One Year Ago Today

A year ago today, I was in Guatemala on a mission trip. I had intended to edit my pictures and blog shortly after returning but that never happened, so I thought it would be fun to look back on this week now. Pictures will not be edited, and I am ok with that!
Saturday was our arrival day. We left town around 2am and made it to Guatemala around lunch time.

Waiting on the airport to open - yes we were that early! 

Unfortunately not everyone's luggage arrived, so we took care of that before moving on to customs which did not take too terribly long. Our first stop was McDonald's. I tried to order a kid's meal and ended up with a 10 piece nugget meal for less than what a kid's meal would cost here. Way too much food. Their McDonald's was actually very nice.

Here is a picture of some of the group eating lunch. 

After McDonald's we headed to the orphanage where we would be staying for the week. The kids were so excited when we arrived and ran off with our luggage!! They thought we were staying in a different building, so some of the workers had to track down our luggage. I really don't remember much of this day as we were all exhausted from being up so early. The youth group arrived late that night while we were sleeping. Several of the boys had to come through our room to move a bed to their side which was hilarious. I have no idea what they were singing or saying but waking up to that was pretty funny. 

Sunday we went to their church service. That was an incredible experience. Words cannot do it justice, so here is a short video clip during praise and worship time. (I had to downgrade the video quality so that it would load/post)

After that we left while they had their church service and then went back for ours. Our next stop was to a block party for a community near-by. We had inflatables, games, face painting, food, and praise and worship time for them in a local community center. A local pastor is working very hard to spread the gospel to his community through events like this as well as the mini VBS we had the next two days. I am not sure if other groups have since done that, but it was the highlight of the trip for me (more on that tomorrow). Here are some pictures of the day...

Our Sunday school class picture before the block party. 

Annie took this picture and it is one of my favorites.