Our team is small but is set out to do big things! We have a group of young girls (ages 11 and 12) and their mothers and also two girls who are 17, one with her mother and the other a friend. I am so thankful for each of them and the opportunity we have had to get to know each other well because of being a small team.

Our first day began at the Municipal Day Care at the dump. The children here all have parents who work in the dump. There are over 300 children in the facility from babies to 8 year olds. Our time was spent playing with toddlers, handing out lots of stickers and singing songs with the hundreds of children there. We had a fun time with bubbles and jump ropes too. From the second floor you can look out the windows of the preschool and see the metal shacks that many of the families live in. The shacks are unsafe and built on the dump itself. As we drove to the daycare we saw the water truck which was surrounded by children and adults getting their water in buckets to take back to their homes. Trash is piled up everywhere you look and you see people going through it looking for items to sell. The daycare is like an oasis in the middle of all of the chaos and dirt. The children are clean and look happy. Here they try to take care of children who are malnourished, who are sick and who have had little or no education. It was almost impossible to imagine the little smiling faces going back to live at the dump or in cardboard homes after leaving the school.

After lunch we went to Mama Carmen’s. We had about 40-50 children of all ages and began immediately to set up our craft and Bible story. We shared with the children that God is good. The children sang worship songs and created watercolor butterflies. We let them know that the watercolor butterflies would each be unique, just like they are uniquely created by God. The watercolor ended up all over the children and they were probably as painted as the butterflies! There is very little room in the orphanage with one main garage type room being the only place the children have to play. There was a truck parked inside, which also took up a lot of room, but we jumped rope and played with beach balls as best we could. Our group gave much needed humanitarian aid to Mama Carmen for the children, including clothing, soap, shampoo, medicine, school supplies, and baby blankets. We learned that a young boy Mario, had an eye surgery with the funding provided by W.O.W. and it was successful. He needs surgery on the other eye and W.O.W. is providing the funding for that as well. The group passed out Way FM drawstring backpacks to every child. The children were so excited to each have their own bag. We are taking the children to the Guatemala Children’s Museum tomorrow. A special treat for the children provided by the women of W.O.W. We came back to the hotel for a fun time of fellowship and discussion about our day and all eagerly went to bed!