Is anyone out there??

Hi! If you're reading this, you sure are dedicated! ;)
I wanted to let you know that this summer, 2 of our friends will be performing the job that we did when you followed us on this blog. They will be the hosts for incoming mission trip teams to Agua Viva.
They will spend the first 4 weeks in Antigua brushing up on their Spanish, then report to the home for duty.
Follow them here

Heading Home

Today, we’re boarding a plane at 8:20 AM Guatemala time to head back to the states. We’ll be flying through Dallas and into Louisville. Sophie’s whole family will be waiting at the gate to pick us up and welcome us back home. We can’t wait for our first meal back in the states, sharing all the stories of this summer.
We want to thank you so much for keeping up with our blog! Having this blog helped us share our experiences with our friends and family without you being here. We hope that somewhere in the words we’ve written, you have found a blessing and been touched by God’s working in our lives this summer. Thanks so much for your comments, voice messages, and emails you’ve sent throughout the summer. They always arrived at the perfect time to lift our spirits.
The house isn’t completed, so when we get pictures of the finalized house, we’ll post them here. Be sure to check back around October for the update.
Even though this is our last blog, you can always contact us if you want to know more about or to support the mission here at Agua Viva. You know where to find us!
Love,
Scott and Sophie

Team 7 Report

This week, we had the opportunity to work alongside a group from Dayton, OH from St. Albert the Great Catholic Church. The team was comprised of 28 members, ranging in age from 14-74. The members of this team aren’t at all what you think of when you think of a stereotypical “catholic.” This was a good lesson to learn. The fun thing about this team is that they bring many different areas of expertise. We had a Dental Hygienist, Hair Stylist, Air Force Officer, Professional Gardeners, Sewers, and an Art Teacher. We reaped the benefits of their expertise, as we both got our teeth cleaned and haircuts. It was neat to see them blossom in their fields of knowledge. The team also made many donations in direct answer to Evy’s prayers. They also brought money to pay for dental work, construction materials, a pizza party for the kids next week, and books for the school library. The team also went out of the ordinary and on Wednesday in Antigua, went to a coffee farm for a tour.
It’s funny how the Lord prepares us for things. We don’t think it was a coincidence that our last team was also the largest. We shudder to think about how we would have been unprepared if this was our first team!

Teams of All Kinds

Scott and I have been both team members and team leaders on many mission trips. Although we’ve held these positions before we learned this summer what it actually takes to be good team member and a good team leader. By being on the receiving end of teams we learned what is appreciated.
We know that one shovel of dirt dug in love is better than an entire house built without love.
We have seen teams of all sizes, and we know what size we would prefer to lead.
We have seen leaders of all types and have learned characteristics of each that will make us better leaders.
We have seen people who don’t appreciate a culture, no matter how hard they try to hide it.
These are gifts from God, to make us better appreciate and work with international missions in our future. Rarely, does one get to experience a mission trip from both perspectives and our trips will forever be changed because of our work here.
This summer we have seen the good and bad, the beautiful and the ugly. Although there have been times when it was tough, there have been easy times to even them out. This summer by seeing every type of team, we’ve learned what makes up a good team. We know that one result of this summer is that we will forever be better team members and leaders. This is just one of the million things the Lord has shown us this summer.

Closing Down

Yesterday, we started to close the book on our trip to Guatemala this summer. After getting the team started on their projects, we headed back to our house and began packing. This alone is a traumatic experience! It’s amazing to see how much we’ve accumulated in less than 3 short months! We have so many treasured mementos (the best ones were free, like lava rock and crafts we’ve done with the kids) that will help us remember our time here this summer.
It was a beautiful day, so in the afternoon, we headed out and started taking pictures of the grounds and buildings to show people and to help us remember exactly how it looked the summer we lived here. We didn’t know it at first, but as we walked, we realized it was more for us than it was for anyone else. We were saying goodbye to the buildings, mudholes, swingsets, smells of the carpenteria, sounds of the laundry room, and giant cow patties that we’ve come to love over this summer. With each picture we took, we were hugging it goodbye, until the next time we return.
It was interesting that in past trips, we’ve known where these buildings are, but this time it was different. We know the details of each place, the cracks in the walls, the broken windows, and the foot imprints in the cement sidewalk. We fell more in love with everything here by coming to love the details. It was the intimate details we were saying goodbye to, not just the places.
Tomorrow, we’ll take the team to Antigua, and say goodbye to all the sights and smells there.

Team 6 Leaves and Team 7 Arrives

Yesterday we headed to the airport to send team 6 back home to Tennessee and to pick up Team 7. Team 6 was lead by Tim Sheehy, one of the board members, from Kirby Woods Baptist Church. This team was great! They had two major projects that were physical labor; Evy’s house and a patio in front of the gym. They did a ton of digging with these projects and probably won’t mind if it is a while before they see another shovel. Their third project was sewing sheets and bed spreads for the kids. The ladies who did this worked very hard!! It really was a labor of love and the kids are going to adore the new Buzz Lightyear sheets.
On their Antigua day this team did street evangelism before lunch and saved their souvenir shopping for the afternoon. It was a real encouragement to see their enthusiasm for sharing God’s love. Team 6 was a blessing and we are going to miss them. We are excited to work with our next team lead by Laura Thimons (25 women and 3 men). Hard to believe that we will be heading home with this team! Wow! The summer has flown!

Add it to the list

Well, we are down to one more week in Guatemala. There have been times when we couldn’t wait for this week to get here and times when we didn’t want it ever to come. But no matter what we want or don’t want, it is here. It is here and it is a wonderful feeling. It is here and it is a horrible feeling. Bittersweet doesn’t even come close to describing the feeling, because it is so much sweeter than sweet and so much more bitter than bitter.
For those of you who like to travel overseas, especially on mission trips, and for those of you who go on mission trips, especially overseas, you know the feeling of never really being 100% content. When you are home, you long to be in the other country. When you are in the other country, you long to be home. As I was thinking about this phenomenon and discussing it with Scott it made me long for Heaven. It gave me another item to add to the list of why Heaven will be so marvelous. It was another mark in the “why I wanna go” tally.
See, in Heaven, this is the only place where this feeling will be satisfied. This is the only place where we can be and not be longing to be elsewhere. This is the only place where we will get to be with the people we love back home who have never been to Guatemala and the people we love in Guatemala who have never been to Indiana.
How funny that the Lord brought us to Guatemala from Indiana to give us another reason to want to leave this world.