Exactly, Why Guatemala? : The Summation

On a trip to Israel, I was sitting around a meal table in a kibbutz with a team of people I had come to greatly enjoy over the past six days, when someone asked the often-asked question when on a missions-focused trip: “Where do you feel called to?” 

I came into a personal relationship with Jesus on a mission trip to Frakes, KY. I didn’t understand missions at the time, but as my life grew with Jesus at the helm, I learned more and more that I wanted to go to different parts of the world. 16 trips later, I was at this table in Israel answering the same question I’ve answered on every other trip. I was called to the United States. 

This answer garnered questions, always, but it was true. I love my people and my country. I selfishly saw Jesus as an American God rather than a global God until I expanded my world view and sat in a church service in Vladimir, Russia, listening to a translator whisper what the pastor was praying from the front. It was just like we pray, same asking, same praise, same words and sentiment as my American church prayed in a corporate setting. It was in that moment I connected to my bias and understood that God was a global God and the hearts of men were the same who seek Him regardless of language or culture. 

The year following Israel, an opportunity to return to Russia with a team to work with ministry center we had partnered with for decades presented itself, marking my 16th mission trip. The following year, I had decided to earn a master's degree and was in my second semester of school when I looked through a list of trips my employer’s foundation was offering through its missions program. I looked at a coworker and asked, “Want to go to Guatemala?” I had never visited, out of the list, it was the only place I felt “willing” to go to. I hear the arrogance in that sentence as I share it, but it was who I was then, and it shaped how I made my choices. So in April of that year, I embarked on my 17th mission trip, but first to a country where it wasn’t illegal to speak about the gospel of Jesus. 

Guatemala, April 2018

During my five-day visit with the host missionaries, I was often moved by their spiritual depth. There were some days, they would gather and pray, asking the Lord to guide them where they went that day and who needed to experience the Lord. There’s a story in the New Testament where the disciple Philip was led to go stand near a cart where he was met with the opportunity to answer a eunich’s questions about Jesus because he was sensitive to the spirit enough to be led there. This is what I imagined the work in Guatemala looked like on those days. I was intrigued.

I come back and I am in my normal everyday life. It’s been a year and a half since my trip to Guatemala. I had no mission trips on the horizon, and I was facing some big life changes. I knew the Lord was shifting me; graduation was pending, and I could tell I  was going to move from Virginia Beach. The Lord had spoken to me during that first summer after Guatemala, calling me into full-time vocational ministry. Now, it’s the Thanksgiving holiday and on an impromptu trip to Texas to visit my brother, social media showed that some of the missionaries I’d worked with in Guatemala were in town close to me. We met for a coffee where during the conversation I simply asked, “What would it look like to come work in Guatemala full time?” 

That’s it. That’s how it happened. I was simply presented with an opportunity, and when I prayed about it, I felt like the choice was mine, so I took it. I didn’t make the choice for many more months, but I wanted to live like those missionaries were, for a season. I wanted to see what it was like to push yourself in more ways than one and learn to walk in the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

Guatemala, January 2021

If I’m painfully honest, I wanted to walk in the fullness of God all day every day, like I did on short-term trips. On week three I started to realize there is a difference in life on the field and two weeks on the field…there’s a point when life becomes life after that two weeks, and daily life will start to march in. I think that’s one of the lessons I learned in Guatemala: long-term vocational ministry is not a missions trip. It’s a gritty dedication to something you know is where you’re supposed to be when everything else feels like it’s in the wrong place. It’s holding on to your why when you can’t remember it, and dedicating yourself to slowing down, sitting in the seeking, and changing everything you thought you knew about life before. 

Guatemala unfolded a lot of whys…too many to answer in one post, but enough of them to keep an open conversation. So, this one is “the why I went to Guatemala itself” in a summation. 

