Guatemala 2026- Day 4

Today is our halfway point. One thing about our team is that there is immense joy in every moment, every task, and every conversation. This team is humble, devoted, sacrificial, and joyful. It feels as if we have been here forever, but in the best way. We started our day with a beautiful walk to the school. We greeted the locals of San Lucas Toliman with "hola, buneas dias." We had breakfast and spent time preparing our hearts and minds for our second building day.  It was a beautiful picture of the hearts of each student on this trip. 

Our two groups moved on to a new building site, and each team built a new house. It was amazing to see how well the team improved at construction after just one day of experience. Today, we focused not only on the hammering and building skills, but also on our community and team-building skills. We met the families of the houses we were building. We met their neighbors and kids in the area. We all know each other better because of the experience of building houses together. It was beautiful. It was bonding. It was a community. 

In our first trip meeting, we talked about this idea of serving with Joy. That is exactly what this team exemplified today. There was encouragement. We cared well for each other. We showed patience. We laughed (a lot). Most importantly, there was JOY that only comes from knowing Jesus. It is a gift and joy to be a part of it. 

Tonight in porch time, as we gathered, we talked about the spiritual discipline of Solitude. This week, one of our main focuses has been being aware of God's presence in everything, so that we can be more like Him, so that we are able to better serve and love the people we encounter daily here in San Lucan Toliman, and at home. We were honest about the fact that solitude can be scary. But we learned that Solitude is important because it helps us open the gift that is God's presence in our lives. We looked at 1 Kings 19:10-12, and saw that God meets us in the quiet and stillness. We considered the idea of what might be noisy in our lives and hindering us from being able to practice solitude. Students were real, honest, and vulnerable tonight. God wants to be with us. He enjoys spending time with us. Our prayer tonight is that through the discipline of solitude, each of us will be better servants of Christ. That we would know Him better, so that we can be more like Jesus. The hope is that we can all lean into the awareness of God. 

For The Kingdom, 

The Guatemala Team 

Guatemala 2026- Day 3

We started our morning at 6:45am with a walk through San Lucan Toliman to the Promised Land Ministry School for breakfast. As we walked, we observed sights and sounds of the city coming alive. Our team was rested, refreshed, and our hearts were ready to serve. The path to the school is familiar already. We are starting to feel comfortable in San Lucas after just a few days in the country. 

After breakfast, we broke into two teams and headed out to build houses for families in need. Over the years, Promised Land Ministries has built over 100 houses in the hillsides. They are simple houses. Cement floors with a few rows of concrete blocks to begin the walls. The rest of the house is built from rough-cut lumber. The roof is made from sheets of tin. It is an accomplishment for each team to construct a house from the material in a single day, but the truth is that the houses are simple. There is no plumbing. There is no electricity. But when the families walk through their finished homes, they are filled with joy. It was a gift to get to experience this with each of the teammates. At the end of the building day, we got to meet the families and pray with and for them. We prayed that God would bless

their home and that God would be present in their space. It was great. It was fulfilling. 

We headed back to the school and had a much-deserved lunch. We then headed to a local village to deliver some perishable food to some locals. We met with the family, greeted them, and then prayed with them. We then stayed around for a while to play with some of the kids. It was life-giving, and we deeply enjoyed that part of the day. 

We came back to the hotel. Full of the difficult things we had seen as we built homes for families. Full of the challenging things we have seen so far in Guatemala. Full of beautiful things that we have seen God in every step. We played some card games, rested, and spent time together. It was sweet. 

In our porch time tonight, we looked at the spiritual discipline of submission. We talked about how submission is the act of submitting all control to God and recognizing that He is the one in control and not us. We read through some verses and considered what those verses taught us about submission. We looked at John 3:30, and the idea that submission means that we decrease so that God can increase. We looked at Hebrews 13:17 and talked about how obedience is a core part of submission. We looked at Romans 12:1 and how we are called to be living sacrifices. We looked at Philippians 2: 5-8 and how humility plays a role in submission. Lastly, we looked at Ephesians 5: 20-21 and how we are called to submit to one another in the fear of God. We considered in our journal time, "What is one more step that draws us closer to Him?" 

