GUATEMALA June 21-27, 2014 Chet's Creek and Summer Grove

Hola Y’all!

Today is the bittersweet day, our last day with the children, nannies and workers at the Malnutrition Center. There will be tears for sure, but although our hearts will break somewhat having to leave these precious people, we know that God sent us here to do a specific task at this specific time for His glory. And glad we are that we listened and obeyed and took advantage of this blessing He offered us.

This morning’s devotion for the team centered on the “what next?”. What will we do, how will we serve when we get back to our “real” lives? Will we quickly turn back to our ordinary selves, or will we allow the opportunities that we have been challenged with this week change the very way we think/act/live? Will our “Mission Me” still be evident when the normalcy of our lives takes over? Our prayer is that we have each discovered something in us that has allowed us to stretch ourselves and our faith in a way that is pleasing to God.

A small group of us traveled into the town of San Juan this morning to visit a nursing home (what we would call an adult day care center). Precious cannot begin to describe the loving people there. We came with our little bag of tricks consisting of lotions, soap, Bible story, craft, makeshift basketball game, and musical sticks – and you would have thought we’d brought the moon and stars as well. SO gracious were they for the little bit of time we were able to spend with them. We played and sang and danced and laughed and left blessed beyond anything we could have done for them.

I can't speak for all the rooms, but the Canaries are experiencing a bit of sickness this week. Each day one or two more come down with a fever, cough and a lunch that usually “reappears” soon after it is ingested! But they are getting the meds they need and will soon be back to their old selves.

The devotion for the nannies today centered around living our lives and doing whatever it is that we do ALL for God, not to please man. If our families or our bosses are pleased with what we do, Yay! SCORE!  But the One whom we truly want to be pleased with us is our Heavenly Father.

There is still so much to do, and we could stay for many more weeks before we'd feel even close to “gittin’ ‘er done”, but our time is short and we must say 'adios' ... unless we’ve left a piece of our hearts here, that is, in which case we'll have to say “see ya later”, because we'll need to come back and visit….soon & often!!

So for now..."Dios te bendiga!" (God bless you!) from the Summer Grove/Chets Creek Team