Why Guatemala?

As I sit down to write the first blog post of this brand-new website, at the cusp of a brand-new adventure across international lines and language barriers, I can’t help but swirl around the question: Why Guatemala?

Anyone familiar with my story knows that I’ve had a love affair with Central America since I was a teenager. At 17, I joined our high school environmental group on a trip to the rainforests of Costa Rica—and fell in love.

The culture. The people. The language. The food. The greenery and gorgeous biodiversity.

We visited beaches, jungles, and canopies. We woke up to volcanoes, tasted tropical fruit the way God intended, and witnessed the untimely death of a cricket to a ravenous orange-knee tarantula. It was epic. Life-changing. I spent my senior year of high school teaching others about our trip.

So it comes as no surprise that I found myself in Guatemala and Nicaragua a mere year later.

This time with a different mission. A different focus.

This time, I was there with Jesus.

Beyond merely seeing the landscape, I was offered His eyes to see its soul—the heart of the soil, the joy and tears of the people, and the endurance of a community.

Our team from Mercy Ships carried love in practical and spiritual ways. From digging wells for fresh water to throwing a pool and pizza party at a local orphanage, our hands were busy. From sharing life-changing stories in public squares to teaching children about Jesus in mountain villages, our mouths and hearts were busy as well.

At the young age of 18, I had no idea how profoundly that trip would change my life.

Looking back, that first trip to Guatemala planted a seed in my heart that would take years to mature.

Over the years, it would be watered by an increasing love for my immigrant neighbors, an appreciation for the beauty and diversity of cultural expression and language, and, yes, an awareness of disparities in opportunity and care experienced by Latinos.

Only more recently have I begun to recognize another thread woven through it all: my mother.

My mother was born and raised in poverty in the Philippines. Vulnerable to the circumstances of her life, she did everything she could—with the help of her God—to build a different life. English is her second language, and even today, she understands more than she can always express.

When I look at her story alongside mine, something about my own begins to make more sense.

It doesn’t surprise me that God would see fit to surprise my parents with an “oops” baby, only to have that child grow up with a heart for partnering with Him to minister to the minds, bodies, and spirits of people affected by some of the same vulnerabilities her mother once knew.

It is a story of redemption and restoration beyond the imagination and efforts of mankind.

Community around my mother was part of God’s redemptive work in her life. And a call to community—locally and across borders—has become part of His purpose in mine.

So, why Guatemala?

Why not Guatemala?

Truthfully, it has never mattered much to me where I live my life.

Many of the decisions we make are naturally shaped by what people, places, or things will bring us comfort, security, or satisfaction. And while I can appreciate all of those things, they have never been what most deeply motivates my heart.

I have always been driven by a deep sense of purpose. A calling. Something greater than myself.

A desire that somehow, in whatever small way possible, the spaces I inhabit on this earth would be better because I was there. The people. The places. The things entrusted to me.

And the most effective way I’ve found to create the best life possible—for myself and for others—is to surrender it to my Creator and follow Him.

With His infinite wisdom, power, resources, and love, it seems a little silly not to.

I’ve been following Him since I was a teenager, and He has taken me on some of the greatest, hardest, most rewarding, and most beautiful adventures of my life.

He knows I’ll follow Him anywhere, at any time, for anyone.

Right now, He has highlighted the people of Guatemala and given me a sincere love and compassion for them.

What excites me most is getting to join Him there—to discover the beautiful things He already sees in them, the beautiful things He desires for them, and the beautiful things He is already doing among them.

And then, in whatever ways He allows me, to faithfully inhabit that place alongside them.