Broken eggs and Shaved ice

God is Love

Ben led our devotion this morning.  He read from 1 John 4, and we discussed what “Love” is.  Love is sacrifice, love is forgiving, love is helping those who cannot repay you for what you’ve done. But, the ultimate love is the love of God.  1 John 4:9-11, “God showed how much He loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him.  This is real love-not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.  Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.”

Broken eggs and shaved ice

Our first stop was to the home of Blanca.  She lives with her children on land owned by her step father.  Her two daughters are Astrid and Kimberly.  They are such a sweet family.  The father abandoned them many years ago.  She has been doing the best she can since that time.  She weaves clothes for a living.  Ben asked her how her relationship with God was.  She said “fine”.  You can just tell when people are trying to put on a brave face.  Tears were right below the surface as she spoke of her broken life.  We brought 24 eggs for the family.  Ben reached over and picked one of the eggs up in his hand.  He described how the egg is the perfect food.  It has the shell that keeps the good things in, and the bad things out.  He began to squeeze the egg.  He said the pressures of life are just like that.  They begin to squeeze you until the shell cracks and everything inside comes out.  The egg went everywhere.  It was a great visual.  Blanca totally understood it.  She then opened up about her life and Ben shared the Gospel with her. She said she had gone to church but the weight of life kept her away.  When Ben shared the Gospel, she said she had never heard it like that.  That’s such a common thing.  People hear about God, but not the Gospel and Christ as Savior and Lord, dying for our sins.  All of the people we come into contact with are missing the relationship with God, that He intends.  The amount of joy when they hear that is wonderful. After we talked for a while, Ben asked her what she wants to do for a living.  She pointed to a shaved ice machine over on her dresser.  We walked through what that business would look like.  She needs a way to make and store the ice, and initial money to buy the containers, cups, fruit and cart to push the machine around.  For about $200 she can have a business where she will make money doing what she likes.  We are trying to find ways to make it happen.  One of the things they do is put ground up pumpkin seed on top of it.  Very interesting!     We then went to Kape Paulinos for lunch.  This is my favorite restaurant.  The chorizo is so delicious.  We usually only go here once a trip.  It’s a real treat. After lunch, we headed to the home of Anna Faviola.  She is a 21-year old girl who truly lights up a room with her smile.  She has celiac disease and is extremely sensitive to gluten.  It greatly effects what she can eat.  She finished her first year of University.  She was working at the same time, but had to stop going to school because of her job.  She is studying the field of Forensics.  We asked what that meant.  I’m picturing SVU or one of those shows.  They said there are many different types, such as banking and finance.  The program she is going through sounds like it has an excellent reputation.  There is a government agency that uses this program to hire all of its employees.  The fact she has made it this far is amazing, and extremely difficult.  She has four more years to go.  Between books, supplies, tuition, fees and transportation, it costs $200 per month to go to University.  This young woman is so close.  She needs sponsorship to finish the race she has started!  If you might be interested in helping with the full amount or any part of it, please let me know.     Her dad was in a wheelchair.  Two years ago, he lost all feeling from his waist down.  The doctors cannot explain it.  It is a huge burden on them, as it makes it difficult for him to work.  They are such a sweet family. Ben asked Anna how her relationship with God was.  She said she had a lot of questions.  Ben pulled out the Bible we were going to give them to tell her all the answers were inside.  He opened it up and realized it was a Spanish study Bible that literally did have a section of questions and answers in the beginning.  Ben went through those and Anna’s face really lit up.  She can read very well, so having a Bible she can read will be a huge blessing. We then headed back to the hotel.  I got too much sun and wasn’t feeling well, so I came back to the hotel so I could sleep.  Tomorrow is our last full day here.  We will be doing the wheelchair distribution in Chimaltenango.  Thank you so much for following along. I really appreciate everyone’s comments and encouragement.