Day 8 - Homeward Bound

Saturday, August 4th:
This morning we were up early to clean the mission house and make it ready for the next team. The image below is of one of the medical doctors, early on this Saturday morning, mopping the floor of the mission house. Think about that for a minute...especially if you know any doctors in the States. Having served with this is a man over the course of the week, I can say he is someone very much with his priorities in order and who has truly made himself available to God.

My official team role was that of luggage captain, so in support of our departure for the airport later in the morning, I staged all the suitcases and crates on the veranda for loading onto the trucks. Federico weighed them all to ensure we were under Delta's 50lb limit for each, and we discovered just a few instances where we needed to shuffle a few bags of coffee from crate to crate to even things out. He and I used this time together for one more round of practicing speaking the other's native language. His English, by the way, is way better than my Spanish -- for now, at least!

After all of our pre-departure chores and tasks were finished, there was still plenty of time before we would head out to GUA. It was during this downtime that I began having a down time, struggling again with the end-of-the-mission-trip blues. I thanked God again for Doug's message yesterday, and I remembered enough of it to just start talking to God about where I was mentally and spiritually. Having cleaned some cobwebs out of my mind, I spent some time on the top floor of the mission house overlooking the surrounding area, praying for the city and the neighborhood, that Jesus would make His love known to the people through His people all around that place, that the lost would be rescued and that light would triumph over darkness one heart at a time, all the while singing God Of This City in my heart.

Facing Southwest

Northwest

Northeast

As we conducted our final checks to ensure all was in order with the house and every bit of luggage accounted for, it appeared that even Nina, one of our two faithful German Shepherd protectors during our stay, seemed about as sad about our leaving as we did:

We headed to the airport, said quick goodbyes in front, said hello to a few members of the Guatemalan olympic rowing team, then headed through the process of our repatriation.

On the flight back, one last, bonus blessing from the trip was sitting next to nine year-old José. He was on his way back form Guatemala, where he had been visiting for past 3 weeks with his mother, father and sister, all of whom moved from Guatemala to Rhode Island before he was born. He was fascinated and amazed that we had travelled to Guatemala just to do mission work. He knew about Jesus personally and had a very sweet spirit. Perhaps someday he will become a missionary too...

And finally, we arrived back safe and sound on the ground in the ATL. After a brief incident involving an expat-repat apple, we cleared customs and officially disbanded the team. More fond farewells and off we went in separate ways, reminiscent of the final scene of the Seinfeld series. I definitely had the time of my life.

I was blessed to spend a little extra time with Jon and Rosey, getting them back to their car, and then slowly worked my mental and physical way back from such an intense and God saturated experience back home to Ball Ground where I received a warm welcome home from Amy and Paxton.

Over the next few days, I'll post a few selections of candids, landscapes and abstract photos taken during the trip.