Ranch Guatemala Trip

We all made it back to the USA. All our bags eventually came in and we’re now on a bus with the Woods team from Honduras headed back to camp. We had to say goodbye to much of our team in Dallas and one in Houston. The goodbyes were too fast for my liking, I wish I had ten more days to hang out with all of them. This trip was a blessing and I made a lot of memories. Thank you to those who went and were a part of it and thank you to those who followed the blog and complimented it, it was a ton of fun to do it and I enjoyed every second. I hope you felt like you were there and stayed informed. The Lord did some amazing things in our lives and the lives of those in Guatemala; all the glory goes to Him and Him alone. I’ll see you in the summer Ranch team.
Signing off,
Donnie

The flight numbers have changed slightly although the travel times are basically the same.  Wanted to give you a head’s up on the latest info:

From Guatemala to Houston, Continental #1503

From Houston to DFW, Continental #4896, arrives at 6:40pm

We are headed back today. Here is our flight information so you can be aware of when your party members need to be picked up. We’ll have a quick morning breakfast, trip to the supermarket, and off to the airport. The Bluffs/CITC team leaves a few hours after us so they will have a later night.

From Guatemala City to Houston: CO 1503 ~ dep. @ 1240PM, arrive at 3:30PM

From Houston to DFW: CO 4642 ~ dep. @ 5:30PM, arrive at 6:34PM

We’ll be in U.S.A. in t-minus 8 hours.

Donnie

Check it, yo.

Today was the last day of camp in Guatemala. The day started with power hour and bible study and the last activity class. After a quick lunch, the Guatemalan leaders shared a final word of encouragement to the campers and then there was a sea of hugs. the kids left and then we loaded up and left too.

We made it back safely to Villas Magen in Guatemala City. There is not a single person on our team that isn’t completely worn out, which is great, it means we left it all on the field. The hospitality of Villas Magen will be sincerely appreciated and we are all looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

These past ten days have been just awesome. For some of us, we got to see old friends that we first met in January 2010 when the first Guatemala Ranch trip came down and those who came last year got to see the Guatemalans that they became so close to in 2011. Others forged deep friendships with some they have only known for ten days. It was bittersweet saying goodbye to our friends here. We will always cherish the time we have spent with them.

A passion for the gospel is on fire in Guatemala. They will continue to do the Lord’s work after we are long gone. They will continue changing lives and leading young kids to Christ. There is no lack of zeal for living a life that follows after Jesus Christ here. I hope God continues to bless them and allow opportunities for them to have camps in Guatemala.

Tonight, we are going to go to a supermarket and buy some snacks (coffee mainly, make sure you tell someone you want a bag before it is too late). The Bluffs/CITC team will be here in a few hours and we will get to debrief with them and share stories and laughs.

Please pray for our safe travels tomorrow. We’ll see you guys soon.

Donnie

Well, Johnny made the Rally for the last session of camp and I was bestowed the honor of mapping out the second one. Johnny told me to make sure that the kids are tired after the thing is over. Quite a task. As you may have seen from the pictures of this camp, it is on the side of a mountain and there are steep slopes. That means that there will inevitably be a lot of uphill running.

There were eleven main stations and one surprise task at the end: 1) find a piece of paper with your team color on it that is hidden somewhere in camp, 2) do a tire run relay, 3) a person that is blindfolded needed to pour a cup of water in a bucket while his team told him what to do, 4) climb up a dirt wall, 5) play gaga ball, 6) get a rock from one side of your team line to the other using only your feet and the rock couldn’t touch the ground, 7) find Jarratt (who was hidden at the top of the slope), 8) fill a bucket up using only a wet rag (there was about 100m between the buckets and the entire team needed to go), 9) arrange your team from tallest to shortest on a log while not falling off, 10) run a course up the mountain while carrying a log, 11) run through a lot of mud, and the surprise task came when they finished all of those. They had to run from the bottom of the mountain to the top and get a piece of paper.

It was tiring. The best time was about 51 minutes. Just think of it as marathon training or a mudder 5k. Needless to say, no one really liked me after it was over. If it is any consolation, I walked the entire course while making it and ran it while filming it and taking pictures. After the Rally and our legs were all dead, we decided a game of soccer would be a good idea. Instead of going into details about the game, I’ll just say it ended 9-7 in favor of the Guatemalans.

After dinner, there was praise and worship and a fireside talk by Johnny. During this time, several kids accepted Christ and rededicated their lives to Christ. It was an incredible experience to see the gospel shared in another language and watch lives change. I cannot say exactly what Johnny spoke about, but it was clear he was moved by the Spirit when he spoke and this time was a blessing to be a part of.

