Debriefing in Texas

This blog post is several days overdue, but better late than never, right? I posted the last update on Sunday the 21st while I was sitting in the airport waiting for our flight from Guatemala to Dallas, Texas. That flight ended up being delayed about 1.5 hours, but we made it to Dallas safe and sound, greeted by 90+ degree weather, which came as a big shock after 7 weeks of cooler high-altitude weather! At the airport we waited in a super long line for Customs and another super long line for Immigration, but around 5pm we finally made it to St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Denton, TX (just north of Dallas), which so graciously hosted us for our debriefing sessions and provided host homes for all of us interns. We ate dinner at the church, met the interns who had flown in from Mexico, Colombia, Honduras and Spain as well as some Camino Global staff, and just relaxed after the long day of traveling. Later that evening our host families came and picked us up.

Hanging out in the youth room (our main meeting room) at the church

On Monday we had worship and devotions all together at the church, and then we split up into small groups for debriefing sessions. We ate lunch together at the church and had free time in the afternoon and evening. During afternoon free time many of us explored the shops around the small town square in Denton. My group went to an ice cream shop and then discovered an enormous used book store. In the evening we all went to a minor league baseball game together (the Frisco RoughRiders). Then we spent Monday night with our host families as well.

Ice cream at a shop in Denton square

Used book store!

Frisco RoughRiders minor league baseball game

Tuesday was pretty much the same routine in the morning and lunchtime. After lunch, though, every group of interns that served together got the opportunity to give a 5-minute presentation to everyone else about what they did this summer. It was so neat to be able to hear about everyone else's experiences and to be able to share with Erica about our summer at the Oasis. Afterward we all piled into a couple vehicles along with all our luggage and relocated to a hotel near DFW airport, where we spent Tuesday night. We dropped off our stuff in our rooms when we got to the hotel and then had a few hours of free time before dinner. I got to swim in the hotel pool with some of the interns and missionaries. It was only the second time I've gotten to swim this summer, and with the Texas heat it felt refreshing and was a lot of fun! We all went out to dinner at Fuddrucker's for burgers (welcome back to America! haha).

5-minute presentation about the Oasis

Free time in the pool!

Wednesday morning we all left for home at different times. My flight was fairly early, so I took the shuttle from the hotel to the airport at 7:30am. My flight ended up getting delayed about an hour, but thankfully the flight went smoothly once it finally left. Dad picked me up at BWI airport -- it was so good to see him and to spend the 1.5 hour drive home with him! When I got home around 4:30pm Mom and Elizabeth were there to greet me, and when I walked in the door I encountered a sign that Elizabeth had made which said, "Bienvenida a casa, Emily!" (Welcome home, Emily!). It is so, so good to be home!

Some things I've learned and been processing:

• One thing God kept reminding me while I was in Guatemala was that his love and grace toward me is not contingent on how well I'm behaving or how pleasing I am to him, and in the same way, my love and grace toward others (i.e. the Oasis girls) should be unconditional as well. This was especially challenging with the girls who could get annoying or who tested my patience often, but the Lord reminded me that a lot of times the people who are hardest to love are the ones who need the most love. This is a lesson I need to keep re-learning as I go through life.
• I'm praying about the possibility of returning to the Oasis, either for another internship or potentially for longer-term ministry. It's hard to be part of such a great ministry and not want to go back. God is doing great things through the Oasis and I would love to be able to continue being a part of it. Please pray with me that God would make it clear to me if he wants me to go back or not.
• And I'm still processing things, which could take a while...

Thank you for your prayers and support, and for following me on this journey!


Click HERE to see more pictures from this week!

Week 7: Final week in Guatemala

Right now I'm spending my last couple hours in this country in the Guatemala City airport with the Glicks and the other interns. We leave at 8:40am (Guatemala time--we're 2 hours behind EDT) to fly to Dallas, TX for a few days of debriefing with all the Camino Global interns. It's so weird that we're leaving already. Didn't I just get here? This last week in Guatemala was surreal and bittersweet at the same time. Here's what my week looked like.

Last Saturday a new church team arrived at the Oasis. That evening we had a cookout with the team and all the girls, and some team members and some of the Oasis girls shared their testimonies. I got to interpret for some of them! Then on Sunday we went with the team to Antigua for church in the morning and sight-seeing/shopping in the afternoon. The team went to the bilingual church that I visited with a different team a few weeks ago, but this time Renae took me to a tiny Presbyterian church in Antigua that she had attended while she was in language school. We met up with everyone else after the service.

