Friday 11 July 2014

Day 6

Day 6 - Tactic

Blessings from Guatemala. We started our day a bit earlier than the others, we started with some worship and devotion time. We then joined the others for a delicious breakfast, made again by our gracious hosts.

We as usual are shoved quickly into the vans and sped off to our morning activity, which today was a ancient mayan sink hole. It is still used in the present day by witch doctors for rituals for the local people. It is a hard but short hike up to site of the sink hole, while at the top Oscar our guide gave an inspiring lecture about the history of the sink hole and power it had and how the people used it for all sorts of life problems. The amazing part of his lecture is, since impact ministries has built a christian  school along the road to the sinkhole all the local witch doctors have been saying that this place is losing its power and very few people use it anymore. In the architecture of the school they placed the windows of the chapel specifically on the road side, so when people use the road they can hear gods praises up and down it. As we descended into the sink hole you could feel the damp and smell the smoke from fires and candles in the air, you could feel the darkness of this place. When we were all at the bottom we were encouraged to open our hearts and let God shine his light through us, we sang praises to God and prayed together. We then took time to go alone and pray over the sink hole and have the Lord work through us to undo the dark power in this place. When we regathered from our time some among us shared that they had accepted christ in this time. We rejoiced together for these among us, there was also sharing of hardships and trails. We gathered and prayed together for all among us. This was a very exciting time, we really came together as to team to uphold one another.  We then accended out of the pit with feelings that the lord works in amazing ways, even when such a place have such a dark history. God has overcome the darkness.

From the sinkhole we came back to the guesthouse and ate some lunch. It was amazing as usually.
Straight from lunch we headed straight back out to the school to do our last day in VBS. It was hard thinking of this as our last day together I didn't want it to end, The children are so amazing and loving it is so easy to be around them. Well once you get out of the van there are usually 2 or 3 hanging off of you or pulling you to come and play with them. We started with songs of worship, the kids love the actions and are always dancing and clapping. we then moved into the study it started with a drama called sin chair, which taught the children how we can get stuck on sin but through christ we can be free from it once again. Our memory verse was next which today was John 3:16.  Raquel and the children had a lot of putting all the words in the right order even the children's teachers got involved. it was a lot of fun. The final craft together was a bracelet with six different colour beads representing salvation. The kids loved that we all had something that could match, and i was glad i could have something everyday top remind me of them. Game time is always a blast, we pulled the parachute out today and the kids absolutely couldn't get enough of it and we also played blob tag. a lot of fun. We finished our VBS firstly with the kids favourite song, one with lots of actions and dancing of course, and then we asked them to gather in the middle and we prayed for them, to my surprise they then insisted of praying for us. Kids with such  faith is inspiring, it brought tears to my eyes. We finished off the whole event with a massive hug line leaving the chapel. You can never have too many hugs in one day.

We then came back to the guest house and got ready for the much anticipated game of soccer against the teachers of the school where we worked. We first met at the school for some fellowship time where we played games and hung out, was a lot of fun and learned some new games. They also prepared dinner for us and we shared the meal together. After eating we headed over the local soccer field and the ladies started off the matches. I want to go through play by play for you all, but that would take far too long. After a long and well played game the Guatemalan woman came out on top by a goal. Then the mens game began we played 5 on 5 with goalie, man was it a good game everyone was playing great. After a tie in regular time we moved into a 20min ext time. It was such a close game, The Guatemalan's again came out on top. Giving us the chance to redeem ourselves we moved into penalty kicks. we moved all the way to the 8th kick when they finally got ahead. It was a great game played with lots of heart. We appreciate the opportunity to play with our brothers from here. It was back to the guesthouse and to bed after that.

Thank you for your love and prayers.

Ben Cornelsen


























1 comment:

  1. What a blessing it is to be able to read how the Lord is moving in Guatemala but it was extra special this morning to sit down to breakfast and have you join us Ben. We rejoiced with you in all that the Lord is doing in and through you all. We shed tears of joy over the love that He is allowing you to experience and over your game losses. :) (You may have to all join Jordy's soccorr camp this summer to hone your skills.) We miss you very much but we know that you are writing a chapter in your story that He planned for you. We continue to pray that the Lord will bring to completion all that He has begun and that He will uphold you all in His strong and mighty arms of love.
    Love & prayers, Mom & Dad
    p.s. give Raquel ad big hug from us. xoxox

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