San Miguel Dueñas - Day 4 [Blog]
/By: Sam Vogel
Alright, so first off I just want to thank everyone involved in the planning of this mission. Before I came to Guatemala, my mom and another lady in the mission spent lots of time planning crafts and everything for the kids to do at VBS. I spent a good chunk of a couple of my Sundays leading up to the mission cutting paper. This is only a small portion of what goes in to the planning and developing of the mission. The mission itself has been a blast.
We’ve been here for quite a while now, from Sunday to Friday, which is six days I think. On site, I worked with Stove Crew 7. We’re on site for all of the morning, when it doesn’t rain (It’s rained every day we’ve been here), and we build, or try to build two stoves per day. In the afternoon, we’ve prepared for VBS around one-ish I believe and have VBS afterwards. We get back to Antigua around 5:10-ish. As you might be able to guess, I didn’t bring a watch, must-have for the daily schedule.
Stove crew was fun, it was fun to meet my team, get to know them, and get to know the families we were building the stoves for. I don’t speak much Spanish, and the residents we met spoke no English. I need to work on my Spanish during the off-season. I couldn’t really connect with the families on a personal level, which I feel would be nice to do next time. I’m really having a great time here, however, asides from the Spanish, and it’s sad that it’ll come to an end pretty quick here. I also really liked the VBS and met some great kids even though I couldn’t speak their language. Well, I’ve gotta head to worship, so I’ll sum this up in a few sentences. This is my first time being out of the country, and it was an intriguing place, as mentioned in our group’s podcast. Lots of stuff to see, extremely interesting. The people here are friendly and welcoming. The days are full and long but go by fast. The leaders sometimes double as translators which was really nice when installing stoves. I can’t wait to return to Guatemala next year if all goes well. Life-changing experience. Many stories to tell.
