Several of us got to take part in praying and witnessing a healing in one of our own teammates on Wednesday.

At the villages, where we set up clinic in their church buildings, we\'ve taken turns at different stations, including sharing/prayer stations, a makeshift pharmacy, playing with the village kids, and for me, working as a provider in the clinic. It has been heartbreaking hearing the people share their stories.  Widows struggling to provide for their families, a mother whose son is sick and stuck somewhere in Mexico after being swindled of the family’s life savings in an attempt to get to the US, a girl the same age as Ellie who lost her mother 6 months ago, never knew her father, was abused by the first relative who took her in, and is now living with another relative, and who now just longs for a mother.  These are just a few of the many challenging stories of loss and suffering our team heard about this week.  The patients have all come with various physical ailments, and we’ve struggled to help with the limited medicines we have and the knowledge that their lack of access to clean water and adequate continued medical care means they will continue to suffer.  But we are learning that the deeper and more important need is the spiritual. Though we have only been able to share and pray for a few in our short time here, we trust God will use our and your prayers to continue to do His work here.  Pray that He would not just bring healing and justice in their lives, but strong faith in the God who sustains.

Wanted to update sooner that we did finally make it here but it\'s been a whirlwind couple of days!  My update today isn\'t the most exciting but it has very much felt like a purposeful part of the whole experience.  I will write more about our actual trip in a separate post.

Our journey here was another lesson in living with open hands. The not-great flight options we had seen went up exponentially in cost when we checked back later that evening. So Clarence eventually managed to find 2 flights on 2 different airlines that would get us from ATL to Miami to Guatemala in a reasonable amount of time, leaving Monday.  Then, not surprisingly after the obstacles we\'d already encountered, about 80% of the way to Miami, we got diverted to Tampa due to bad weather...and remained there until long after we would have missed our second flight (which we found out later was completely cancelled).  We started wondering if perhaps we weren\'t meant to go...but decided to give it one more shot.  We rebooked the second flight for the next morning, and spent the night in Miami.  Thankfully, the flight to Guatemala on Tuesday morning was a breeze.

By this point, we felt we\'d actually experienced a lot of the aspects of a mission trip, though we weren\'t even there yet--new experiences and environments, plans that take unexpected turns, discomfort (at extreme levels), praying a lot, bonding with our team (albeit over WhatsApp, and the weirdness of circumstances), conflict with teammates (our own family), experiencing changes to our hearts and faith through the challenges...

When we were finally united with our team, we were overwhelmed by the warm welcome.  Through all the prayers, we had already bonded, and felt so encouraged by this. 

We found out through comparing notes that my kidney stone passing may well have been a miracle -- the mission team here the week before us gathered to pray for me, and the director had prayed specifically for the stone to pass, about 15 min before I sent a text to my team letting them know the kidney stone had passed--and on my end, the pain from my stone had subsided about 15 min before I sent that text, so the timing was spot-on.  

Thank you for joining with us and our team and all your prayers!!  

Well, we didn\'t quite make it. On our way to the airport this morning, a kidney stone decided it was time to come out and sent me to the ER. Thankfully, rather than having to go home to keep laboring (it really felt like the worst part of labor), it appears to have passed while I was there, praise God!  (Most sources say stones take 1-4 weeks to pass, so we count this a little miracle!) The rest of our team arrived safely this afternoon, and are settling in. 

The challenge now is figuring out how to get there, if it is indeed in God\'s will for us to go...the one Delta flight is booked up the next 2 days, so we are waiting on Perimeter\'s agent to help us find a reasonable flight on another airline - the prelim search we did shows some flights with longer layovers and rough departure or arrival times, and we\'ll need to get transportation from our hosts so it depends on them as well. Trying to live with open hands...Please pray for what happens next! 

Hi all,

Finally finding the time to sit down and update you all.  We are leaving this Saturday, but in many ways the journey is already well under way.    

Thank you all for supporting through various means!! We are thankful for the partnership!! We\'re praying all of you will be blessed in your participation, and feel assured that God will use your prayers and support to accomplish His work! We\'ll try to provide you a decent glimpse into it all.  This will be a long update, so feel free to just read the sections of interest!

Blessings:

We\'re feeling blessed by the ways we\'ve already seen the Lord working. During a couple of family meetings we\'ve held to prepare for this trip, rather than the usual bickering or subpar attitudes from our kids about being made to do something, the kids have been really engaged, eager to learn and impacted by our discussions. Various passports (our kids\' and other teammates\') have gotten delayed or lost in the mail, then have managed to all come through in the past week. When we logged in today to submit the rest of the payment for the cost of the trip, we found our support in excess (which will be used to help meet the costs for the whole team) -- I was surprised by that, as we were totally expecting to cover the remaining costs!   

A little history/background:

Many of the Guatemalans we will be with are of indigenous descent, and have lived through a relatively recent history of genocide (overlying a much longer history of oppression and marginalization) during the country\'s civil war that lasted until 1996.  We will have the opportunity to converse with the people at dedicated stations for prayer/sharing at the clinics, and the kids at their programs held by the local churches, and hope to be sensitive to their lived histories. 

Preparations:

Our team has been busy gathering supplies to cover needs and bring a bit of fun to our time with the people.  Sidewalk chalk, bubbles, electrolyte packets, water purification tablets, vitamins, soccer balls...the peoples\' physical needs are great, and we will barely put a dent into the needs while we are there, but we hope what we do will provide a greater opportunity to share God\'s love!  

Prayer Requests:

Please pray for the Tai family, specifically Eva, who have been our team leaders thus far.  They have had to drop out of the trip as Eva\'s father passed away suddenly last week. Pray for them as they mourn and have many stressful arrangements. 

At our prayer meeting last night, we were given a Country Risk Assessment (with info the State Dept puts out) - it was a little unnerving reading about these risks, and William, who\'s been grappling with a lot with anxiety recently, was especially rattled.  We know that ultimately every moment of life comes with risks, and safety is an illusion -- we cannot possibly know what is in God\'s plan for each of us, and we could befall harm or even loss of life in the \"safest\" possible situation.  Nonetheless, we are all feeling a little anxious! Please pray for us to walk in faith, not fear...and do please pray for our safety, too ;).  Specifically:

For Ellie - she tends to sleep poorly on trips and gets rather emotional when she does--pray for good sleep (for all of us!). She\'s had a turning point in her faith this year, so please pray God continues to deepen that faith and relationship.

For William - anxiety has become a daily battle in his life/our home in recent months, often triggered by the most subtle things, so simple things like lack of sleep or the sight of foods he has aversions to are enough to cause outbursts--and we most certainly will encounter both on this trip. Also, his tics (Tourette) have ramped up to the point he is really bothered by them lately, and is worried about how people will react to him. 

For Clarence - he desires for God to use him/his gifts to bless but has been struggling with a sense that he will not have a role and not be of much service there.  

For Eileen - I\'m anxious about the kids and their struggles! I really struggled about whether we should go on this trip this year, if William had too many issues or wasn\'t mature enough, etc., and at one point in the decision process suddenly felt a sense God was telling me to stop waiting for the right time, that I wasn\'t trusting Him and His provision if I was going to make my decision based on things being \"just right\"--after which I felt at peace.  So, I need to keep trusting.  Also, I tend to have bad GI issues away from home, especially when in underdeveloped areas, and it can be such a distraction/put such a damper on my engagement in whatever I\'m doing.

Thank you guys for reading and praying!

Eileen