Goofing off with the girls before worship, testimonies and dinner on Saturday

Interpreting the team members' testimonies!

Cookout/barbecue dinner with the girls and the team

This week in the office I finished translating a large stack of the girls' personal letters to their sponsors. I also had library duty in the afternoons again this week. One morning Debora (a missionary here) drove Erica and me to Casa Ester (the transition home where the Oasis girls can apply to live after turning 18) so we could see it before we left. The team that was visiting this week was doing construction work, building new apartments on the property so we can house more girls there.

Construction work at Casa Ester

On Tuesday night I skyped my family because it was my Dad's birthday and because my family decided to go on vacation this week without me. :-( haha. Then on Thursday afternoon I skyped Elizabeth because some of the girls had been asking about when they would get to talk to her again.

Family Skype date on Tuesday. I love them :-)

Some girls and I skyped with Elizabeth on Thursday! Liz took this picture on her computer.

Dad dropped in on our Skype date to steal Liz away for dinner

To make the most of our last week, Erica, Renae and I had two spontaneous movie nights (Lauren had left on Monday morning), and we also made one last trip to the Helados (ice cream) shop with some of the missionaries. On Thursday evening Erica and I went around to each house to say goodbye to all of the girls, and then we had to pack up all our stuff. Friday around lunchtime Mike and Sandi came and picked us up. They arrived shortly after the girls got back from school. We weren't sure how the timing was going to work out with that, so that's why we said our goodbyes on Thursday night instead of waiting until Friday. But since the girls were back, we said some final goodbyes and then left. It wasn't too emotional for me because I didn't feel like I was actually leaving for good. I don't think it will really hit me until I'm back in the States. I love the girls so much and I made new friends with the missionaries, so I know I'm going to miss them. But hopefully this won't be the last time I visit the Oasis.

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Farewell to Casa Azul (Blue House)

Farewell to Casa Roja (Red House)

Farewell to Casa Naranja (Orange House)

Farewell to Casa Lila (Purple House)

Farewell to Casa Dorada (Yellow House)

Farewell to Renae! She's been a wonderful roommate for the past 7 weeks.

I'm going to miss the precious Oasis girls.

Friday and Saturday we stayed at a guest house in Mixco (near Guatemala City) with the other Camino interns who served in different areas of Guatemala this summer. On Friday night Mike and Sandi took all the Guatemala interns to Kairos House, a place in Guatemala City for families whose children have cancer, where they can stay close to the hospital since they have to go there for frequent treatments. Mike and Sandi have been very involved with this ministry for a while. When we got there a church team was wrapping up their time there, singing songs with the families and sharing about what God had been teaching them this week. Turns out the team was from LCBC, a church in Lancaster County! It truly is a small world. :-) After the team left Mike showed us around and then we played out back with three precious kids who are staying there.

The LCBC team & some families staying at Kairos House

Rob, Erica, Daniel, Ofi, Julio, Katelyn, Lauren and Carys

On Saturday we spent the first half of the day in Antigua buying some final gifts and souvenirs at the artisan market. I bartered for the first time (!!) and was able to get a good deal on some gifts for my family, and I even had enough leftover Quetzales (the Guatemalan currency) to buy a special gift/souvenir for myself that I didn't think I would be able to afford. We spent the latter half of Saturday at the guest house packing up and getting ready for our flight this morning. Today we woke up at 3:45am and left for the airport around 4:15am. In a couple hours we'll be en route to the United States!

Adiós Guatemala, it's been real.

Camino Global's EMERGE 2013 Guatemala interns!
Rob, Carys, Erica, Lauren, me, Katelyn

Please pray for:

• Save travels as we fly to Dallas this morning and then home on Wednesday morning.
• A helpful time of debriefing and processing everything we've experienced this summer.
• Grace as we adjust back to American culture.
• Wisdom to know how to respond/react to the things we learned and experienced.

Click HERE to see more photos from the week!

Week 6: Penultimate week at the Oasis

At this point I have less than a week left at the Oasis. On Friday the Glicks are picking up Erica and me, we'll spend a day or two with them and the other Camino Global interns who served in Guatemala, and then Sunday morning the 21st we fly to Dallas, TX for a few days of debriefing with the rest of the CG interns from the other countries. Then on Wednesday the 24th we all fly home!