Plated Dignity

In 2019, I sat in on a nonprofit panel hosted at my university during the last part of my master's program to determine what avenue of full-time ministry the Lord was calling me into. Even writing that sentence makes me chuckle at how I used to think it was all up to me to figure out my paths…I digress. On this panel was an outreach feeding ministry called Mercy Chefs, which was introducing its new community kitchen launch in our area. 

Mercy Chefs was birthed out of an outrage at the food services offered to those who had survived Hurricane Katrina. There were cold meals, poorly prepared and plated, and offered out with an air of the attitude that one should be grateful they were being given anything. From there, they became an emergency outreach feeding organization providing chef-curated meals prepared and plated to feed the whole person. 

Since returning fully from Guatemala in June, I have been seeking ways to continue to build the ministry and empower others to act out their faith by loving their neighbor as themselves a bit more. One of the ways I have done this is by volunteering at Mercy Chef’s Portsmouth Community Kitchen. Weekly, we are preparing and packaging up hot and cold meals to various ministries, outreaches, first responders, veterans, and senior communities on a large scale. Recently, an impending snowstorm had us cranking out 645 meals for the community in one hour and 15 minutes. It was an amazing effort to be a part of. The entire operation is well-organized, efficient, and deeply dignified. 

As I see more and more meals being prepared to go out, meet the people who are coordinating and receiving the meals, and learn all the other ways Mercy Chefs meets the needs of hungry people, I am moved by the dignity. It’s easy to just give things out, meet basic needs, and feel like you’ve done something. But when you do something with thought, consider what would be a great meal to heat up on a cold day after all the rent has been paid and there’s $6 left from the Social Security, and package it professionally and cleanly, it shows that the person has been considered. It’s teaching me that when we do something with the end idea of being the act instead of the person it’s for, we are missing the whole point. Jesus stopped and considered the soul of each person in need who interrupted him. He answered that, and the need was met.

We meet the needs of others when we connect with them as a person, when we connect with another human soul with a heart that was created to know Jesus and is seen by him. Reminding people they are seen, meeting the needs of the suffering with dignity, and allowing that to break your own heart for others more is a three cord strand that, when braided together within us, lift others with great strength.  

There are many ways to get involved. There is need everywhere you look. Learn more about Mercy Chefs here.

To Whom it May Concern

I’ve gotten to the place where I will hit skip if, the ever popular song, Oceans comes on a shuffle list. It’s not that I don’t appreciate that song, I just get over songs, eventually. Today, I let it play.

This song is powerfully written, it beckons the heart to go deeper, but if you listen to the lyrics they are really intense. 

Your grace abounds in deepest waters…
Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the water
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

I remember how ardently I would sing those lyrics, pouring my heart out to God in a desire to be on that water with Him no matter what. Come to find out I don’t love being on deep waters, but I need is grace so much that I actually find myself chasing its abundance and as that lyric says…it abounds in deepest waters. 

I don’t mean it to sound so terrible, I am loving being out here on the road, telling people about Jesus. I like the adventure of not knowing what each day fully holds and leaving room for the Holy Spirit to move and use me.

What I will say is this: I have half-assed my faith when it comes to coming out on deep waters. I pridefully and somewhat ignorantly figured I could muscle through and God would get the glory. What I have PAINFULLY learned is that you cannot walk out on deeper water without drawing closer because it requires faith and the presence of God to sustain you on that water. Even if you can keep your head above water, maybe even waist deep, you’re still going to drown eventually. It’s exhausting trying to do something so supernatural in a natural capacity. 

I am learning the first decades of my faith walk of following the ways of Jesus was deeply milky in sustainability. As long as the majority of my circumstances lined up, I had adequate bible teaching in church, and powerful corporate worship experiences that would sustain me in the deeper waters. None of these will keep you atop of the waves. I have found it is done in the privacy of my own heart before the Lord, allowing him to strip you little by little to look more like him.

I didn’t sell all my things in one day, I didn’t move to Guatemala over night, I didn’t come back in one fail swoop, and I didn’t heal all the broken parts that disillusionment, church hurt, and ministry isolation through my own strength. Accepting a missions call in my native country was a slow yes.

