I am in Guatemala.

I am here.

Finally.

Even though I have been here for 4 days now it still feel pretty unreal.

I'm going to just give a quickie update because I need to be heading to bed very soon to get some MUCH needed rest.

I arrived in Guatemala city Sunday night. The trip down was perfect.

Honestly. Nothing went wrong. It was unreal.

It was so unreal that I kept thinking: "I must have done something wrong along the way. Something must be wrong. This can't be this problem free."

But it was.

I got to all my gates on time (one ONLY by the grace of God-I'll explain another day if I have time). All my bags got through. Hermano Eric (he works for Impact Ministries and is super great-he's a crazy/amazing driver and kind of like a Guatemalan uncle to me. Or something like that...) picked me up and took me to SETECA (a Bible seminary right in Guatemala city), slept the night there, and then Les Peters picked up me and Rueben & Martha Sawatsky (they are also working with Impact teams for part of the summer) and then we drove to Tactic.

We arrived in Tactic around 1pm, ate lunch and then the team arrived around 6pm that night.

The team that we have with us right now is from Duvall, Washington and they are a riot. I so enjoy and appreciate them. They are such a blessing to the ministry and I feel so blessed to be working with them.

My job here is so help facilitate the teams, so I am with the teams all day, every day. I eat with them, go to the worksite with them, do children's ministry with them, debrief with them...

You get the picture.

Here is a brief overview of what an average day in the life of Michelle looks like:

Wake up: 6am

Breakfast: 6:30am

Leave for one of the Vida (Impact) school's devotionals: 7:20am

Work on the work site (this means moving LOTS of dirt): 9am-12pm

Lunch: 12pm

Children's ministry 1:30-5pm

Dinner: 6:30pm

Debrief: 7:30-9:30pm

Bed: 11pm

Obviously not every day includes all of that. For example: today we went to a cave (the sinkhole) instead of working on the worksite.

Each day has its routine but is also very different. It is definitely taking a while to adjust to it all in some ways, but at the same time, I feel like I have been here for weeks.

I love it here.

I am living in a house with 4 Canadian girls and 2 Guatemalan girls (all of them teach in the Impact schools) and they are super great. They speak way more Spanish in the home than I expected, but it is super good for me because it is forcing me to learn.

I don't have time for anything more, but I just wanted to give a quick update. I will post some pictures soon (hopefully!)

Could you pray for me?

Some prayer requests:

-For energy. I am so tired all the time and I really want to give all I have to the teams and to Impact.

-For love. I want to love everyone I interact with as Jesus would love them.

-For patience. I get easily irritated at myself because I don't know very much Spanish at all and I really want to be able to communicate with the people here.

-For safety. We are safe in many ways here in Tactic, but I don't want to take this safety for granted.

I love you all and I SO appreciate your prayers and support.

You have all been SUCH an encouragement to me.

Much love,

Mee-shell (that's how the Guatemalans pronounce my name-I love it. My dear 3YZ-my dorm at Trinity-also called me that.)