This week I've been on library duty at the Oasis, covering for the director's daughter, Maggie, who has been working there during her summer break. She's at camp in the States for 2 weeks, so I'll be covering for her next week, as well. I didn't realize how much work it is to run the library. In the mornings, the girls who are schooled at the Oasis have reading time, and some of them can't read well on their own yet, so it's my job to read books with them. I really enjoy that, except after a while my mouth gets dry and my tongue gets tired from so much talking/reading aloud, so I'm usually a little relieved when the teacher comes back and says reading time is over. After lunch, when all the other girls are back from school, they have reading time also, which is more hectic because there are a lot more of them. These girls know how to read so I don't need to read with them, but I do a lot of checking out books, handing out and collecting worksheets that they complete after reading a book, and in each bit of spare time, returning their finished books to the shelves in alphabetical order (which is more time consuming than I expected).

On Tuesday I had fun video chatting with Elizabeth via Skype after work. I intentionally sat in an area in the main building where I knew girls would be passing by because I wanted the opportunity for them to meet my twin and for her to meet some of the girls I've gotten to know and love during the past several weeks. Some girls just stopped by and said a quick hello, but others sat with me for quite a while, asking her lots of questions, goofing off in front of the camera, etc. Since then, two girls have asked me when they're going to get to talk to her again. :-) We're trying to see if we can work it out to Skype again next week.

Elizabeth took these pictures on her computer and sent them to me

The girls danced and showed off a little bit for her :-)

This week I've felt extra blessed by the friendships of the missionaries and other interns here. On Monday Lauren, Erica and I trekked into town to buy helados (ice cream) for 3.50 Quetzales (the equivalent of about half a US dollar). It was a fun outing, until we had to hike up the steep hill on the way home that we had walked down earlier. Just kidding, that part was fun too, even if it was a bit of a challenge. :-)

Erica and me with our helados!

Victory pose! We made it to the top of the hill!

Then on Thursday night, since Renae, Erica, Lauren and I are all living here at the Oasis, we had a movie night in Renae's and my apartment, complete with popcorn, hot chocolate, Guatemalan snacks, and cozy blankets. Erica and Lauren had never seen Pride & Prejudice before, so of course Renae and I had to introduce them to it!

Renae, Lauren and Erica

On Friday evening Renae drove Erica, Lauren and me to Antigua, where we met up with Josh, Susan and Debora (missionaries) at a Mexican taco restaurant called Jardín de los Conejos (which translates as "rabbit garden" haha). After dinner we walked around Antigua a bit, which is very pretty at night. It was Erica's first time in Antigua so we walked to the central park and the arch and other places. Then we spontaneously ended up going to a crêperie called Luna de Miel ("honeymoon") for ice cream and dessert crêpes.

Left to Right: Renae, Erica, Lauren, Josh, Susan and Debora
At El Jardín de los Conejos for dinner 

Ice cream and crepes for dessert at Luna de Miel!

Funny story about the Jardín de los Conejos place. Earlier in the week we were talking about going there this weekend, but we weren't sure what their hours were. I looked them up online, and they didn't have an actual website but I found their Facebook page, so I clicked on it so I could search for the hours. As I scrolled down the main page I was seeing some things they had posted that were starting to creep me out.... for example, "Who's coming today to eat some tacos and gringas?" and "Gringas half price?" and "Who's craving gringas?" [For those who don't know, "gringa" is a term Latinos use for white American females, and it's kind of a derogatory term.] I was feeling uncomfortable with their strange obsession with gringas, so I voiced my concerns to Renae and Lauren, who were in the apartment at the time. Then Renae, who's been in Guatemala for a while and is a lot more culture-savvy than I am, broke the news to me that "gringa" is the word they use for what we Americans call a quesadilla! So it turns out this place wasn't sketchy after all. And when we went on Friday of course I had to order a gringa, just to say I did. :-)


On a more serious note, here's another story from this week. In my last post I wrote about how I went to San Martin with the interns and some missionaries, where we got lunch and then bought some bread at the bakery. On Thursday of this week, we went back to San Martin so Erica could buy more bread. I didn't get any because I still had quite a bit of bread left from the last time we went, which I was eating slowly so it would last me until I left Guatemala. Well, as soon as we got home, I checked my bread stash and discovered it had all gone moldy! I was pretty bummed because all that good bread had gone to waste and if I had only known before our outing, I could have just bought more bread. It wasn't a huge deal since I had only spent between Q20-Q30 (about $3 to $4) on that bread, but it was still disappointing. The next morning when I was reading my Bible, I started reading 1 Peter, and these verses stood out to me:
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1:3-5).
I couldn't help but think of the moldy bread and be reminded of how much I'm looking forward to the day when food doesn't spoil, there are no stomach bugs [see 2 posts ago], and twisted people don't do horrible things precious little girls. Jesus is coming back someday and he's going to restore everything that's messed up and make ALL things new.
Can't wait. :-)

Same prayer requests as last week:

• That I'll make the most of my time left with the girls.
• For energy, rest and patience.
• For the girls' spiritual and physical health. That they would be free from fear, shame, anger, hatred.
• Justice for the abusers.