He’s so good, but I am a witness to you that it takes every bit of surrender and then repentance to start all over again the next day. New mercies and grace to start over from where I held on to my own ways, my own thoughts, ideals, presuppositions, or opinions that are contrary to what the scriptures say and what time in his presence can do. Don’t get crazy now, I am lazy, I wallow, I live a life that looks financially stupid, and I KNOW this ain’t for everyone. But it’s my deep waters. It’s where my faith is stretched and refreshed. It is in the deep waters I meet a face of Jesus I haven’t met before and each time reveals so much more of his greater plans, purpose, and beauty. 

So to whom this one may concern, I wanted to share with you to risk the depths to access his abundance of grace. If you don’t understand what the means, I encourage you just to ask him to show you who he is. This is my one promise…I have never sought him and not found him. He is faithful to all things and that one you can take to the bank! 

To Whom it May Concern:

To Whom it May Concern:

You can’t help where you were born. Why one is born into privilege and one in to abject poverty is only answered by the creator. We have a responsibility to the position we are in to serve the underserved in our spheres. Out of the abundance of the heart we give; compassion, revelation, fasting, religion are found and centered in serving the underserved regardless of station. I’ve met women with dirt floor kitchens open their homes as a village soup kitchen during pandemic. 

When we step out God will put the next step in front of us. When we acknowledge him in all we do he will order and straighten the steps of our paths. The abide feels like a great big ole sick, but so does the gym. When you stand in the reward of that gym suck you feel good! Same with the suck of the abide. Someone told me, recently, that God was going to sustain me in this season. I know that’s true, but on days when the suck is more pronounced than the reward I have to remind myself that sustainability is meant for these times and I can trust him beyond all measure, fear, or anxiety. He’s a breath away to my cries of, “Help me!” Even when I groan and grumble, feeling like a toddler inside and I want to have a full-out-on-my-back-kicking temper tantrum I know he sustains me even then. 

He’s a good Father and faithful to be trusted. To my pals in the suck, I see you!! We’ll get there. In the meantime, what I keep doing is seeking him for answers to the questions and responsibilities he’s laid in my heart and hands. I keep short accounts with other believers I trust, especially on days when the abide feels more like punishment. I also keep my prayer language active with worship in the background to keep my heart in a posture of praise and worship because even in the suck he’s still more than worth it, and honestly, so am I. I am worth the pressing in for his peace and his presence. I guess it’s about posture. Where do you posture your heart? When there’s seemingly famine do you pour out anyway and allow Jesus to fill you again? I’m learning it’s living waters and when you acknowledge him all you do the waters stir and flow and regardless of ebbs and wanes of life tides, there is life - and life abundantly - flowing through you. 

So, choose life. 

Street Foods and the Process of the Making

As I walk down La Calzada de Santa Lucia, the main street of hustle and bustle in Antigua, I smell tortillas being made on the street. It’s a distinct smell, one that makes me start to salivate. Tortillas in the states are nothing compared to here, how they make them, the sound of the hands slapping them flat and then dropping them onto the hot stove is a true cultural experience of street foods in Guatemala. There are beautiful views at every turn, the weather is ideal, and I am learning a new language! If I’m honest, I really don’t think I believed I could do that. 

There is a different pace of life here, I walk to the market and buy fresh flowers that overtake my house for pennies on the dollar, I pick out fresh vegetables every few days because they won’t make it longer, and I take a coffee break by walking two blocks from my house and grabbing the best iced dirty chai latte in town. There are also some things that slow the pace of life down because they aren’t the same conveniences I had in the States, for example, filling ice trays is a longer process. I have to keep my eco-filter filled with water so I have clean drinking water to fill the trays with. My filter is a literal five gallon bucket with a spout on the side that I use to open and close in 3 second bursts as I fill each cube with water. It’s not inconvenient or annoying, it’s just more time consuming than using the faucet. It’s micro-changes to my life that change the pace and rhythm of how things are done. 

