Sarah's thoughts for the day....

We woke up earlier this Monday morning than we have in the few days we’ve been here in Guatemala. We were on the road by 8am and headed towards another mission house. This organization, started by an American who, like us, felt the call to go to Guatemala, is called Only a Child. It is a house and a workshop where young men, usually at least 18 years old, come to escape life on the streets. There are very strict rules in the house, in part because the situations that the young men come from have left them with some bad habits and irresponsible tendencies. They are often from homes in which their entire existence has been one of neglect, abuse, and violence. For many, Only a child is the only home or family they have ever had.

At the carpenter shop they learn to make wooden boxes of all shapes and designs. The founder of the mission, George, said that after they started the mission it became clear that the boys would need something to keep them busy as well as something that they could take pride in. After living at the bottom of society for so long and after having nothing to take pride in, these boys and men gain self-confidence and learn about dedication and what it means to work honorably. The goal of the mission, as George puts it, is to give them the chance to grow up to be able to support themselves as well as wives and children, and to reflect the characteristics of good, Christian men.

We got the opportunity to share a little bit about ourselves and our families, as well as to hear a little about the young men that live there. All are continuing their education, even if they are 22 and still at a 6^th grade level, and they are working hard to meet their goals. They have dreams of being everything from cooks to lawyers to publicists to pharmaceutical representatives.

After we got back on the bus we headed towards the cemetery. On the way we saw all kinds of shops. There were wood-working shops, mechanics, clothing stores, trophy stores and stands with any kind of fruit or vegetable you could imagine. When we got to the cemetery we were that we would have to pay a toll. Apparently grave robbing is a significant problem in Guatemala. As we walked through the tombs, all above ground because no one is buried underground, a quote from the Lord of the Rings jumped into my mind. “The kings built houses more splendid for the dead than for the living.” The tombs of the cemetery were very beautiful, if not a little run down, and after driving past houses made of tin sheets I could not understand how they could afford such splendor. But this is Guatemala, and sometimes things just don’t make sense.

On the edge of the grave yard there was a cliff face. It looked down over a valley that might have been very beautiful, like the ones we see in pictures of the Amazon. But one peek over the edge and all of that evaporates in the smell and the sight that greets you. Below, at the bottom of the valley huge trucks pull in and dump trash in great piles. Among these piles are men and women, picking through the garbage just like the vultures that flap next to them. These people come to the dump to make a living, a lot of them in the only way they know how. They sort out glass, plastic, wood, cardboard and food and bring it back to town to either use or sell. Many Guatemalans, even the ones that we work with at the mission, have family or friends that work at the dump. It’s not hard to imagine what effect this work has on their health and well-being.

Kevin joked with us earlier this week about how he avoids the locals giving us food. (Guatemalan food is unsanitary in a lot of cases and would make us very sick.) In order to not be rude he tells us that Americans are a very weak people, not strong like the Guatemalans, and they are not strong enough to eat the food. After seeing what these people live through, and really we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg so far, it seems there is a little truth to that.

Our last outing of the day was to the house of someone who had actually graduated high school as a result of Groundwork Guatemala. His name was Edgar and we got to meet his little brother as well as his new wife. We learned a little bit about his family and his situations and he shared a favorite verse. When we asked if he and Nancy, his wife, attended church he said no. This started a whole conversation that included ourselves and our Guatemalan guides about how easy it is sometimes to not go to church. Manuel, our driver and a leader of the adult bible study, was very firm with Edgar in telling him that he must remember his responsibility as a husband and as a Christian man to attend church and participate in a community of Christians. It was very inspiring and was really a lesson that all of us can relate to.