Even after all of these games and events, we still had a game of Commando to play. A game of Commando on this mountain slope was pretty nuts, but still a success. Kids had fun and counselors busted campers. And then, after all these things, it was time for sweet sleep.

Morning came with all of its glorious splendor and chilly weather. We sat down for our last breakfast at this camp and begun our last day with kids in Guatemala. This afternoon we will leave for Guatemala City and Villas Magen and then take off in the morning. At times it feels like we have only been here for a few days, not over a week.

Donnie

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Last night Johnny gave us a tongue twister in Spanish. After we all looked silly doing it, we had our revenge by giving him one in English. We had a Tongue Twister-off between our best Spanish speaker (Monty) and Johnny.

The Spanish tongue twister: Tres tristes tigres traigan trigo en un trigal y cual de los cuatro trago mas trigo.

The English tongue twister: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?

Kids arrived yesterday afternoon and camp got started right away with cabin assignments, lunch, and activity classes. This camp session felt like it started off faster because our Guatemalan partners showed up with the kids and we hadn’t gotten to see them since we left the other camp. It was great to see them and reconnect with them briefly.

After activity classes each cabin was put into teams and created cheers for their color. The energy of these kids is incredible and I think we have our Guatemalan partners to thank for that. Each day they bring the madness and pump the kids up. We played our relay/scavenger hunt game again last night where the kids had to get beads by accomplishing a task at 8 different stations. After that there was a competition among the cabins on who could dress up their counselor better. There was a fashion show event where they showed off their costume and told a joke. They received a score from the three local judges: Raquel la Hermosa (Raquel the Beautiful), Brett Michaels (no translation necessary), and Pedrito el Fuerte (Little Peter the Strong). Hopefully we will have footage of that up soon.

This morning we were blessed with another beautiful morning with cool weather (you could even see your breath at some times) and hot coffee. After a breakfast of eggs, frijoles, and tortillas, Roberto, Byron, and Monty got the kids ready for Bible study with a little skit during Power Hour. Monty is an aspiring luchador who just can’t get seem to understand how to get better and Roberto is training him with the help of his assistant, Byron.

After that, it was time for Bible study and then activity classes once again. The day is beautiful and we have a lot of fun things to do. Johnny will make another Rally for the kids tonight like at the beach camp and we will once again be playing a game called Commando.

Continue to keep us in your prayers. This is our last full day with campers and probably our last full day with our Guatemalan team. Pray that we strengthen our relationships with them regardless of the language barrier and that lives are changed in the short time we have left. It’s not over yet.

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Donnie

This morning we woke up, ate breakfast, and hiked around our camp looking at our new facilities since we could not do it last night. This camp is beautiful. I can’t really describe it, so I’ll just show you.

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We are back up and running again with a working connection! Yay!

Well we didn’t get to go into great detail about our day trip to Antigua, so I’ll try to recall the journey. We left Villas Magen after breakfast and traveled to a historic area of Guatemala City. There we took many pictures and had a lot of fun. We lined up our team for a “band” picture (or an O.C. picture); you decide who has the best band face (I vote the frontman). There were many beautiful buildings and neat streets that we walked down.

After we left the square, Werner was kind enough to let us stop at his house and use his bathroom. A few minutes later we were off to Antigua. Antigua is one of the more popular tourism sites in Guatemala. It has a large marketplace where you haggle, peruse, and buy little knick knacks and whatnots. Our group had a good time getting souvenirs for themselves and for loved ones back home. We ate a familiar meal at McDonald’s (though one of the most pretty McDonald’s you will ever see). When our time in Antigua was over, it was also time for us to say goodbye to our translator Esgrid. He is headed to Honduras for a conference where he will be leading a workshop for evangelical students. The goodbye was short and sweet and we saw him disappear around a corner. It was also time for us to say “see ya later” to our Camp in the City/Bluffs friends as well. We loaded up on separate buses and headed to our respective camps, us to the mountains, them to the beach.

We arrived at Camp Canaan and we were welcomed by cool weather. It was nice. The weather is extremely nice here. It gets warm in the mornings before noon then cools off. We didn’t get to explore much of the camp last night; but, we got some good fellowship time in there and even played some Spikeball. The beds had mattresses that were soft and sleep came quickly. We even had hot water, can you imagine!?

Morning came and we set off on an adventure.

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Donnie