Flying to another country for a mission trip to work outside building houses all day does not seem like the best time in the word, but to all those that participated in the Guatemala missions’ trip, it was an unforgettable experience.
In January, a group of students and teachers embarked on a mission trip to the country of Guatemala. A few years ago, a volcano erupted in Guatemala destroying people’s houses and everything they owned. These unfortunate people where now living basically outside and sleeping on the dirt ground. They have close to nothing, and when it rains, what they do have gets wet and they are forced to sleep in the mud. It is this specific group of people we went to help. Arriving in Guatemala, our team traveled through the city to a large compound and house right outside the city limits. This is where the team stayed for the duration of the trip. Early on the first morning the team loaded on busses and began the drive to the area where they would work for the day. This drive took almost ninety minutes, but was filled with the beautiful scenery of mountains and volcanos that are very prevalent there. When the team got to the job site, they were split up and worked on several different houses all at once. These houses were twelve by sixteen-foot boxes with a metal roof. Their main function was to provide shelter and to get people off of the ground. Student Tye Fountain said, “Working all day in the sun and the heat was very hard and tiring, but the gratification that came from it, to give these families a home, was more than enough to keep me and the whole team going.”
The pure joy and happiness on the faces of the receiving family members to have these new homes was a memory that every TKA missionary will remember for the rest of their lives.
