The End and the Beginning

So.  We're back.  Safe at home in the U.S.A..  We left Guatemala yesterday, watching it get smaller and smaller in the plane windows.  I could have sworn the sky cried for us.  Happy tears, because of what we had learned.  Sad tears, because we were leaving.  It feels odd to not be in the familiar mission compound, and lonely to be sitting at my computer posting this last blog...without any of my team members around.  I guess, in a way, we became family to each other.  We went through so much.  The painting layer after layer of paint for the painting crew.  Or for me, the many, many bucket fulls of dirt the digging crew hauled to the dump.  It was sad to leave, but we'll never forget those things.  Never.  I will never forget chopping a snake into three pieces with Abby VanHeel while digging, even though we were both a little grossed out.  I will never forget making up stories with Bekah Elgard and Josh Mork while digging.  I will never forget the many strange encounters I had as the people there stared at my rare long, blond hair and blue eyes (Ask anyone...I seemed to have a weird experience every day).  I will never forget accidentally dropping a craft bag off a balcony, and then having the little girls Kayla talked about come and get it, and then teaching them how to do the craft and having them show me from their window across the street.  I will never forget little Fernando from VBS, who wanted to play a game with me and tried to share his onion rings from lunch with a little girl.  The memories may fade, but I will never forget them.  None of us will.  And because we will remember these things, maybe our lives will be changed.  Maybe we will be more willing to trust God fully.  Maybe we will be more willing to serve cheerfully.  Hopefully, everyone's life was changed.  I know mine was.  Looking out over the thousands of homes in Guatemala, I saw so much poverty.  But you know what?  Behind those homes lay a beautiful horizon of mountains.  There was hope.  And you could see in the faces of some people that they were happy.  So, yes, my life is changed.  Because I learned a bit about true faith.  Here's an example: So, right now, Guatemala is in the raining season.  Hardly a day passes without rain.  The problem was, you couldn't exactly paint a wall or dig out a dirt pile in the pouring rain.  The paint washed off and the dirt became so muddy it engulfed you.  When our second day came, the rain was threatening.  From the hanger where the dirt crew was digging, you could see that the rain clouds covered the entire mountain ahead of us.  So we prayed.  It came anyways, cutting that day short.  But perhaps it was simply God reminding us to trust Him, because the next days, even though we could see more rain clouds, it never rained on us.  Isn't that amazing?  I thought it was.  I also thought our team was amazing.  There was teamwork between all of us.  I got to know people better.  I even discovered my friend Emily Beck has a dark side, when she punched my pillow, Neo Maximus, nearly every night (Just kidding Emily...you're amazing!).  I got to do VBS songs and yank bamboo roots out for dirt crew work.  By the way, those roots smell like death.  Honestly.  But everything on that trip was worth it.  Everything.  Even though we are all dead tired.  You should have seen us trying to pick out food on the way back home.  We were so out of it...even Marshall, the mathematician, was having some problems figuring out the time change.  I, for one, couldn't even figure out what 75 cents plus 75 cents equalled.  But I wouldn't have traded Guatemala for the world.  The trip has come to end now.  We've said goodbye to Jason and Tressa, our providers, and the translators, Manuel, Lulu, Danny, and Sarah.  We've snapped as many pictures as possible of the amazing view and the wonderful mission compound.  It's officially over.  In terms of dates and time.  But the mission part of it is never over.  This is just the beginning.  There's so much people out there who still need help, and so much we can do.  And our faith in God is ever growing.  So where there is an end, there is a beginning.  I guess this is it.  Thanks for keeping track of us on our trip.  It was definitely memorable.  Adios!  This is Abby Scheller, signing out for the last time.