I like it, but I have a hard time adjusting to it. I’m used to the busy paced hustle of American life and when I was there I longed for a simpler lifestyle that allowed me to explore the areas of life I felt were needing to be explored, but now that I’m in it, I have to make myself be ok with it. Trying to compare who I was when I was in America, to who I am and how I live my life here is a hard comparison. Transitioning to a new culture was a lot harder than a two week trip somewhere. I felt like I was in a fog for the first four months of being here. Now, nearly seven months in, at times I feel like I’m disappearing. Not sure what that means, but I don’t know who this Ginny is right now. She’s still the same at the core, I’m not running amuck and acting a fool, but the questions I’m asking in my heart, the laziness in my heart, it’s not who I’m used to being. I’m not sure if I’m in an undoing or just in a new thing, but this life I’ve taken on is weird and one hell of an adjustment. 

I’ve been walking this Way for a long time. In November, I will celebrate 20 years of intimate relationship with Jesus. In all this time, I have had seasons of “proofing” and they have always strengthened my faith in His goodness and faithfulness. That being said, I find it so beautiful that in my internal heart wanders right now, in the moments when I feel like I’m disappearing, I remember I am in the middle of the making. He is making me and though it may not always be tidy and attractive, it’s honest and in progress. I read something by Oswald Chambers the other day where it talked about how the destination is the process. I guess that means I’m here, I got to the destination because clearly I’m in process. 

I think even when we know the strippings and unlearnings are coming, we feel lost within them when they hit until the truths fill back into those places. Most of my lessons are an unlearning of something I thought was but, come to find out, was not. Being committed to the unlearning and the process of the making is as important as our “yes” when we first encounter Jesus. It’s what sustains us to the finish line of this great race we took up the baton in.

So, fellow friends who are in process as well, I hope you embrace it and let it truly mold and shape you. I am and though sometimes I don’t know why I keep going, I know it’s all worth it and Jesus is worth every lost feeling, every frustration of wanting my way and my own glory in the surrenders, and I know I can trust that He is busy in the making. 

Semana Santa and a Dive in a Lake

Welcome to Semana Santa! It’s Holy Week here, when Covid isn’t a thing the entire country goes into celebration and I’ve been told the amount of people is overwhelming. I haven’t been out much today yet, but I am eager to see what Antigua is a buzz with. 

It’s been an extremely eventful few weeks here in Guatemala. I worked extremely hard to get my work for our English classes to a place where I could set it down while my friend came to town. It was days in a row glued to my computer, but I am extremely proud of the work we have put in and I’m eager to see what works and what doesn’t. I’m wishing (only a little) I didn’t have to teach the classes, but I think that’s nerves and once I get into it, I’ll find a rhythm and will do fine. It’s encouraging to think we are about to put our best foot forward in helping these kids in Bola to change the course of their lives. When we change one it’s many more because here if one rises, the family rises. That gives me great hope for tomorrow and in the work that we’ve done. Really the best we can do is prepare and hope and the Lord does the rest. 

Last week my girlfriend came to visit and we experienced something I never expected, the airport closed due to volcanic ash. So crazy details later, she flew to San Salvador, El Salvador and my friend and hired driver got Covid tests and left at four am and went to get her. That was an adventure I will not be repeating, but we made it. It was amazing to have her here and she was able to bring some more of my clothes down for me which made it like Christmas! It was my own clothes, but I did get new shoes, because cobblestones change your shoe choices…

We spent two days at Lake Atitlan where we went hiking, zip lining, and swimming in the lake. It was a beautiful place and the adventures were a lot of fun. This trip was encouraging because it was a lot of work for my brain. I was the “native” traveling for the first time in the country and I had the Spanish. We got around really well on my Spanish. I was really proud to see it come together so well. I was able to get us where we needed to be, figure out when things left, what we were ordering, and helped negotiate shopping with the street vendors. What a blessing to see that all this work is starting to come together and I am going to make it here. 

