A Beautiful Community Stepped Up

We were on a mission to serve. We were flying down to Guatemala to extend help and hope to those around us. Our desire was to build up the community. We felt that we had so much to offer, and then we got there.

In 2021, my family and I decided to move to Guatemala for four months for the sake of adventure. It wasn’t completely random, however. My brother had moved there with his wife several years earlier to help plant a church. We wanted to go for more than just a visit. We both had kids now, and wanted to give them a special cousin experience. My husband had just left his job, and had started a business that allowed him to work from home. So why not go?? We were so excited! We wanted to dive into my brother’s church, and help his community in any way that we could.

The day had finally come! We got to the airport and made our first leg of the flight to Houston with our three kids. As we were boarding again for Guatemala, the flight manager found an entire page ripped out of our son’s passport all the way to the seams. The beauty of that day quickly faded as he informed us that we would “not” be making our flight. We immediately called the passport office to see what our options were. We talked with them several times and waited on hold for over five hours with three bored children. After changing our flight over and over, we finally secured an appointment scheduled for an emergency passport request the following week.

We flew back to Lubbock that night very discouraged. Thankfully, we came back the following week and miraculously got a new passport within the next twenty-four in time to make our flight the following night. We flew into Guatemala City late that evening in complete exhaustion. My brother, who had been called back to Texas for ten days to work with his host church, had arranged for a friend to pick us up and drive us to our house that night. It was a huge blessing, for we would have never made it.

Then the associate pastors brought us lunch the next day. Another friend of theirs dropped by and took us to the market to buy food. Another friend came and picked me up to take me to get a water filter. We came so excited to help, but felt so helpless in those first few days. Yet help of community was on the way as one by one, people reached out and took care of us. 

Over the next few months, we grew humble as were loved and cared for by this new body of Christ. We witnessed a wider perspective of the essence of community. The meaning took on a verb form instead of just a noun describing a “group of people.” My family saw what I believe God truly intended for the functioning of His body by watching the “way” they served unconditionally. We also learned that to participate in the body of Christ, we must be willing to be “served” just as much as we are willing to serve others.

We formed strong bonds with these people in such a short amount of time because we opened our hearts to a community that adamantly poured their hearts out for us. I do hope that we served them as well in some way, for they were amazing. But I know deep down that while our intent might have been to go as leaders, we simply became learners of a people that represented their Savior so well. I will never be the same, and I hope to continually show the beauty of community, like they did for me, wherever I go.