Guatemala Short-term Missions trip
February 11 - 18, 2023
Day 6 | Thursday, Feb. 16
An Unexpected Delay
Written by: Steve Oliver & Ryan Miller
Day 6
8:30am
So, this morning we woke up and headed out to 7am breakfast where we were notified by Ben, our missionary guide, that there is a protest today blocking the bridge we need to use to get to where we were supposed to do our home visits and home build. We aren’t in any danger, as the protest is completely peaceful and a bit far from us, but we are now stuck at the hotel waiting for the protest to clear, or be cleared by the local authorities. We were told it might be cleared by 4pm, which would be a disappointment for us and for the people we were meant to help. So, now were are mostly scattered around the hotel reading, getting some computer work done and biding our time. Truthfully we don’t know if we’ll get the chance to do what were here to do today, but we might, we shall see. 🙂
12:30pm
We were mostly sitting around waiting for the protest to end when Ryan Miller, Cameron (Ryan’s son), and Steve Oliver met a man who was from Houston, a truck driver waiting to deliver his tractors to a destination 5 hours away. He was a very kind man named Tomas, and spoke English, so that made it a bit easier for us to chat about life in America versus life here in Guatemala, and he said God bless as we said goodbye to gather together for lunch. At lunchtime we were still waiting for the protest to end, and none of us were restless per se, but definitely wanted to get to building the house we started two days ago.
5pm
The protest had been cleared but the traffic left over wouldn’t allow us to make it in enough time to our destination to complete any work. So we met for devotions and prayer, and then after a short break met for dinner at 6:30pm. Please pray for the families who didn’t receive what they might’ve today, for their salvation, for their home life, and for the salvation of their children.
Our Guatemala Missions Work
Rick Fulton, the founder of Mission Mobility, leads short-term trips to Guatemala, partnering with Grace Community Church. During these trips, teams work alongside Bethel Ministries to distribute the wheelchairs and walkers that they’ve been collecting all year long.
Teams also build metal homes for families. These homes typically include a fuel-efficient wood stove, triple bunk beds and pouring a concrete floor. The team also collects food, clothes and blankets to distribute and they carry it with them throughout the week as they distribute it in multiple locations.