BLESSINGS ON BLESSINGS

This is our last week at the school whaaatttt!

Construction is DONE. (PTL now my nails will be clean again yayuusss). Today we finished parging (aka flinging watery cement) the wall surrounding the new carrera building at the school. We've been working on this wall for about a month now, so it was super cool to see it finished before we leave!

The past few weeks, we've been helping Travis teach English to the carrera students. This morning was our last day, and we all performed skits about escaping from a zoo (hilarious awkward and perfect). My group involved a cat, bear, and zebra named Cat, Bear, and Zebra. It was fantastic.

This afternoon is our LAST VBS. I'm both relieved and sad. As much work as VBS was, seeing the kids laughing and having fun and showing them love was so so worth it. Also, driving to VBS (8 people chillin' in the back of a pickup) has been a blast. Aka peace out, will NOT miss that. Have I ever talked about driving here in Guat? There are four rules...

1. Always go first, look later.

2. Yes, you can totally fit a vehicle inside a space not even big enough for humans.

3. It is always the right time to pass.

4. Drive as fast as possible in between disgustingly tall speed bumps, but when possible, swerve around the speed bumps without slowing.

It's flown by so quickly and I've loved being here, but I'm starting to miss home. These past couple days were the first that I've actually felt homesick. But I'm trying to focus on making my last week and a bit in Guatemala the best one. Christoph mentioned at one of our team meetings that it's easy to start things well, but harder to finish well. I want to finish well, so that's been my challenge the past week.

I'm gonna be super honest and say I've had moments when my patience has been tested by my teammates, and I've definitely failed. I've been frustrated with people. I'm learning what living in community actually means, and that it's not easy. At church last night, God kind of put the thought in my head that if I asked him to show me how he sees each person on my team, it'll be 1000x easier to love them. If I can see them through God's eyes, I won't be able to do anything but love them. Challenge # 2 for Sara.

Next week is Campamento aka the entire school gets the week off and comes to camp for games and a kind of spiritual retreat. It's a super fun time but also a time that God uses to do really cool things in their lives. This year's theme in Frequencia de Vida (in English it literally translates to Life Frequency, but means heartbeat of life). Our team is in charge of games, so we have some SUPER fun slip n' slide games (I actually hate slip n' slides but most people don't so) and massive water balloons. We had a meeting with Julianna to discuss camp-like things, and one of the main things she talked about was our unity as a team, and how our ability to serve others is limited when we're focused on our problems. In order to be fully present, I need to give up my right to be offended. I cannot allow offence to take root in my heart, because it's so dang hard to get it out. And if I'm so focused on getting offence out of my heart, there's absolutely no way I can love others well. Guys, this is HUGE thing that applies to so many things in life. Like DANG.

-pray for WARM WEATHER. It's pretty chilly here because of a tropical storm in Belize, so pray that we have good weather for camp!

-pray for patience and grace with fellow team members

-pray for less homesickness

-pray for our kids' hearts to be prepared for God to do incredible things in their hearts at Campamento

-pray that we would finish well

-my headaches have been back recently, so pray for that too. It's kind of hard to love screaming children when your head is trying to eat itself or something

-thanks for yo prayers. It's super cool to know there are so many people thinking about our team!

HEYO if you want to learn a little more about what the school looks like / what we do here, watch this ⤵️

https://youtu.be/DVFf-GFcoCk