The Calvary Chapel Ark City team in Guatemala
They arrived tired, and everything made it.
Every person, every bag, and — the part we were praying hardest about — every suitcase packed with medical supplies, straight through customs without a hitch. If you’ve ever brought medications into another country, you know that isn’t a small thing. Day one was unpacking, sorting supplies, eating together, and praying over the week ahead.
Then the work started, and the week turned into something none of us expected.
The roads tell you where you’re going
Nicole Rogers, one of the team members, put it best after the first two days:
“The roads to these remote villages make even the roughest Kansas dirt roads look smooth. But every mile has been worth it.”
That’s the honest version of village ministry in Guatemala. The distance isn’t measured in miles so much as in hours, heat, and the willingness to keep going after the pavement ends.
Day two took the team to Cantón Miramar in brutal heat. Nobody complained. They set up, they served, they sweated through it, and by the end of the day the thing you noticed wasn’t exhaustion — it was joy.
Cantón Miramar, day two. It was a very hot day.
The day that broke everyone open
Day three was different.
The team went into a village GSG Missions will be partnering with going forward — a place, as team member Kelly Dillner described it, literally a street over from a comparatively thriving community, and telling an entirely different story. Narrow paths with homes pressed close on both sides. A toilet flushed by hand with water dipped from a barrel.
While part of the team ran the medical clinic, the rest went door to door — introducing the clinic, inviting families to the next day’s children’s event, and sharing the Gospel. The clinic saw nearly 50 people that day.
One team saw a woman so weak she had to be nearly carried to reach the clinic for help.
Jana Watts Lumbert wrote that day three was emotionally the hardest for many of them. Her group had one family invite them inside — and there they met an elderly woman dying of cancer. There were tears, and hugs, and prayer, and the particular ache of not sharing a language with someone whose hand you’re holding.
“It is so hard to not be able to speak to them in their native language, but I pray they felt the love.”
We think they did. Love has never needed a translator as badly as we assume.
Day four: Hot Wheels and the power of coming back
The next day the team returned to that same village — not for clinic, but for the children and food distribution.
Kelly had a group of eight: one boy and seven girls. Every kid wanted the Hot Wheels that a supporter named Robert had sent along. Something as small as a toy car in a small hand, and the whole afternoon turned.
But here’s the detail that mattered most:
“Several recognized us from yesterday and greeted us with the biggest smiles when they saw us again.”
That’s the thing about coming back. Anyone can show up once. Returning the next day says something a single visit never can — and it’s exactly why GSG Missions is committing to this village long after this team’s plane has landed in Kansas.
What Addi said at the table
On the last night, the whole group — short-term team and our local GSG team together — sat around the dinner table and shared what God had taught them that week. There were a lot of tears.
Then Addi said something that has stayed with all of us.
She said compassion isn’t simply saying I feel bad for them. Compassion is seeing someone who is hurting, letting your heart break with theirs, and then choosing to come alongside them.
She had helped carry that elderly woman — the one struggling to breathe — to the medical clinic. And as she told it, she was crying again. That woman, she said, showed her what compassion actually looks like.
And then she made the turn that stopped the table: when we are broken and struggling, it breaks God’s heart too. He doesn’t stand at a distance. He comes alongside us. He carries us. He doesn’t leave.
That’s the sentence I keep coming back to. Eight days, four villages, a hundred patients, a lot of Hot Wheels — and the thing the team carried home was a clearer picture of how God moves toward people rather than away from them.
Antigua, coffee, and the family that forms
The last full day was rest and beauty: worship at Shoreline Church, then exploring Antigua and touring a coffee plantation — a chance to see Guatemala’s history and culture, not only its need. Both are true, and a team that only sees one of them goes home with half a picture.
Nicole wrote that a group who started out simply as people who attend the same church had become family by the end. That happens on nearly every trip, and it never stops being remarkable to watch.
What we’d ask you to pray
For the villages. Especially the new community we’re now partnering with — that the seeds planted door to door would take root, and that the families who weren’t ready to open the door yet would find their hearts softened.
For the woman with cancer, and for her family. We’re still praying for her, and we’d be grateful if you would too.
For the team back home. That what God started in them in Guatemala keeps growing in Kansas.
For our local team. They turned around and welcomed a team from Pennsylvania the very next morning — straight into another full eight days. Pray for their stamina and their joy.
Could this be you?
Every person on this team was an ordinary person from Kansas who said yes. No one needed to be a doctor, and no one needed to speak Spanish.
If reading this stirred something in you, that’s worth paying attention to. We host teams throughout the year, and we’d love to talk with you about bringing one.
To the Calvary Chapel Ark City team — thank you. We already miss you.