We are excited and eager to continue on mission tomorrow. We will continue to build houses and serve with Joy. 

For The Kingdom, 

The Guatemala Team 

Guatemala 2026- Day 2

This morning, we made our way to San Lucas Toliman. This is the place where we will be spending the rest of the week. The drive was beautiful, and everyone was filled with Joy. We arrived and headed to the Promised Land Ministry school. We got to see some of the new additions to the school, play some basketball, kick around a soccer ball, and start to build relationships with the people we will be working alongside. We had lunch and then returned to the hotel. We got settled in, rested, looked at the beautiful view from the roof of the hotel, and played some cards. We got ready for church and then headed to the service, which was completely in Spanish. It was a lot of singing and a lot of fun worshipping. We experienced God in a way that we are not accustomed to in the United States, and it was beautiful. After church, we headed back to the Promised Land Ministry school for dinner. The school is a home base for our team this week. We will have meals there, prep for our service projects there, and spend some free time there. We then made our first walk through San Lucas Toliman. We said "hola" to locals on the street and talked about how excited we are for the week ahead of us. 

In our porch time tonight, we started by talking about some things that we found beautiful, challenging, and different. Students went around the table and talked about the things that they had noticed throughout the day. Students mentioned how it was beautiful to witness people worship in a way they are not accustomed to. 

In our porch time, we discussed the parable of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10. We considered the question "What does it take to serve?" We talked about how it is costly. how it requires sacrifice, vulnerability, our time, our energy, and our resources. We also considered the idea that to be a good Samaritan, we first have to have a relationship with Jesus. We talked about how it can be easy to come into a mission trip and fall into the role of savior, and the story of Luke 10 tonight reminded us that we all need help. We all need Jesus. 

During the walk back to the hotel tonight, we felt and saw the culture. As we walked past the people and the stores and the sounds, we began as a team to understand and respect the culture we are in this week. A culture I am proud to say our team is giving tremendous effort to appreciate and respect. What we saw today was different. What we saw today was challenging. What we saw today was beautiful. 

For The Kingdom, 

The Guatemala Team 

Guatemala 2026- Day 1

We started our day off at The Chapel and gathered for prayer. We prayed for safety, peace, and joy, and we saw God answer all those prayers today. Our long day of travel is no match for how excited our team is to be here. We arrived in Guatemala City around 8:30 pm local Guatemala Time and headed to the seminary to enjoy a very well-deserved dinner. In the van ride to the seminary where we will be staying tonight, you could hear the relief and the excitement in students' voices as they looked out the windows and saw Guatemala for the first time. Tomorrow we will finish our journey to San Lucas Toliman, where we will be serving for the rest of the week. We are eager. We are excited. 

Tonight we met under the lights in a circle for a time that we were calling “porch time”. Each night we will gather, we will debrief, and we will consider how God is moving in and through our lives. As we paused tonight, we talked about some things that were beautiful, challenging, and different throughout our day. Each night we will consider these questions together as a team. Tonight, we focused on the importance of noticing God’s presence in every aspect. We talked about how it is a gift this week that we can be fully present. We recognized the gift that it is that we were called to a place at this time with this team in this place (Guatemala). We read Psalm 139 and recognized that we are known fully by God, so that means that we can be aware of His presence in our lives. 

As we head into the week, we have committed to being a team that is humble, devoted, sacrificial, and joyful. We are eager and excited to serve in this place where we were called for such a time as this. 

For the Kingdom, 

The Guatemala Team

  

Guatemala 2025 - Day 6 - Final Blog Post!

 As you have read about our journey in Guatemala this week, I hope you've thought to yourself, "The word joyful has been used a lot in these posts." I hope when the students get home, you ask them about it. I hope they describe to you what they got to see with their eyes this week, moment upon moment of joy. Each and every moment we got to witness the Joy of Christ in each person we interacted with this week. 

