Here it is almost the end of May, and I’m just now getting to share the stories of Guatemala. Forgive me for being so late! Life got away from me when I got back, what with closing the month for April with Accounting and getting right to work on cataloging and selling products purchased on the trip. The next thing I knew, it was May and time to close that month!
Hopefully you received my snail mail newsletter last month. If not, please let me know and I’ll send you one. I leave next week for Thailand, but can’t do so without telling you about what God did in Guatemala. Those stories need to be told. It was such an incredible trip – encouraging, life giving… and again, a great reminder how God is at work.
There’s something about Antigua, Guatemala, that I love. It literally might be the most beautiful place I’ve ever been- from the cobblestones and the brightly colored buildings, to the ancient arch and the people wearing bright fabrics. The Land of Eternal Spring – it has the ability to renew me each year after a long winter. Makes me long for and excited for the spring and summer in the States to come. Personally, this trip breathes life and energy into me that I can’t explain and am so thankful for.
This was the third official Purchase Effect Trip to Guatemala, the second with a team. And the coolest thing was to see how God is and has been at work, and how He is using Purchase Effect there!
While not an official AIM trip (I took vacation time to go; my airfare/expenses were paid for with my tax refund), it is completely missional for all intents and purposes – sharing Christ whenever and wherever we are – from the waitress at our favorite restaurant to the local vendors we work with. What was so neat was that people remembered us! Not just our faces or the products we purchased – our names. Those moments we’ve spent with them, talking with them, purchasing from them, learning about and meeting their families, hearing their stories – they haven’t forgotten. This goes beyond a business relationship. They are people we care about (and vise versa); people whose lives and stories we are deeply invested in. People we pray with every fiber of our being come to know Jesus Christ if they don’t already.
Beyond the “practical” awesome-ness of being recognized and remembered (both them recognizing us and vise versa… after all, repeat customers really encourage vendors!), came the incredible realization of growth and continued business relationships. The women who make beautiful bead jewelry in Lake Atitlan are the sole bread-winners of their families. Last year when we met the family who employ these women, they showed us the process, let us see the file drawer of 290 women who work for them, and took us to the homes of several to see them at work firsthand. This year, they greeted us with a huge smile, thanked us for returning, and showed us an extended file drawer of folders representing individual women who work for them – over 400! That’s incredible growth; and knowing that Purchase Effect was able to be a small part of it is so humbling… and so COOL!!
*bottom photo by Connie Rock.
In addition to this awesome market ministry God has given Purchase Effect, we were able to check in with the local missionary, Betty, who works with the inner-city school for “the Children Who Don’t Exist” in Guatemala City and also the home for AIDS orphans outside the city. Seeing Betty was incredible! She is a Guatemalan missionary who is sold out for Christ. Just this spring God gave her a son she had prayed for for a long time – a 4-year-old boy. Betty and her beautiful little son took us to both the school and the orphanage while we were there.
Again, it felt so good to be remembered. And so incredible to see the growth. That school is maxed out- so many children who attend and even live there – they’ve had to expand onto the second floor! And there’s so much joy in that building, so much hope, mere feet from the city’s trash dump and hostile gang territory. Again, we saw “Maria”, the little girl who had been abandoned by her father there in 2012. She was all smiles, little-girl laughter, and more energy that I think I’ve ever had in my life.
*Photos by Connie Rock.
The story I want to leave you with is of the orphanage, however. We went there one afternoon on the way into the city and spent time with the kids. Walking into the nursery, the little ones who had been in cribs last year toddled/crawled up to us. They were so big! “Gabriel” (name changed), the boy who spends his days in bed, his body twisted and trapped by disability was moaning, in pain from recent physical therapy. Getting to sit at his bedside and sing to him was so simple… and such a gift when he made eye contact, stopped moaning, and began to relax.
Then we went out to the playground and skipped, and ran, and laughed, and imagined, and did just about anything you can possibly do to play with or without a common language. This one little girl, who said her full name (I think she had 4 names) so fast that I couldn’t catch it, stole my heart. “Kristina, Kristina!”, she’d call to me whenever I looked away – she wanted my attention and she wanted all of it. I didn’t catch much of what she said, but I was so taken with was how full of life this beautiful little girl was. So much hope before her. A beautiful future.
A little girl infected with HIV.
She played and laughed like any “normal” girl. As did the other kids. Right before we left, I looked up to hear Connie calling out to Betty, who teaches at the orphanage. One of the older girls had “tricked” her into completing her homework for her. We were still laughing as we headed to the van to leave. Hugging, final words… a girl around 9 or 10 stood outside Connie’s window. “We have to go now. It was so good to see you. You are so beautiful and so smart!, ” Connie said. “I’ll see you next year!”
“No,” came the reply in Spanish. “I will be dead by then.”
Time stopped for me. The flurry of activity outside faded. Had I heard correctly? My Spanish is far from fluent, but those simple words, strung together in the little-girl voice, were more than clear.
Betty explained as the we drove away that these children believe that death is just around the corner for each of them. When a friend died of a heart condition last year, they began to question and mentally prepare for their own as if it were just months away. They’ve been ostracized by society and believe that they are doomed to die before their lives even begin.
That, for me, was the moment when I realized again just how incredible this vision for Purchase Effect is that God gave Connie, and how blessed I am to be able to volunteer with it. The proceeds from products purchased in Guatemala (example below) go to Betty, who uses them for both the school and this orphanage. Literally speaking, every customer from the past year who has purchased something from Guatemala has not only been a part of encouraging a vendor, but also directly impacting the life of a child in Guatemala – children who are abandoned, children who believe they have no future, children who think they will be dead before Christmas.
*Photos by Connie Rock.
This is the Purchase Effect.
As always, thank you SO MUCH for your support and encouragement, whether it’s on the field with an AIM trip, working in the office, or in this volunteer work. I feel so blessed to be able to do something I love… thank you for your prayers and for being a part of this story!