Click HERE to view an album with pictures from the week!

Week 5

This week was even more busy and interesting than the last. On Sunday an intern named Lauren arrived, and she'll be here for 2 weeks. Then on Monday morning the Glicks dropped off Erica, a fellow Camino Global intern who will be here for 3 weeks. Monday happened to be a Guatemalan holiday (Army Day or something), so Renae, Addie (another missionary), Lauren, Erica and I went out to lunch at San Martin, which is a restaurant + bakery. It was pretty crowded when we got there, so we explored the bakery section while we waited for a table to open up in the restaurant. There were fresh pastries and cakes and loaves of bread, and it smelled so good! The restaurant had a similar menu and atmosphere to Panera, but it was even better, in my opinion. We all loved what we ordered. After lunch, we couldn't help but go back to the bakery to buy some bread to take home. :-)

Addie, Erica, Renae and Lauren at San Martin

Thursday was another holiday at the Oasis: the 4th of July! There are several American missionaries who serve at the Oasis, plus the church team from Missouri was still there, so how could we not celebrate the USA's Independence Day? :-) We had a special lunch, complete with ice cream for dessert, and firecrackers and a piñata afterward! The piñata was Super Mario, but renamed/labeled "King George III" (Corbey's idea). In the evening Renae, Erica, Lauren and I decided to finish off the day with some American food -- Domino's pizza! Then after dark, the team from Missouri set off a few "real" fireworks (the high/colorful kind).

Saturday was filled with one exciting event after another. In the morning the team from Missouri left, but before they did, Renae and I went around to find the girls who some people on the team decided to sponsor. We broke the news to them -- the girls' reactions were precious! -- and then took a picture of each girl with her sponsor so we can give a copy to the girl and send one to her sponsor.

In the afternoon we had visiting hours at the Oasis, which happens once a month. It was fun to see the girls spending time with family members and to meet some of them.

Waiting to get checked in at the gate

At 3:00 Renae, Lauren, Erica and I left with Josh & Susan (missionary couple who serve at the Oasis) to go see a Despicable Me 2 (or Mi Villano Favorito 2, as it's called in Spanish) at a theater in Guatemala City. It started pouring just before we got there, and we couldn't avoid getting soaked when we got out of the car. When we finally made it to the theater (soaking wet), the line was incredibly long and we only had a few minutes until our intended show time. After waiting in line for a lifetime, we found out the next available show time wasn't until 6:30pm, and in IMAX and 3D, with only front row seats available (this movie theater has assigned seats). We decided to go ahead and get the tickets anyway, and we killed time before the movie by getting dinner at the food court, wandering around the mall that the theater is in, and finding an ice cream stand for dessert. The movie ended up being well worth it. I was worried I wouldn't understand it too well since it was all in Spanish, but thankfully that wasn't a problem. I also didn't get a headache or a stiff neck from sitting in the front row with 3D glasses. And even though my feet never quite dried out after the rain, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and spending time with the others. It was a fun evening!

Josh, Renae, Erica, Susan and Lauren.
SO WET but enjoying the adventure!

Heading to the theater to buy tickets

Killing time in the super nice mall before the movie

On Sunday, Mike and Sandi Glick picked up Erica and me so we could spend the day with them. They were hosting a team from LA for the week, so they wanted to use Erica at church as an interpreter, which she had also done for the team the previous Sunday while she was still in orientation with the Glicks before arriving at the Oasis. Erica's family is Salvadorian but they live near DC, so she is fluent in both English and Spanish. After church we all went out for lunch and then spent the afternoon and dinnertime at the Glicks' house. After dinner, since it was the team's last night in Guatemala, we all went back to the guest house where they were staying and did an activity that we called the "encouragement web" -- where they passed a ball of yarn around and said encouraging things to one another from the week.

Erica interpreting at church

The encouragement web with the team from LA

Here's how you can be praying:

• That I will make the most of my last two weeks with the girls at the Oasis.
• That I will get plenty of rest and have enough energy to love and serve people well in the time that's left.
• Continue praying for the girls' physical and spiritual health, as well as spiritual freedom.
• Pray for justice for the girls' abusers, as we currently have 14 criminal cases in process which involve about 20 girls (almost half of our girls).

Click HERE to see pictures from this week!