Seasons With Stephanie: Where I left part of my heart

Around this time last year, I was starting to pack up my things. In a few days, I would be heading to the beautiful country of Guatemala. For my senior trip at my church, they took all of the seniors to Guatemala. When I was in 8th grade, I gave my heart to missions. I did not know much about Guatemala at this time but I felt God was calling my heart to this country. When I found out that Guatemala was where our senior trip was, I broke down into tears. It was always my dream to go there because for all these years this country, that I had never been to, had such a special place in my heart. Bright and early on the morning of July 4, 2013, I was headed to the airport with all of my closest friends, my youth pastor, my mentor, and also my daddy! I was so excited but also very very nervous. I had never been on a mission trip before that was outside of the country. This was a moment where I was totally trusting God and going out of my comfort zone. As an extreme germaphobe, this was going to be an experience where I would be totally out of my element where I would be doing, smelling, touching, and seeing things that I would not normally experience. Thankfully, both our flights were great. We didn't run into any trouble. Once we arrived into Guatemala City,everything started to change. Everything was different. All the signs were in Spanish and we stuck

out like a sore thumb. Everyone was staring at us as we tried to find out way around an unfamiliar airport with sign and people that spoke a different language. Finally, we found someone (I'm not positive who this person was, but he was who we were suppose to find and he helped a lot) and he helped us with all of our luggage but it was very difficult because of the language barrier. We went and stood outside for what seemed like hours. We were waiting for our translators to come pick us up. While we were waiting, I was really really confused.. I felt like we were still in America. These Guatemalans were dressed just like people in America. I didn't want to ask someone about it because everyone seemed to be really stressed out so I just stood there, kept my mouth shut, and just examined everything. Our translators, Alfrado and Maricio, picked us up in the coolest cars. We drove for what seemed like the longest time. I could never drive in Guatemala City, they have no lines and everyone is just on their own and if you make it out alive then you did good. The further that we drove out of Guatemala City, that's when things began to change. We were starting to make it into the villages. There became less and less cars and more and more people walking like the woman above in my picture. After we drove for awhile, we ended up in Chimaltenango, Guatemala where we stayed in a beautiful mission house.