We had a great trip. I did get a bit of food poisoning while she was here and was down for two days, but it was nice to have someone here to help me during that. Her visit really brought home some truths for me that I had to deal with. One of which being, I actually live here. She was going back to Virginia in a few days, but I was staying here and I never expected it to hit me so hard. It helped me see a few things, though. For example, I was merely “getting by.” I was working hard to make it a year, but not living here. So, when I got back from the airport yesterday I put up pictures, strung up twinkle lights, and made the decision to really be here. I don’t want to finish my time in Guatemala and go back to Virginia to the life I had before. Honestly, I wasn’t happy. I was merely “getting by” to the next day hoping the next tomorrow would be the day that would bring the breakthrough I was seeking. When I go back, I want to go back to more, with more. 

There’s a surrender that has come through her visit. Realizing all my disillusionments and missed expectations of what this was “supposed” to be like will never change if I don’t change my perspective. Becoming like Christ is a true stripping, it owes us nothing and the moments when we think it does it’s a good consideration to sit in a scripture that reminds us of the sacrifice of Christ and what the cross really meant. It meant eating with Peter who promised to never deny him knowing full well in a few hours he would. I am Peter, I promise to go and to serve and then deny I know this sacrifice when it asks me to deal with culture shock, selfish comforts, and wanting to have my cake and eat it too. 

I have two choices, to be here - really be here, or to “get by” until my time is done and I go back to the States. I have decided to go all in, to give it away again (even when I thought I already did that), to let him have his way. To sit in the stillness of this transitioning, trusting that in the cocoons of life he creates his greatest beauty in the quiet stillness of dim seasons. It is here I wait and trust his workmanship. 

Easter is here and it’s one of my most favorite times. I am cooking a chicken and having a few people over for a day of egg dying and egg hunts. Grateful for the care package from family who made sure I had Easter day provisions and Reese’s! 

The rest of this week/weekend I will work on preparing for our first English class on Tuesday. Pray for us! It’s exciting and I can’t wait to see what happens. I’ll also be working on fundraising. I am needing more financial partners to come alongside to reach my salary needs. I am impressed that I have more than 50 support partners, to think that many people are willing to help in this season is mind blowing. I am blown away by the community that I have. I am so blessed to know that I bring that with me. Community is life, it’s really the thing that sets me on fire and there are times when I am feeling overwhelmed with this choice that I remind myself there are people who are cheering me on. To know you are all here with me; to know who I can reach out to when I need something be it word, song, laugh, or cry there is someone in my community who is strategically there to provide that and I’m here to do the same for others....it’s pretty special what we are a part of when you think about it. 

Holy Crap, I’m moving to Guatemala.

Remember that scene in Lion King when the hyenas were repeating Mufasa’s name and shuttering? That’s how I feel every time I say out loud that I’m moving to Guatemala. When I visited on a five day mission trip two years ago with my work, I was just excited about going somewhere new and where it wasn’t illegal to openly be a Christian and minister to others. I sat at a table within the first 24 hours of being in the country with our short term team lead Angela and her husband Miguel (they are a very important part of this story - remember them) starts waxing philosophical about the draw and seduction of Guatemala. I remember thinking, That’s a nice sentiment, wonder who that is for? 

In May I earned my Masters in Strategic Communications. Originally, I’d gone to grad school to become a professor. About half way through the program, I knew I was never going to be a professor - I was going into full time ministry. WHAT THE? Ministry? Ok so, I figured a nonprofit was my direction. I had this degree coming and years of corporate experience, I’d run a small business with a small staff rather successfully, and I was up for something that was meaningful. I could take a director level position or write some grants, something. I also knew my time in Virginia Beach was coming to an end. I had suffered a few deep disappointments and overall, it just felt like my life was drying up here, so I was open to a change in scenery and a MUCH larger salary. I spent the remaining three semesters in school figuring out what was next. 

