In Guatemala every January, thousands of students leave their homes, villages, and families and travel hours away to live in larger towns where they can study and have a chance at a better education. These students are about 12 to 15 years old when they leave their families for the cities.
In the larger cities and towns, these students find housing through local families who rent them a room and offer food or they stay in dorm rooms offered by their schools. It is a lonely, difficult time, filled with hard studies and difficult lessons about life. It is a time of great opportunities for them — for good or for bad.
One of those institutes is located here in Chichicastenango where we live.
About a month ago, we heard a knock on our front gate and went out to meet several young ladies who were from that local school. They had heard that we work with children and wanted to come and volunteer with us to fulfill the community service hours they’re required to complete before their graduation.
We ended up with six young ladies who want to spend up to 100 volunteer hours with us over the next several months. They’re doing things like cleaning the yard to have it ready of the neighborhood Bible study, organizing paper records, preparing crafts, working with Chrisi, etc.
One of those young ladies is Grecia. She is 18 and in her last year of high school. On the outside, she is a smart, on-task and organized young lady with lots of promise for the future. Her goal is to go on to the university, so she can “be someone in life.”
Grecia is one of the leaders of her group of three friends who have planned the crafts for our Bible study for the past two weeks. As we work with these ladies we’re finding out that below their smiling faces are hearts that are hurting. In Grecia’s case, she shared with us that she has a broken heart.
We are excited to see how God uses this connection with us to help her find healing and a new identity in Christ.
As we continue meeting with these girls every week, we pray for opportunities to share how Christ heals broken hearts and has a great plan for their lives.
We are excited for the opportunity to not only have their help, but to reach them and their classmates as they spend time with us. We already have seen new doors open as they got permission from their director to hold an event for their class of over 100 students and they’re inviting us to talk with them about vision and education and God’s plan for them.
Please pray for us as we reach out to Grecia and her friends and God opens doors for us to continue impacting young Guatemalans with His word.
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Your prayers and financial gifts help us continue reaching out to people like Grecia as we live and minister here in the highlands of Guatemala.
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