De Guatemala

So. I'm in Guatemala. I'm here to do the Lord's will. I'm at an orphanage called New Life Children's Home that has 52 kids and an incredible ability to help their lives become something worthwhile. It also has a school that over 400 kids attend and a clinic that provides services to the community for little to no money. Its an incredible thriving community. And how I fit into it? Mmm, I mostly make funny faces and weird noises right now till I get the Spanish thing down a little better. On Sunday three other interns and I take off for two weeks of language school which, good Lord willing, will vastly improve my speekin' skeelz. It's ok though, because I make really good faces. Anyway, I'm here to do the Lord's will.

Guatemala is an interesting place. Breathtaking beauty walks down the street hand in hand with abject poverty. Hundreds of thousands of people live in ramshackle housing thrown all over the sides of tired hills struggling to cope with the burden of their lives. When mother nature gets violent, people die. Mudslides are a common occurrence that routinely kill thousands of people at a time. The government, of course, is too preoccupied with their own internal power struggles and schemes of killing their next political opponent to worry about the lives of a few million people. Organized crime and gangs are prevalent. I don't get to walk down the street to the store because I'm white, which obviously implies I have money, and an easy target. Though, for all its problems, Guatemala is enchanting. God's working here; it's become obvious to me he speaks Spanish well. I get to be some small part of that work. So yeah, I'm here to do the Lord's will.

On a similar note, I ate some sort of chicken casserole today that was held together by solid mayonnaise. Seriously, it was like a glue. It could have turned into an arts and crafts project had I brought glitter. Luckily, even though I hate mayonnaise, I hate glitter more so I was happy when it didn't turn into an arts and crafts project. Going off that segue, I'm going to post pictures of this place..as soon as I take them. One day I'm going to use my camera, I won't promise it will be soon, but one day.