We tend to gather at my brother’s place for thanksgiving and last year I was going to forgo that trip. It had been a rough fall and for various reasons it seemed a better choice to stay home. As a last minute decision I decide to go to Dallas for a few days to celebrate the holiday with my family. My first morning in Dallas, I was scrolling through my social media and found out that Angela and Miguel were visiting Dallas as well and we were only 12 miles from each other. What are the odds? From Virginia Beach to Antigua, Guatemala and we’re 12 miles from each other?! We met up at a Starbucks and for three hours shared so many things and changes in our lives including, their plan to branch out from their current ministry and start their own. They were planning on launching a ministry that would build community in two specific villages outside of Antigua. It was a refreshing conversation and I was excited to hear of what they were doing. But from that point on Guatemala was on the table, way off where someone would have to pass it to me - on the table, but on the table all the same. 

I slowly narrowed my pursuits and by a million weird coincidental happenings, I had Australia, North Carolina, and Guatemala on the table as possible life options. By February I was really starting to feel the pressure, wondering which was the right choice for me and facing an approaching move out of my current residence. Finally, the first weekend of March I got some clear direction and it was simply that I could choose whatever I wanted. And to my personal shock and awe, I chose to serve as a full time missionary in Guatemala with Miguel and Angela’s new ministry This is Vida. 

Then a week later, the whole world shut down! 

I’m still making plans to move and as of yesterday the State Department opened international travel for America. Guatemala remains closed for any air travel whatsoever and is only allowing residents and citizens over land borders. I’m eager to get to Guatemala though, and help build community with these villages. 

So, what is that going to look like? 

Well, I’m glad you asked. Winston and I are currently booked on a flight on September 17th. I have committed to a year with the ministry and am really looking forward to this adventure. We will check into an AirBnB in the city of Antigua, for two weeks, while Angela and Miguel help me get an apartment, a car, bank account, groceries, a phone, all the things needed to establish oneself in a new country. Whew, just writing that gives me butterflies. 

This is a unique opportunity for me. If you know me even a little, missions have been a huge part of my Christian walk, it’s where I found Jesus for the first time and I have been able to participate in 17 trips total in four countries. Somewhere along the road I forgot about these dreams I had of going on the mission field full time, but low and behold, God didn’t. So here I venture. 

The best thing is I need you to do it with me. I need you to come down and visit; see what we are doing, be a part of the work, and help us establish these villages in community and love. Pray for the work we are doing, pray for relationships, and supplies to help meet physical basic needs like clean water and safe cooking stoves. Partner with me financially. I am unable to work for a salary in the country due to visa restrictions so all my work is support funded. I have been ordained and accepted through the Commission Ministers Network to provide spiritual covering and the tax covering I need to raise tax-deductible funding for my time living in Guatemala. So, this site will allow monthly pledges to be set up and auto drafted once a month. Then at the end of the year they will send out the needed paperwork to donors for their taxes. I’m grateful for their help and their covering. 

I’ve had to figure out how to eat the elephant of funding. The monthly goal is the average of what I’ve always needed to raise just for one trip, now to do that monthly, in an environment where churches no longer sponsor missionaries...how in the heck was this going to happen? And like they always say, one bite at a time. My monthly need is $3300, I know whoa! But if 125 people pledged $20 a month it would be a $240 annual commitment, but combined would equal $2,500 of the monthly goal leaving less than $1000 for larger donors and corporate sponsorship. So, that’s what I’m hoping for. Would you please consider being a $20 a month pledge donor? I understand times are challenging and not everyone can. Lump sums are just as meaningful and helpful, and even $5 a month is meaningful to the bottom line and generous. You can find all links under the links page or by clicking here.

I will be keeping all things posted on this blog - videos, pictures, stories, visits, all of it here. So please bookmark the site for my weekly posts. I hope to have you join my community, because we need it and if we’ve learned anything through this weird time in life is that community is just as powerful online as it is in person. I love you, and I’m excited to share in this adventure with you.