Have you ever gone to a place and immediately you know you are exactly where you are supposed to be at that very moment?  Everywhere you look you see the Beauty of God revealed and know that in some small way you can share the love of God just because of where you are?  Well, every time I'm given the opportunity to travel on a short-term missions trip, that's exactly how I feel...and I would have to say that it's especially true - for me - when I am with the people of Guatemala.  I love the country of Guatemala...I love  the people of Guatemala and I have seen the beauty that God created in so many ways when I've been there that's different than any other place I've ever been.  In some ways I feel "at home" when I'm there...although God knows my Spanish will make it evident pretty quickly that it's NOT my "home" and i leave a little piece of my heart each time I leave.

Guatemala 2011 was no different except I think I fell in love with it's people all over again.  I, along with 40+ team members, were once again blessed with the opportunity to travel to the villages of Guatemala this summer.  While there we provided medical, dental and optometric servcies (not as in-depth as we would have liked but in small ways that will forever change the little community of San Pablo La Laguna, Guatemala), we built a small but sufficient home for a sweet family and were able to minister to hundreds of children in the local schools (during which time dozens of children accepted Christ as their Savior).

I think this year's trip was a little different than some in years past, for me, because of the exact feeling I'm referring to.  You see, I'm one who believes that NOTHING happens by accident and that we have divine appointments every day (many of which I know we aren't even aware). I've seen this truth revealed over and over again in my ministry opportunities and many other ways over the past few years. One such example was in the very organization of this trip. You see, we don't usually work with specific missionaries in Guatemala but this year we did...and what awesome Missionaries they were...Dave and Debbie Amsler ROCK!!! But that's not the cool thing...the "cool" part actually began 20 years ago (yep, I'm dating myself).  While in college I, along with Laura Lee and Shawna Wiggington, had a female trio called "Promise".  We travelled for a couple years and during the summer of 1992 we were asked to represent Southeaster College (now SEU) by travelling to youth camps across the country. One of the camps we worked in was for the State of Kentucky...well, long-story short, while at this camp we worked with the then-District Youth Director Dave Amsler and his wife Debbie...YEP!!! ...the same Dave and Debbie that are now missionaries to the great country of Guatemala with whom our Team worked with this summer...talk about divine appointments.

The village we worked in, San Pablo, was such an awesome village! Usually we have some difficulty of communication due to language barriers but it was even more so this year b/c a lot of the village people don't even speak Spanish (which most of us aren't even good at anyway). They speak a native Mayan language which I don't know how to spell but is pronounced something like "shoot da hill"...We all joked we really needed 3 interpreters to speak with those native village people --- 1. to interpret Southen English to English 2. English to Spanish and 3. Spanish to "shoot da hill"...it was quite funny at times. I learned a couple of valuable lessons on this trip: First, I really came to realize that God is truly the God of the small details. And He is able to use the simplest of events or items to make the hugest impact on His people (no matter where you are from). I was Doctor Monica this year (a promotion from my "nurse" title of the past)...I was seen as an "eye DOCTOR" by the locals, howeverI have to say I wasn't really excited about "JUST" handing out reading glasses. I wish I had the time and space to write about how absolutely shallow and limited my thinking was to view that responsibility as being un-important. I also wish I could take you back and allow you to be a witness to the absolute gratefulness and amazement of the patients I saw, when, for the 1st time in who even knows how long, they were able to thread a needle (which is how the women make a living) or read the Bibile.  It's impossible for me to even verbalize or describe efficiently. All I can say is that God truly humbled me and my limited view of how HE can work to impact the lives of people.

Second, I realized how absolutely blessed I am that God continues to allow Me(along with many others) to be used in such small ways for HIM.  I never take it for granted when God supplies financially for me to participate in short-term missions trips...I pray He continues that Blessing so that I am able to go on many more (who knows maybe even longer than just "short-term"). There are so many elements to being able to GO! Sure it's great to see how different cultures live, to visit a country and have time to actually "see" it but it's SO much more than that. It's more than the country or the travel or even meeting the people...it's about "GO-ing" as God instructed us to do. Yeah it's easy to sometimes question whether we are even able to make a difference in such a short amount of time or whether the limited resources we are able to provide do anything more than provide a temporary fix to long-term issues?  I don't really know the answers in the physical realm but I do know that God can use a donkey...or a pair of sunglasses...a root canal or a bag of bleach to do something so SUPERnatural that we can't even comprehend. It's not about what WE did!  It's about what HE did and is continuing to do.

There's so mcuh more I would love to share about this year's trip and maybe I will at a later date.  This is just a brief reminder to us all that God is NOT limited to our limits!  HE IS GOD and we are not and I'm so thankful that HE chooses to use little people like me to do little things like hand out eyedrops and reading glassesto show HIS love and draw us all closer to Him!