I want to start this off by saying that I will only be sharing what my team does for ministry, but we all do so many things that this is in no way an extensive list of everything we do while we’e here!
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are the same for my team. Breakfast is at 7:00, and we’ll usually spend at least an hour of one on one time with the Lord before heading for Cafe Melendrez!
At the Cafe, we’ll usually get a drink or a Crepe (or sometimes both!), before settling into a Bible study with the team. The revelations God has been giving us during this time have been so cool!! The atmosphere is also so beautiful, because there are plants hanging everywhere, and worship music is always playing, either in English or Spanish!
After Bible study, we’ll usually do ATL (Ask The Lord) until our formal ministry starts. ATL can look like anything from prayer on behalf of the city, to giving out flowers, to sharing the love of Christ with anyone we happen to meet! We never know until God starts speaking!
At 2:00, we head over to Academy for Future Leaders, a really cool school that teaches English so that kids can have great job opportunities! My team of 8 is usually divided between 3 classes of differing levels of education, and soccer!
The beginner class goes from 2:00-7:00 (but we don’t stay later than 6:00), the class with a lot of writing goes from 3:00-6:00, and the class of people almost ready to graduate goes from 3:00-5:00.
I start and end helping with the beginner class, and in between I do the most advanced class.
The beginner class is so fun to help out in, because you can see so much improvement, there are a lot of fun little games, and I get an opportunity to learn more Spanish (which I am regretting not focusing more on during school😆)
The advanced class is so much fun because I get to learn English (yes, the students are that advanced), I get to participate in team building games, and the people here are so sweet! I like to say that Guatemalans are shy, but when they come out of their shell, they’re the funniest people ever!
Tuesdays we have Birdhouse Ministry. It normally focuses on building houses for people who need them, but that’s not what we help out with. We do house visits in the mornings (9:00-12:00), then teach a Bible-themed English lesson, that we have to plan beforehand, from 1:30-4:30. We haven’t had a normal day of ministry here yet, but I will let you all know how it goes when we do have one!
And lastly, on Thursdays, we get a teaching from the staff here, then we go out into Parramos (a 5 minutes bus trip from the base) to activate it! Normally, that looks like ATL ministry, but last Thursday we did a house visit!
And that’s our week’s schedule!! I hope you can all picture me serving the Lord in more clarity now!