Guatamala Missions Trip

Guatemala 2024

“You sounded defeated.” That was what Josh told me as we stood on the rooftop patio overlooking the city of San Antonio. It was the second night of the trip, and we had just finished our evening debrief. He was concerned for me and wanted to make sure I was doing better than I had conveyed during the debrief.

Earlier that day, a team of missionaries and I had been sitting with a woman whose boyfriend was abusing her. She dreamt of going to America but had no way to get there. I do not speak any Spanish, so all I could do was sit and wait for someone who did speak Spanish to ask me something or explain what was being talked about. I wanted to defend her from her boyfriend, who at that moment was bringing us snacks to eat as we talked. I wanted to help her move her belongings to somewhere safer. I wanted to walk her through the paperwork necessary to apply for a passport since she was illiterate. I wanted to speak directly to her about her situation and explain how God cared for her. None of these things were possible for me at that moment. The helplessness I felt was a strange experience. For most of my adult life, I have been in a leadership role of some capacity. I either had the answers to other people’s problems, or I was responsible for figuring them out. So that night during the evening debrief, I shared how I felt strange about my inability to help this woman. Josh’s comment later that evening caught me off guard. I didn’t feel defeated, although I suppose powerless is very close to defeat. But that’s the thing about living for Christ. I am not operating on my power, nor am I fighting a battle that can be lost (2 Corinthians 12:9, 1 Corinthians 15:57). Because I live by faith, even when I am powerless, I do not feel defeated. For Christ in me will never be defeated. In fact, the feeling of powerlessness that I experienced in Guatemala made me excited because I knew that it would be much more difficult for my own pride to keep me from experiencing everything God had for me, as it is prone to do.

Our time in Guatemala was spent in four main ways:

1. Training

2. Harvest

3. Fellowship

4. Tourism

Training

We began nearly every day with a Bible study and training session of some sort. This post would become entirely too long if I were to explain everything we learned in much detail, but here is a breakdown of each topic:

1. Head, Heart, Hands – A method for studying the Bible. Take a passage and break it down into three categories: Head (Logic) – What are the facts? What was being taught here? Heart (Emotion) – What is the emotional significance of this passage? How does it make you feel? How did people in the passage feel? Hands (Application) – How do you apply this to your life? What actions should we take as a consequence of this passage?

2. Be, Know, Do – A method for studying the Bible. Choose a passage of scripture and ask yourself three questions about it: What are we to Be? What are we to Know? What are we to Do?

3. 411 – An evangelism training method that encapsulates most of what we practiced. Learn more about it here: https://noplaceleft.net/four-fields/411-gospel-conversation-training/

4. M.A.W.L. (Model, Assist, Watch, Launch) – A discipleship method. https://www.yfc.org.au/mawl

5. 3 3rds – A group Bible study method. https://teamexpansion.org/what-is-a-3-thirds-group/

Harvest

Going into the Harvest was what I was most excited for and curious about during the months leading up to the trip. Our team was split into groups of two, then each group was assigned to a member of the New Hope Global staff to guide us. Sometimes we had appointments scheduled with people that New Hope had been ministering to for several weeks. Other times, we would just walk through the town and look for people to pray with. These were the greatest learning experiences I had during the trip. Watching and practicing engaging people of another culture really helped solidify all of the great teaching we were receiving.

Fellowship

I knew that fellowship with the rest of the team would play a role on the trip, but I did not anticipate just how impactful it would be. The atmosphere of the home we stayed at in Guatemala reminded me a lot of my years in camp ministry in that it fostered community and made it very easy to get to know people very quickly. This trip consisted entirely of people from Pulse, which is the young adult ministry that I am part of the leadership team for. While we were in Guatemala, I got to know everyone on a level that would have taken me months in our normal lives. I am incredibly grateful for everyone that was on this trip and the opportunity to spend a week with them because the better I know the people at Pulse, the better I will be as a leader.

Tourism

We had one day during the trip when we went to Antigua just to be tourists. This allowed us the opportunity to engage with the culture outside of a Bible study or church setting. This was when I feel I learned the most about Guatemala as a country. I realized when we were Antigua that I had a much harder time reading people than I do in America. I assume it is because of the cultural differences, but not only did I not understand the language people were speaking, I also could not read their body language or facial expression most of the time.

Overall I feel like I can say my time in Guatemala was very well spent. I was out of my comfort zone nearly the entire time, which meant I was learning nearly the entire time. Learning about myself, Guatemala, Missions work, The Global Church, and more.

Before this trip I had a little experience sharing the Gospel with strangers, but it was always awkward and forced. I just assumed that it would always be that way. My experience in Guatemala showed me that it doesn’t need to feel awkward or forced, and it gave me the skill to make sharing the Gospel with strangers feel natural and friendly instead.

There is a lot that I didn’t share here. I wanted to talk about the highlights without turning this into a 3 hour read, but if you would like to know more about my trip please reach out to me and I would be happy to talk more with you.

A few additional thoughts:

1. Most concrete buildings in Guatemala have a rooftop patio of some sort. The contrast between the rooftops and the street only 25 feet below was striking to me. On the roof, you are looking out over a beautiful tropical valley. On the street, you are surrounded by concrete on all sides and trying to avoid waste from the street dogs. There is no sidewalk, and the buildings are built right against the street, so it is very claustrophobic as well.

2. There seems to be no middle class in Guatemala. Everyone we passed was either living in poverty, extreme poverty, or extreme wealth.

3. The Catholic Church seems to rule over the community in San Antonio. They take over the streets for their celebrations and set off bombas (like fireworks but without the sparkle) at all hours of the day and night. The little I learned about the doctrine of the local church sounded very similar to the state of the church in Europe before the Reformation, which was sad to hear. They were not selling indulgences, but they did sell positions in their ceremonies that were designed to be difficult to carry out, and the people used this as a way to try and pay for their own sin.