Guatemala

The Team with Les and Rita Peters and Guatemalan friends
 

Their time was filled with many incredible experiences and God-revealing incidents, as detailed in the following writings :

The Guatemalan Experience - by Nik Gauthier, Grade 7/8 teacher :

God worked powerfully in the hearts of our students while we were on our short term missions trip in Guatemala. We want to thank all who supported us. For your reading pleasure, I have included some actual, only-somewhat-edited-to-take-out-the-mushy-stuff cause-it-would-gross-you-out, correspondence that I sent to my wife while in Central America.

From April 5, 2001 - We just walked down the mountain on the opposite side of the valley where we visited the Guatemalan Corndog. Yup. Last night Les sat us all down and said we would go up the hill and visit the Corndog. Well, at least that's what I thought he said at first - it actually turns out that we went to visit the CornGod. Yes, in the shadow of a Catholic cathedral there is this shrine surrounded by corn plants and burnt candles and other various burnt things. There is also a cross present (syncretism). This is where people come to make an offering to the CornGod in order to get a good harvest. The team joined in a circle and prayed against the strongholds of Tactic. Funny, I didn't, see a CornGod or corndog anywhere. Maybe he was fixing himself a sandwich. Afterwards we walked down the hill/mountain and gave away copious amounts of candy. A funny thing about Guatemala is that it has LOTS of kids. At any given shack you will see one little grubby brown face come out followed by one, two, three, five, eight, maybe ten more. Everyone seems to love candy. It must be the international symbol for "friend" (or gingivitis !)

One of  the high points of this trip so far took place a couple of nights ago. We have been distributing, locally, a lot of the things that we brought along. So we put together a care package for a family including things like Vange's  quilts (50 quilts sewn by ladies from Stony Plain Alliance Church). We drove the van to the outskirts of the city and parked in front of a concrete path that stretched far into the cornfields. We got out, packed up our stuff, and set out up this one person wide walkway. Soon the barbwire on both sides gave way to simple sticks hammered into the ground, and the convenience of concrete was replaced by packed dirt as we snaked our way past shacks and shanties into the backwoods outside Tactic. Eventually we came to a simple "house" made from mud. The floor of their one room was, as can be expected, packed dirt. Chickens pecked around our feet as Les described in Spanish what we were doing there. There seemed to be no shame on the faces of the dad, mom, and I think six children. They simply were who they were. The dad then spoke of what life had been like recently, commenting on the illnesses of the children including a mysterious skin disease. I know what you are thinking - I was thinking it too - I don't want to catch some mysterious skin disease. But God held me fast, reminding us that His Spirit was not a Spirit of fear. Finally the father ended by telling of his gratitude and how he was sorry that he had nothing to give us. Imagine that. We surrounded the family, laid hands on them, prayed for them, and sang hymns for them. It was truly a beautiful thing. I didn't feel sorry for them or repulsed by their hand in life; I just felt a quiet joy for them – a family doing the best they could with what they had. It was odd for him to say that he had nothing to give us because they gave us something that is very precious and very hard to find. We got a glimpse into how God sees people and we also got to feel the weight of God's smile.

From Doug Wiebe, Grade 9/10 teacher : 

We had an incredible time and saw the hand of God move in such a mighty way time and again while we were there. Even in the simplest things we felt God and His people - because of the team shirts we wore while traveling, we found ourselves in conversations with individuals and groups in the airports and on the airplanes. God's people were so evident as they were traveling to Central America to minister in the same way as students from Living Waters.

We spent time in Guatemala City ministering in the City Dump, which was a very heart- wrenching time. The people are so poor and live in conditions where the air is contaminated, the soil is contaminated and the water is contaminated. And yet, there they must live because they have no other place where they can go. And, in the midst of all of this is a ministry called "Touch of Love" which is reaching out to the people and trying to provide clean water, medical treatment and medication for their illnesses. It was a blessing to see how these people work in the midst of this poverty day in and day out, simply because they have felt the call of God to be there and do this very special thing.

Following this time, we traveled north (about a 4.5 hour drive) to a town called Tactic,which is where Les and Rita Peters have set up the headquarters for Impact Ministries. They are very involved with a Christian school, in the town, called Beerseba - its' role is to provide God-centered education to approximately 120 Grade 1-10 students. The facility they have is small and by our standards very poorly equipped, but many of the parents who send their children to the school sacrifice a great deal just so their children can be educated by Godly teachers. We helped improve their playground area at the school by pouring cement to cover over dirt (mud in the rainy season). The days there were very hot (usually +34 C), and so after coming straight from Spruce Grove (where it was -15 C when we left) we were "a tad wasted" by the hot/sunny conditions. We did recover, but they seemed like very long days.

We also traveled to a city north of Tactic called Coban (about a one half hour drive) - it is the capital of the Department (province). We spent time in the hospital praying for people in the children's ward. The conditions of the hospital were very poor, but it is the only place where parents can bring their children for needed medical treatment; many times people come for medical care and actually get a different infection or ailment while in the hospital because of the conditions. It was a very hard time for our kids and no one on our team left without feeling great sadness for all the children and their parents. Moms usually have to stay at the hospital too, so they can feed their children. For the night, the Moms will sleep on cardboard in a hallway outside the ward. We spent a good deal of time in Coban over a number of days in several ministry activities in Christian schools, city/town squares doing our dramas and playing sports with the Guatemalans.

It is so hard to encapsulate our trip into a few paragraphs because so very much happened to each person on the team. Each student felt God speak and ask something of us - God's call then was for obedience to all we had heard Him say. We came back to Canada determined to follow God in a new and better way than when we left. Please pray for the members of this team as they seek to fulfill their individual commitment to God.

Thank you again for all the items that were donated to give away - you can be sure they went to some very needy families that were a part of the Beerseba school family. Many of these families live in great poverty and yet still find a way to get their children to Beerseba to go to school. They told us they had prayed for such a blessing, as we were able to give, and so you have helped fill that request - we only delivered the blessing.

Thank you for your prayers - we needed them in such a mighty way. Some team members got sick while there, but nothing we felt was very serious. Your prayers opened some amazing doors with local pastors in Tactic - doors that continue to need to be prayed for as they open wider. We saw people saved and people recommitting themselves to the Lord. Pray for team members as they carry on doing the things God spoke to them about while in Guatemala.

Thank you for your financial gifts for the team members as they put together their faith support to pay for the trip. God, through you, moved and blessed in such a marvelous manner that we are still amazed. Because of your gifts we were blessed and were able to bless a large number of people.

Visit the Photo Gallery for some pre-trip photographs.

This site is maintained by Gordon Poultney, a parent of the school.