Wow, it’s November! That seems crazy! In many ways it feels like the race has just started, in other ways I feel like I’ve known these people forever and can’t believe they were strangers just 2 months ago. I love this beautiful life I get to live. I love waking up and reading my bible to the view of mountains, I love the uncomfortable chicken bus rides to Antigua or Parramos, I love visiting families in the community, I love living in this community and I love the sweet kids at our ministry!!
This week has been both good and hard. Unfortunately a lot of my squad has been getting sick with all sorts of illnesses. I did feel sick earlier this week, but it was mild enough that I could continue to go to ministry every day thankfully. Please be praying for health and recovery over my whole squad!
Despite the couple days of not feeling great, this week was still so good! Ministry with the kids has quickly become my team’s favourite and we all look forward to playing with them. It’s amazing that even though most of us only speak a small amount of Spanish, we are still able to connect with the kids! And every day the kids become more and more comfortable with us; hugging us to say hello or goodbye, fighting to hold our hands and sit on our laps, and jumping on us so we will swing them around. They are so sweet and it’s such a blessing to serve them.
This Friday was a big holiday here in Guatemala; the day of the dead. The day of the dead is a traditional holiday where many people go to the cemetery’s a have a big feast with their deceased family. They believe on this day the dead come back to earth to celebrate with the living. On this day they also have a huge kite festival in Sumpango. It is a well known annual event and they work on creating these kites for years leading up to it. We were told it would be very hard to get to and very busy, but 3 of my friends and I decided it would be worth it. When else are we going to get to see a famous kite festival in Guatemala? So we got on a chicken bus (fairly confident it was going to the right place – but you never really know). Halfway to where we thought we were going, everyone else started to get off, so we decided we should probably just follow the crowd, assuming everyone is going to the kite festival. And we were right. We followed the crowd 30 mins into the town and up the hills and finally ended up on this giant field packed with people. There were huge kites that didn’t even look like kites standing up waiting to be flown. They were pure art work, it was honestly so amazing. There was an announcer (who we couldn’t understand) and so many people. We had no idea when it would start but eventually it did. About 4 people would grab this huge rope and start running through the crowd, which would part as they ran by. The kites would take off into the sky and some would stay up while others would come crashing down. It was very exciting, you had to keep your head on a swivel to not get hit by the guys running or the kites.
Unfortunately we had to leave early, so we could get home before dark, but overall, this may have been one of my favourite days exploring Guatemala! The culture is so different and so beautiful, I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to see something so new and learn more about Guatemala by experiencing this holiday!
Hope you all had a great week! Thank you for all the support (I know I say this every week, but I really do appreciate it!!)
