San Lucas Toliman

Hola!
We successfully made it to San Lucas Toliman Sunday afternoon with the rest of the team:)
Monday and Tuesday morning we met with the teachers at the school for children with special needs.  The 2 teachers that are there don't have any training for working with kids with special needs, and were really excited to have us there. We were greeted by lots of hugs from the kids too:)
  We have a couple teachers, two Occupational Therapists, a speech therapist, and a physical therapist all on the team, so we started with some one on one evaluations with the kids. We were able to give the teachers a lot of suggestions for working with the kids and exercises to help them. It was cool to see how receptive and eager to
Some of us also went in to observe the classroom and see what the kids were working on and come up with ways to enhance their learning.

Tuesday we got to play soccer with the kids and do some hands on activities with the kids in the classroom. Emily led an activity where the kids got to use letter beads to work on recognizing and spelling their names. Definitely one of the highlights was seeing how engaged and excited the kids were about learning things in a new way.

Another highlight for today was getting to ride in the back off a pickup Guatemala style (aka: seeing how many people you can fit standing in the back!) due to a rainstorm flooding the streets today!

Tonight we are working on some projects (play dough, weighted sensory blankets, photo exercises) for the kids and we are excited to try them out tomorrow with the kids:)

Week 1 Recap

Hola!
So Thursday we started off the morning with a workshop with the teachers at the orphanage. Lorelei and Joyce watched a movie with the kids and hung out with them while Amy and I talked with the teachers. Amy talked about the basic things that kids need to be able to learn and how coming from difficult situations affects how they learn. I talked about the different learning styles kids have and how to use that to help the kids be more engaged in what they are learning.

In the afternoon we went to the church and led a women's workshop where Joyce talked about spiritual gifts with the ladies.
Then in the evening Amy talked about sexual abuse at the healthy families class.

Friday was fairly similar to Thursday, except in the morning Lorelei, Amy, and I did more home visits in some of the more remote areas of Sumpango. We got to hear some of their stories and pray with the families. Some of the people we visited with were those who had received bunkbeds in the past through the healthy families classes. It was cool to see how God is using the bunkbeds in these families lives to protect their kids and help give them a better future.
We did another women's workshop in the afternoon, and it was really awesome to see how many women came!
That night we did the final class at the church and Amy and I talked about health and nutrition. Then the bunkbeds went home with their rightful owners. The kids were so excited to sleep in their new beds!
It's been wonderful to see how God has worked everything together for these families to get the bunkbeds. They are definitely a gift from Him to these precious families.

On a side note, today was our break day, before another week of ministry in San Lucas Toliman. So Joyce headed off to take some Spanish classes, and the rest of us climbed Pacaya, a volcano! It was good to take a break,  and we're feeling re-energized and ready to pick up the rest of  the team tomorrow in Guatemala City!

Thanks for praying and following along! We're excited to see what God will do in this new week of ministry:)

Hello Everyone!

We arrived safely in Guatemala on Tuesday around noon.  We hit the grouund running after getting picked up by our driver and Joyce, who came down a week early to take some Spanish classes.  After getting some groceries for the week, we headed to the church in Sumpango to start the first Healthy Families Class.  Lorelei talked about having freedom in Christ, and Joyce and I had the kids during this time for a similar talk, and some fun songs and games!
We were all very grateful to get a good nights sleep, that night, after being up since 2:15am! :)

Yesterday we started off with home visits in the colonies where we were able to pray with and encourage several families.
In the afternoon, we went to the orphanage and Joyce shared a devotional with the nuns about taking care of  yourself through prayer and reading God's word.  We also got to play a lively game of basketball with the nuns- this was something they had been excited about since the planning trip!  It was great to have fun and build relationship with them at the same time.
After that, we headed for the church for the 2nd. healthy families class on Alcoholism.  Lorelei and Amy tackled this topic with the adults, and I (Rachel) talked with the kids about it.  I wasn't sure how this topic would go with a variety of ages of kids, but they stayed really engaged and we had a great conversation about it and how to deal with our problems in other ways.  As one girl piped in "We can pray about them!"  And that's the truth.


Lorelei talking about Freedom in Christ

Wed. night craft with the kiddos.

I'm running out of time, so that's all for now!

Hasta luego!