SHORT TERM TEAMS
Hearts for the children ministry was blessed in the Month of April with two short term mission teams. One from RiverStone Church, Marietta Ga and the other from Dahlonega GA.
Brother Scott Williford led the team from RiverStone being there eighth or ninth consecutive year visiting. This was Scott’s fifth or sixth year leading a team to HFTCM. 22 people arrived on April 2nd and spent the next 6 days doing a variety of ministry and outreach.
The highlight of this trip was a visit to the jungle a 360mile round trip from Guatemala City to a Mayan village called CHISEC. Most of the population there does not speak Spanish but one of the 23 languages spoken in Guatemala (Q’eqchi). We had to scurry to find interpreters to go from Q’eqchi to Spanish to English for our medical and ministry teams. All in all a very exciting time driving through the jungle. Our compound, cut out of the jungle where we slept and ate was in fact very comfortable. It was difficult for some to sleep with the crying of the monkeys and the large birds screaming at night.
Our mission was to paint a local school that was in very bad shape, do a medical clinic that lasted till dark, and a vbs. The team painted several rooms of the school as well as the outside. The medical team saw about 300 people and the VBS team presented the story of Jesus via coloring pages. A very successful ministry.
The team had about 300 lbs of beans, rice, sugar etc. On the way back Scott and I had the same vision as to what to do with the food. On the way into and Egolical Park we had visited further into the jungle we passed a village of buildings made of bamboo. We just stopped the bus got out and started distributing, before we knew it the people came out of nowhere fortunately we had enough for everybody. We were invited into the community center that was just a bunch of bamboo sticks held together by ties. One of the community leaders explained that they had no work and no crops therefore no food. We did pray together and were invited into a bamboo hut to pray for a woman with a broken ankle that was just bandaged. Our bus driver a Guatemalan, said this, where I come from we are poor, but compared to this, we live in heaven.
HFTCM does have plans to revisit this population and bring them seeds of corn, beans and vegetables.
The team had an exceptional experience of visiting a park that has a zip line down over the jungle and a lake drop line. We spent several hours visiting the site and having fun on the zip line and the water drop. The most exciting item was visiting a water hole with a cave carved out of the side of the mountain. The Mayans left a box inside the cave with the inscription; this place is the home of the God of the moon. The original box is now in the museum in Guatemala City.
Guatemala is such an exciting place to visit and minister, so put your team together for next year contact us and lets go (preach the gospel).