God truly blessed us with an absolutely amazing team filled with God-loving, hard-
working, and servant-minded people. We were made up of 16 people from Miami, Florida and

Lima, Ohio. We also had a total of seven fully bilingual team members! We only had seven days
together but we left with life-long friendships and unforgettable memories.
Our first three days were spent visiting the orphanages we support, and letting the team
explore Antigua for some touristy moments. We took the kids of God Bless the Children
Orphanage to an adventure park to celebrate one of the kid’s, Sarita’s, birthday. We spent the
day playing games, getting to know the kids, playing soccer, driving mini-robots, breaking a
piñata, and eating some delicious food.

We also visited the adult special needs home at Hope for Home! We spent the day
helping out around the home in any way we could, and brought a special lunch to the kids and
staff. We also brought a piñata here to give the kids an extra special day. We also learned about
the kids’ special projects- including their own garden where they grow the fruits and vegetables
they eat, and the chickens they’re raising for both eggs and food. Thanks to Stacey, one of our
amazing team members who is a speech therapist, we also had four speech assistance devices we
were able to donate for the non-verbal children.

We also spent the evenings these first few days getting to know each other as a team and
exploring the beauties of Antigua. We loved hearing devotionals every day from different team
members, spending every meal together, doing some hiking, and just walking around chatting.
On the fourth of July we even got to see the Volcan de Fuego erupt- our very own God-given
firework show (also, something entirely safe because it was a completely normal eruption).
Something a lot of teams are nervous about is going with a group of strangers to a foreign
country. However, the group of strangers very quickly becomes a group of friends who you will
find yourself laughing, smiling, and growing with.

Tuesday was spent traveling from Antigua to Jalapa for our construction projects to
begin. Praise report that no one got sick despite the absurdly curvy roads and shifts in altitude!
We made it to the hotel had a fun team dinner together, and began planning for the next day of
work.

We had three major projects we decided to work on this year in Jalapa. The first was
building shelters in the dump. The dump is exactly what you probably imagine- the part of town
where all the trash is taken to and dumped- except here, there are families who live within the
dump who make shelter out of whatever they can find. We partnered with a local pastor to build
11 shelters for 11 families. These homes were constructed from metal sheets and wood beams.
After our first day, we decided to also buy mattresses for all the families. The things we saw in
the dump were an eye-opening experience for everyone on the team- we saw families living in
some of the worst conditions we’ve seen, poisonous toads bigger than even those in Miami,
cockroaches crawling out of beds, kids making toys out of things everyone else threw away, and
so many other things that left many of us in tears. We are proud to say that all 11 homes were
built, and we plan on returning here in the future for future projects!

Our second major project in Jalapa involved building two classrooms in El Mirador. The
drive to this small village takes almost an hour through rough roads and mountain terrain. To
reach the sight where we actually built the classrooms involved a quarter mile hike down a steep,
mountain hill our cars would not go down. While we’d purchased all the materials needed for
this project beforehand, many of them were left at the top of the hill. What did this mean? It
meant moving buckets and bags of rocks, sand, and other materials down the hill before hiking
back up for more. At the bottom, more of the team hand-mixed the cement we needed. This
involved hours of heavy labor and buckets of sweat. This team was unphased, however. No one
hesitated to jump right in and help wherever they could. While we didn’t finish the classrooms,
we laid the groundwork for the families and local labor to finish the easier parts of the
construction. The construction of these classrooms makes a total of five available for the kids of
El Mirador. Instead of cramming 150 students of various grades into three classrooms, the
teachers and students now have five classrooms to use.

Our final project in Jalapa involved doing VBS for the kids at the dump, El Mirador, and
Pino Gordo (the village where we’ve been working for about a decade). It had been a couple of
years since we’d led a VBS project and we knew we wanted to get back to doing this. Before we
traveled, we found a year-long curriculum we could leave with the pastors or teachers at each of
these locations. We began working through this curriculum while there, teaching the kids about
the days of creation with bible readings, crafts, and songs. We also bought piñatas for the kids to
celebrate and we all had a great time watching the kids have fun. We had an amazing group of
ladies and young ladies who led this project and helped the kids have a blast while learning about
the beauty and power of God.

Every year that we take a team to Guatemala, we marvel at the work God does and this year is no
different. This trip is one we will never forget and one that allowed us to touch the lives of so
many people. People often say that you go on mission trips to touch the lives of others, but
anyone on our team would tell you the opposite is also true- every person we worked with
profoundly touched our hearts. As always, God allowed an incredible work to be accomplished
through his servants.
“There are no words to describe the recent “Give Joy 2 One” Foundation mission trip to
Guatemala. It filled my heart so much to spend time and to LOVE on the children and people of
Guatemala that were in need. This was an experience that will live in my heart always and I’m
ready to do it and serve all over again.” -Maggie, one of our team members

1 John 3:18- Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

In Christ,
The Give Joy 2 One Team