SUNDAY, 7/29/12 – Taking in the beauty of Guatemala

An amazing first day in Guatemala!  We started the trip quickly realizing the value of arriving on a Saturday; the next full day being Sunday, the day of rest.  Therefore, instead of going to a village to serve other’s physical and spiritual needs, we found God serving our own spirits and each other’s with amazing fellowships, deep, relating conversations, and trust strengthening amongst the team as single cohesive unit, especially in our foreign environment (we had plenty of team building in GA before coming, but now we’re here and our spirits, attitude and comfort in God is put to the test).  As the day progressed, we concluded undeniably there are no accidents and that God designed this team with His perfect purpose.

Not to rehash Patrick’s summary, which I just noticed was there….   : - )  , but a couple notes from a different perspective (as he’s been here four times in the last five years and I was only here once four years ago) on attending church here; the church location, message, music and agenda was amazing!  Four years back, I attended church in an InterContinental Hotels seminar room located in the Guatemala City.  Now, four years later, the original message is performed and recorded at their own church now in Guatemala city and that video message is played each Sunday in eight other satellite churches around Guatemala (with more satelites to come).  The location we enjoyed worship at was a conference room in a four star hotel resort in Antigua (ironically, the resort was converted from a 16^th century Catholic monastery (which we toured later).  It was so awesome to see how the ministry in Guatemala is exploding through their NorthPoint like model of getting a single message out to multiple other locations and wrap around it the attractiveness of that satellite church location’s live worship music, pastor interaction and leadership, and fellowshipping with some amazing, loving brothers and sisters.   You could really see how purpose and technology will exponentially deliver God’s word to the people around this wonderful country.

Later, after fueling up over an awesome mountain top brunch, we burnt plenty of energy playing with the kids at the orphanage.  Patrick said it all.  It was just a huge blessing to give and receive so much love there.  Praise God!  What a day!