Guatemala Day 1 We arrived safely in Guatemala before noon today. We got a lesson in flexibility as soon as we arrived. We were expecting to see our previous bus driver from the past 2 El Salvador trips and the Guatemala trip last year – but he was not here – he was sick. Joel jumps in and becomes another team member and over half of our team had been on a trip with him in the past and we love him dearly. Many of you may know that he came to know the Lord the first trip he drove for us. I guess the Lord wants us to share Christ with our new driver. Carlos is not as good with directions as Joel…so we drove around quite a bit today trying to find the hotel, the store, back to the hotel…but everyone has been very patient and flexible. On the bright side it gave us a chance to see the city!

After eating lunch at Pollo Campero – the awesome chicken shack of Guatemala and El Salvador - we went to Hiper Paiz to do most of the shopping for the week. We got lots of stares as our team of 16 with bright blue matching shirts loaded up shopping carts with 1500 hot dogs, buns, bags of chips, cookies packages, juice boxes, plates, napkins, and lots of diapers, cans of tuna, and milk to bring to an orphanage. It is so much fun to be able to bless these children in this way. We returned to the hotel and unloaded all of the goodies. By this time it was already after 7. The team then met for a quick bite for supper and a devotional for the night.

We are supposed to be getting to bed early tonight because we will be leaving at 4:00am for our orphanage tomorrow morning. Ugh!!!! We are going to Rio Dulce which is about 5 hours from here. We will spend the afternoon with the children at Casa Guatemala and then spend the night at the Backpackers Hotel. The next morning we will get up early and go back to the orphanage until lunch time and then we will head back to Guatemala City. We will not have our computers with us so I will not send out an update until Tuesday night. Please pray for safe travel and that the children and the workers in this orphanage will see Jesus through each of us. This orphanage has no religious affiliation and they let anyone come in and share with the children. These children hear conflicting stories about who God is and whether or not Jesus is the Son of God. Please pray that they will be receptive to the message that Raul has prepared for them and that the team members will be able to share the love of Christ with them.

On a final note…we have a great team assembled. 2 of our team members did not even know they were coming until Wednesday of this week…and they have both been a blessing to us. I was very saddened when the 2 others had to drop out – but trusted that God knew who He wanted on this trip and that He would work out all of the details…and He has done that! I will send another update on Tuesday!