Guatemala Family Mission Trip

This Sunday March 25th, there will be a meeting for those interested in joining the Guatemala mission trip planned for June 23-30. The meeting will be held from 10:30-11:00am in Conference Room 2, near the nursery. Applications and deposits will be accepted and any questions you may have will be addressed.

How many of you watch the popular home renovation shows? Fixer Upper, Flip or Flop, Property Brothers are all intended to show us how easy it is to improve a less-than-desirable property into our dream home. Bathrooms are too small, floor plans are not open concept, and kitchens are dated. We take pride in our homes and are looking for ways to improve them. One recent statistic I saw said the average home cost in CT as $234,000, for many our largest investment.

In El Remolino, Guatemala the situation is quite different. Homes are often built of sticks, plastic bags, and other items scavenged from the nearby dump. Sometimes the home are built of mud with a wooden frame, and this is considered a step up. Few offer little in the way of safety or comfort. They are one room homes, with an open fire for cooking, blankets on dirt floors for sleeping, and personal items piled in corners or hung on walls in bags. There is no privacy and very little protection from the elements. The pictures seen with this article show homes that we can’t imagine living in.

So how can we help these families attain the safety, comfort, and privacy they are lacking? By investing in the community one family at a time!

For the sixth year we will be traveling to Guatemala for a week of mission work. This year our trip to Hope of Life will take place June 23-30 and will be focused on building a new home for a family in Remolino. The cost to build a home made of cinder blocks with two separate living areas and all the furnishings is $9,000. We can also further help the family by adding an outdoor kitchen or an enviro-oven to keep soot out of their home. Or maybe a chicken coop that will provide much needed food, as well as potential income if they sell any extra eggs. This act of love will bless this family for generations to come.

So how can you help?

First pray! Pray for us to be led to the right family,  to be able to gather all the provision and laborers for the build, and that we will carry the light of Jesus into the village.

Come with us! We will need laborers to build as well as people to pray with the neighbors who come to see the excitement and love on the children of the village.

Donate money to help us build! Even if you aren’t able to come with us directly, you can still be a part of the transformation by helping us financially. Dividing the total cost of the build into cinder blocks, it costs approximately $50 a block to build. Maybe you can sponsor one block, two, or even three? Or if one block is out of reach for you, give whatever you can. Every donation will bring us closer to the reality of a new home.

“Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the LORD.

-Haggai 1:8