Day 1: Welcome to Guatemala (August 1) Saturday

The first 2 teams to fly to Guatemala met at Valley Grace at 2am Saturday morning. My group included my mom, Elaine, Karen, and Kelsey. On our last connecting flight mom and I sat with a man who was really friendly. He was originally from Guatemala and actually came to America illegally but then met his now wife. He now has 3 children and is a hard worker. He was going back to Guatemala to get his father to take him to the USA. Long story short it was really nice to talk to him on the ride to Guatemala.

We flew to Guatemala without any problems. Abel was waiting for us at the airport and we settled into our new home for the week at Dori's Promise. While sorting our donations and supplies we realized that my group had left our 6th bag at the airport. That was a bit stressful because we came to realize that airports in Guatemala (even Guatemala City airport) was impossible to contact by phone. As an answer to prayer the 3rd and final group was able to track down our forgotten luggage as they came through the airport. That piece of luggage was full of toothbrushes and toothpaste to give to children at one of our locations for later in the week. While we waited for the final group we walked to get ice cream and we played "Heads Up" on my phone. The 3rd group arrived safely as well as 2 ladies, Amy and Dana, who had worked with our leader on a previous trip.
We met Pablo and he shared an introductory video about Forever Changed which is the overarching organization that started Dori's promise. A few of the biggest take-aways for me from this video was that their goal is to create a family atmosphere for the orphans that they bring in. Their goal is to have more orphans come into their care, but they want to provide quality care which requires a lot of funding for each child. I really felt this once I was able to see how the special moms interacted with the children and the children's living quarters. It was a good reminder for me that while yes the more children impacted the better, quality of care and provision is also essential.