Hey everyone! I’m sorry it’s taken so long to bring an update…but, thank you for your patience…and here it is!

Since my last blog post, my squad walked through a week of PVT - an awesome week where our parents visited and did ministry with us. During this, many people experienced hard realities, simple joys, revived relationships, and deeper connections. I am grateful for this week and I continue to praise God for what He’s doing and pray that He would do an even greater work in my parent’s lives moving forward - which I know He will.

After our parents left, my squad hopped in a bus and drove to another part of Guatemala for debrief. We stayed in Atitlan, near the lake. This was a surprisingly heavy time for me, but was filled with refreshing rest and deeper relationships being formed. We visited coffee shops, went to dinners, jumped of the colorful dock, received teachings, worshiped through singing, played soccer, and did a 40 ft cliff jump after a boat ride to the lake. It was a beautifully unique experience where I tried to navigate the heaviness and fear I felt for the future while also choosing to press into the people and opportunities around me.

On March 21st, my squad and I hopped on a bus once again and drove 18 hrs to our new home - Comayagua, Honduras📍.

I kind of love it here. Comayagua is the city, but we stay on the mountain, where there is nothing around. Every house is a dirt path to another and the people that live in them are sweet, tender, and sometimes shy. My whole squad lives on a farm here, with sheep, goats, horses, donkeys, chickens, ducks, and bunnies.  We sleep in our cutie little tents, and many of us have early mornings. Ministry varies, but most days for me start when the Lord wakes me up at either 5:38 or 5:43 - every day, and I spend lots of time with the Lord before breakfast at 8. After breakfast, we have morning worship and teaching altogether with the amazing team here. After that, we start our day’s ministry. Often this looks like maintaining the grounds here - caring for the animals, shoveling poop, building a shed, cleaning, etc. After lunch, we either continue working around base or walk to houses in the community to say hi, share scripture, bring food, and pray with them, as well as to invite them to the women’s classes, church, or Saturday VBS that we put on for the kids. If we don’t do house visits, we may visit a school, or do any other opportunity given to us for that day.

After ministry, we have dinner around 6 and usually team time during that. At 7:30 we end the evening by having more worship and a teaching put on by the ministry team here. At this time many people are tired and head strait to bed. However, there’s often a fire burning and worship strummed on the guitar with soft voices lifting up. The kitchen holds much laughter, chatter, and sweet, simple moments, all hours of the day.

Simple moments doing the dishes slow me down, or talking to the little goat who’s about to have her own, or simply staring at the vast colors of the mountain ahead and watching the puffy clouds roll by or gazing at the stars as I sit around the fire. Mostly, my favorite moments are the conversations - with my squad, the many kids who call our base their second home, the abuelas we meet in each house visit, and the Catracho team who has taken us under their wings to love us well and overflow what they’ve been given.

Some random things about our home here…

It rains almost every day

The fire ants are wild

Most people work out in the fields

Animals are everywhere

We have a bucket flush toilet 🪣🚽

Every animal and its mom gets loudest just before the sun comes up

Sheep pee when they’re scared

We named our stray dog “pig”

Girls aren’t allowed to read the Bible

It’s mainly catholic

Beans are a staple