the journey after.: My heart: from shallow to shattered.

As I sit in my warm dorm room on a rainy Monday night, the background noise of a Christian pandora station playing, and such a heavy heart that its weight seems to have an affect on my lungs. Where do I start? So many overwhelming experiences that have touched my heart in a way no other has. I feel like the way I lived before Guatemala was ignorant, selfish, and shallow. I just spent my spring break from college in a third world country that stole my heart.

Day 1 at Hope of Life.

We went to a facility called Hope Of Life International, focusing on Operation Baby Rescue. My first day at Hope Of Life was when I had my first culture shock moment. We had been in a few nice airports, a nice hotel, and a relatively nice bus on our previous days traveling to Hope Of Life. Even when we first got there, we had a nice missions house, with clean linens, several showers that reminded me of the ones in my first dorm at school. The Hope Of Life campus where they put mission teams were great- a beautiful pool, a nice lounging area, and a very cozy dining room with delicious coffee. Nothing put me out of my comfort zone.

But that quickly changed. We loaded up the bus to hand out bags in a village called Pueblo Modelo. It is a village of 5,000 people that were relocated there by the government after their homes being destroyed by mudslides. There was nothing there, so they made their homes with scrap metal, tarp, and tree branches. There were no jobs, no way to provide for their families. When we pulled in, I saw hundreds lined up to get their bags of food (there were 800 families served that day). We got out, and a little girl came up and grabbed my hand and smiled at me. Is this really happening? I had never seen such happiness in such a broken, desperate circumstance before. Actually, I had never seen this desperation before.

Yet, as we handed out the bags to these people- they greeted us with smiles, and "gracias"' after receiving their bags. Even in the midst of their circumstances, which in the US would be considered an crisis and extreme emergency intervention circumstances of these families, they were seemingly happy. They had smiles on their faces. The kids here love to be loved. If you love on them, they just sincerely love on you. After handing out bags to the families, we were given a small tour of the community and their school. They love having their photos taken and love just being with us. They followed us from the food drop to their school and we got to hang out with them for a few minutes. What a beautiful sight. What a heart shattering and self-reflecting moment that was. To know I live a very plentiful life, and how I complain probably daily about the minuscule things that don't even matter the next day. Yet what a happy and grateful spirit they had. How shameful of me, but in this moment, they inspired me to live a life full of thankfulness to God for the abundance of health and wealth I live in. In their pure hearts, pure happiness, they were a reflection of what we are told to be. It says in 1 Timothy 4:12 "Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, conduct, in love, in faith, in purity." The children of Guatemala, and specifically in Pueblo Modelo, taught me to live like this. They live this without even trying.

After this, we cleaned up and had our Fiesta Night welcome dinner. This was our first team bonding experience, with delicious food and beautiful new friends. One thing I would like to point out about this night was I got to witness 3 of our team members meeting the children they sponsor. What a beautiful moment. I never realized what a difference sponsoring children actually makes until I saw it in person. Until I saw the beautiful kids meet their sponsors. What a blessed moment.