Visiting Guatemala was a huge eye opener for me on many levels. It’s a place I never really had the urge to visit, but now it’s a place I can’t wait to go back to. It was heartbreaking to see so many people who literally have nothing, some that don’t even have clean water to drink. Then you see the children. They live in these remote villages and have so little, but seem so happy. All they need is a river to play in. It kind of puts things into perspective.
The greatest experience for me though? Seeing all that is being done to help these wonderful people. I was travelling with Brickthink, which is a ministry of Times Square Church in New York City, and was staying with Michael and Rocky Beene of Faith in Action. These are people who have dedicated their entire lives to helping the people of Guatemala, and are amongst the most inspiring people I’ve ever met in my life. Some of the stories I’ve heard from both ministries are truly remarkable and give me so much hope for humanity.
My primary job of the trip was to take photographs and document what it is like to go on one of these missions, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t get my hands dirty helping out with the work. On the second day, we did a massive cement pour for the roof of a second story building that took 14 hours in heat that the Weather Network said “felt like 47 degrees Celsius”. This was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done both physically and mentally.
If you think you’d be interested in doing a trip like this, you can see all the missions they have coming up here. If you don’t think you can do a full trip, you can still donate to all of these amazing efforts of helping those in need.
