"The Journey of a Thousand Miles....." (or three thousand)

So here it begins.... Well, it BEGAN a looooong time ago but somehow starting a blog makes everything official. Right?

I have had a special place in my heart for children, missions and orphans for, well, forever. I guess my journey to Guatemala specifically began when I started the process to bring my daughter home in November of 2004. Why Guatemala? They allowed singles to adopt. The process from start to finish was quicker than most countries. And I like REAL Mexican food waaaaaay more than REAL Chinese food. Which was important because I wanted to be able to celebrate my daughter's heritage with her and I figured Guatemala was probably just like Mexico because they all look the same, ya know. ;) Yup, pretty much my thought process on all that. Good thing that God uses freaks like me.

In July of 2008, when my daughter Grace was almost 3 years old, I came across Carolyn Twietmeyer's blog. Carolyn was in Ethiopia, at that time, trying to bring home her daughter Selah. It was then that God gave Carolyn a vision for a community or village that would be a refuge of sorts for HIV+ women and their children as well as HIV+ orphans. In the village these mothers would be able to get the medical care they needed to live and they would be able to parent their own children thus protecting these families and preventing the otherwise inevitability of more children needlessly becoming orphans. The vision God gave her also provided a family type setting for HIV+ orphans to live and grow as “normal” as possible and avoid all of the lifelong effects that children who grow up in institutions face. When Carolyn first shared this vision with me I thought it was BRILLIANT. Well of course it was brilliant, God is the one who came up with it! I told Carolyn at the time that I would love to go to Ethiopia once a year and volunteer at Covenant Village (the name she came up with for the community). I also told her that my heart was REALLY in Guatemala, so if she could eventually do the same type of thing in Guatemala that I would be there in a heartbeat! This was pretty much a looooong shot, seeing how Carolyn had absolutely no connections to any country south of the border let alone Guatemala. Fast forward to 2013 when I received an email from Carolyn, saying that God had opened a door for the vision He had given her to happen in GUATEMALA! WHAT!?!?

Through a series of events, and all in God’s timing, Grace and I were given the opportunity to serve with the Twietmeyers in Guatemala for ten weeks this summer! I taught a summer school program for missionary kids and was able to help out with other projects in the community of San Lucas. Grace also found her niche among the missionary kids, the HOPE+ families and reaching out to young children in the community. It was a whirlwind of a summer and by the end, both Grace and I felt that God had some very specific things for us to do in this beautiful country. Guatemala is an inseparable part of our hearts!