Guatemala Mission Trip – June 14, 2018

We headed out at 5:00 this morning to make sure we were at the red zone by 7:00 am. On the way we stopped by a local bakery to pick up some pastries to hand out to the officials at the road block. Sometimes to reach someone’s heart you gotta go through their stomach. I’m not saying that this really helped but they were stoked to get sweet bread and they put our name on the list to enter with the rescue workers.

We were able to walk in to Los Lotes a small town that has been on the news as one of the hardest hit areas. Most of the town is covered with ash, lava and mud. Many lives were lost and there is a large number of people missing. At least 300 is a number I keep hearing. The relief workers are working from dawn to dusk digging out the homes looking for bodies. At this point I do not believe they are expecting to find survivors. The flow looks to me like it was about a quarter of a mile wide.

Once we came back down I met with CONRED to discuss our plan of shelter once the relocation process starts. We are working with a local architect to draw up a simple, indigenous permanent structure. CONRED will submit the plan for approval. We will certainly need financial gifts for this project. Our goal is 10 homes to start the project. The homes will cost between 3500.00- 5500.00 per house. These homes will have concrete footer, floor, block walls and metal roofs.  We will use local labor but teams are welcome to join our efforts. Our readers can make this possible. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Kenny