e came back to base at midnight on Friday. I’ve been in another region of Guatemala called Petén for the last two weeks, one week of which we spent in Mayan villages where no other Gringos had been before. I’ll start with the Mayan villages. I was assigned to a village called Sesaltul, we had to hike in, barefoot ( sandals don’t work so well in knee deep mud), with all of our gear, food, and water for three days. We were watched by the locals all the time, simply because we were different. I was the whitest/ largest person they’d ever seen. We did a VBS for the kids, played soccer in the mud and bathed in a river. We hiked out and rode in a truck to our next village where it POURED rain pretty much nonstop. We did another VBS and had so much fun with the kids. It was difficult to communicate with the villagers because only about a quarter of them spoke Spanish, they spoke an indigenous language that I don’t know how to spell… sorry about that. We returned to our headquarters in Petén and spent the next week doing VBS in two other towns. I’m glad to be back at base in Chimaltenango, but it was a truly incredible time with my ministry team. I got to grow so much closer with all the guys on my team, whether it was playing “what are the odds” and having to get a buzz cut, or cleaning the cuts on each others feet from our barefoot hike. I’ve grown closer to my ministry hosts and my boys. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Thanks for reading!