Friday afternoon most of  the team went up to Ruth’s house to give one final big push to get more done up at her house. The sewing ladies had finished up their curtains and got their sewing room all cleaned up and put back together for the rooms regular use as the library and computer room.

The evening time was spent with several of the teachers for a special Guatemalan dinner with their traditional tamale’s wrapped in banana leaves, beans, bread, corn tortillas and cheese.  I think one of the students ate 6 tamale’s!  We sang songs together in worship of our Savior and even tho most of us can’t speak Spanish we were able to join them in singing along which I LOVED!!  The staff had each of us come up and gave us a sweet gift of love and spoke beautiful words of affirmation and several of the group members went up and shared how they enjoyed this week and being with the staff and teachers.

Saturday morning we had our last amazing breakfast at the school and then headed down to the dock to say our good-byes or as I prefer to say it “see ya later’s”. There are always lots of long hugs and sweet kisses on the cheeks, tears and I loves you’s.  Several of the staff came, sponsor kids and parents. It’s a very special moment as we board the boat and leave and they stay and wave and wave and wave.  Their hearts of gratitude and sweets spirits are truly a blessing to each of the team members.

We had about 3 hours in Pana to do some tourist shopping and bartering and then about a four hour bus ride to Guatemala City.  At the hostel we had dinner and enjoyed a devotional time reflecting on the week and how we saw God moving in our hearts in a personal way.  We closed by asking Luz Elena and Pam how we could specifically pray for them, put them in the middle of us, laid hands on our sweet sisters and prayed for them.

The 4:30am alarm came early as we finished packing up totes and walking over to the airport.  Diego (one of my sponsor “kids” – he’s 21 one and studying at the University) came Friday night as Saturday morning to spend a last few minutes with us and helped out at the airport.  We said our last good byes to him and Pam and Luz Elena, three flights later we arrived home.  Our team gathered for one last time to pray together and thank the Lord for what He did during this trip.

Thank you for your interest and support through prayer

Mary DeSpain

To see more pictures from this team, click  here