One of the many reasons I have been so pumped about going on this mission trip is the possibilities I knew I would have to try speaking Spanish with people. Well today I got my first opportunity on the plane when I met the sweetest Guatemalan lady named Concha (it was longer than Concha but there was no way I could pronounce the real name so she told me to call her that). She was so kind and insisted on swapping seats with me so that I could have the aisle seat instead of the middle because she wanted me to be more comfortable. We began talking, more like she was talking with me trying to understand her and then I tried to make myself understood and she smiled at my mistakes. But through all of that we were able to communicate with each other. I learned that she had been living in the US for eighteen years with her husband, but they had grown to miss their children in Guatemala too much and had made the decision to move back. She asked what I was doing in Guatemala, and I shared that it was for a mission trip with Lansing Christian High School. She then asked me multiple times if we were a Catholic, Protestant, or Evangelical group. In Guatemala and Central American countries, there is a much bigger distinction between denominations of Christianity than we make in the US. I responded that we were Evangelical/Protestant. I tried to convey the idea that it wasn’t very important to us, what mattered was what one believed about Jesus. She later mentioned that she also believed what denomination one belonged to was not the most important thing. I don’t know how much this conversation actually affected her, but it was really cool to be able to speak with someone from a different culture, who had lived a completely different life, and who spoke a different language. I do believe this experience will help me be less afraid to speak Spanish with people and that it was somewhat of a foreshadowing of the kinds of experiences we will have throughout the rest of the trip.
-Melanie
Today we visited Pinitos, the place that the LCS mission group worked last year, and two realizations, one negative and one positive, hit me. First of all, I realized that I had forgotten how depressed being at Pinitos could make you feel. The smell of rotting meat and the sight of rundown shacks were removed from my memory as I reminisced about the truly incredible, despite the badness, mission trip. Now that I had returned, the realization hit me that the unsightly, depressing details of such experiences are often forgotten in an effort to remember the greatness of the experience. The second, more positive realization hit me when the people of Pinitos noticed that there were some visitors in town. The people soon recognized us and began smiling and waving at us. The kids especially excitedly ran towards us after not seeing us for a year. The realization was that the actions of we Christians can be and are remembered long after the actions are completed. The people of Pinitos could have easily forgotten in that year who built for them a soccer field or why. But instead, they recognized our faces and were joyful to see us again. What I hope for this trip is that we would be a similar blessing to a new group of Guatemalans as we were one year ago to the people of Pinitos.
- JD
