A couple of thoughts about what we did on Tuesday.

We continue to be doing well. We have had a couple of great days down here. To broaden the scope of this blog. I am going to ask members of the ream to write about what they experience each day. So what follows are a couple of thoughts from Nicholas and Krystal about what we did on Tuesday.  

Nicholas:

Today our team visited El Refugio. El Refugio is a shelter for abused women and their families to go and have shelter from the horrible situations they may be in. As well as give them a place to stay, El Refugio teaches the women certain skills they will need so they can provide for their families when they leave the shelter. El Refugio is run by Mark and Kim Agrelas, the missionaries that we work with in Guatemala.

At El Refugio our team did a few jobs like fix a sandbox for the kids and paint some rooms in the home, as well as a few other tasks. The jobs, however, are not where our team really displayed the love of Jesus. We best displayed our faith with the relationships we made with the women and children at the shelter. All day people were playing with kids or talking with the women. The coolest thing about it is that it didn't matter whether or not we spoke Spanish or could communicate with words. The people were simply happy that someone was there to show them love and affection. We really lived out the saying "a smile is the universal language." The connections we made and the relationships we formed had an impact far greater than any work we could have done. I can't wait for the our group to continue to grow and make relationships with the people in Guatemala and continue to show Christ everywhere we go.

Krystal 

Today we got a tour of the Christian Academy of Guatemala, run by Mark and Kim. The school is primarily for the kids of missionaries and has grades K-12. I was amazed at the beauty of the school grounds and all the space the school has. We also went to El Refugio, which is a women's shelter that Mark and Kim run. We got the chance to meet two women at the shelter and their children, who were adorable and loved to play with us. Some of the things we got to do included making tortillas, painting walls, cleaning outside, and more. The women helped us paint the interior walls, and they had never painted before. But the women were laughing and having fun, which is what mattered. God was definitely present in our interactions with the women and children, and I look forward to going back on Thursday.