I'm not even sure how to explain the joy today, but it was there and it was beautiful. And Jesus' presence was there too. We did a kids' ministry event in the morning. I say event, but we walked around the neighborhood near the church we were at and invited everyone we saw to come. And they came. And it was amazing. We played, we laughed, we sang, we hit beach balls in the air with kids, and every single moment was full of laughter, smiles, and hugs of gratitude. This afternoon, we had the opportunity to do teen ministry on the basketball courts right in the heart of San Lucas Toliman. We shot some hoops, played a few competitive games of basketball, and ultimately got to share the love of Christ with each person we interacted with on and off the court. It was beautiful. It was full of joy. 

For our final porch time, we shared communion together. We considered what the communion table represents to us. We shared that it represents sacrifice, love, compassion, promise, welcoming, and joy. Tonight, as we considered how Jesus poured himself out for us, we considered how we can pour ourselves out for others. Jesus tells us that we must lose ourselves for us to be saved. Following Jesus requires us to follow Him to the cross. We ended our time with serving each other communion. It was a holy moment for our team and was a moment that reminded us of why we continue to serve. 

Tomorrow morning, we will rise bright and early to begin our journey back to the States. We will take one last walk through the town that has become familiar to our team. We will greet the people of San Lucas Toliman with one last "Buenos Dias". We will share one last breakfast in a room that has become a place of comfort and fellowship. And we will do it all with joy. We will then head to Antigua and then to Guatemala City to catch our flight home late tomorrow night. Our team has been preparing for our return home. We have talked about how bittersweet it is to leave a place that we have found great joy in serving. But our team is ready, eager, and excited to continue serving with joy and living on mission with God in Williamsburg. We are tired, but have hearts that are full of gratitude for what we experienced this week. 

We will be back at the Chapel on Saturday. We will text travel details as the day unfolds. Your students are eager to tell you of all they witnessed and experienced this week. 

Tired and as always, joyfully yours, 

The Guatemala Team

Guatemala 2025 - Day 5

After breakfast each morning, we have a "mini porch time" with the Promised Land Ministry staff before we set out for the day. We started our day in Luke 24. We looked at verse 52, right after Jesus ascended into heaven. It says, "And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy." We started our day with the reminder that joy is not about being happy. Joy is not about doing fun things. It is about leaning on the love of Jesus. It is about experiencing Him and then returning changed. Returning to continue on His mission. Returning with joy. Even when it is hard. Even when it is not what we want to do. Even when it is uncomfortable. Joy is there. 

And it was there today. We headed out to paint a school up in the mountains above San Lucas Toliman. These schools have very little funding, so painting the walls is a low priority for school leadership. And so one of the things we can do for them is to add a fresh coat of paint. 

Painting with teenagers is hard. Painting a school is hard. And yet, today our team saw how much joy can be derived from painting. In your mind right now, you are thinking of a school and what painting it may be like. It is not that. The schools are cinderblock-walled. They are low budget. They are often not in the best shape. But they are a vital piece of the community. The teachers we met have immense pride in what they do and how they seek to better the children who attend. And having the school look a little bit better with a new coat of paint, while it may not seem like that big of a deal, brought almost as much joy to the leadership and teachers we met at the end of the day as it did to our team while we were painting. Painting was hard, but today we painted with joy! 

Tonight at porch time, we began to look ahead a few days to our return home. We began to reflect on where we had seen Jesus show up this week. We talked about how we can take what we are seeing, experiencing, and learning on this trip and bring it home with us. We talked about how living missionally doesn't have to mean leaving home, but serving wherever we are. We talked more about the joy we have been experiencing all week and asked questions. Why are we feeling this joy now? How can we take this home? What will it look like to live missionally all the time? The team has had an amazing week, and I cannot wait to see how, just like the disciples in Luke 24, they return with great joy after our encounter with Jesus this week. 

Humbled to serve, 

The Guatemala Team