Student Ministry Guatemala Mission Trip 2025

UPDATES

On April 5th a team of 14 of our High School Students and Leaders will be going to Guatemala to spend Spring Break serving with Impacto Ministry. Please be in prayer for the team as they travel and serve. During the week you will be able to read updates from different members of the team on this page! Check back each day to see what the team has done. Thank you for all of your support!

APRIL 6, 2025

TRAVEL DAY & DAY ONE (SABBATH)

Our Saturday morning wake up and arrival to the church at 3:30am was a struggle, but when stepping onto the Impacto property at 7:30pm (Atlanta time) and seeing all the beautiful Guatemala mountains and the culture made it all worth it. Travel day was exhilarating! You should ask us about our bus ride when we return! Last night for dinner we had pizza - Guatemalan style, and loved it!

On Sunday we went to the Guatemala church that meets at Impacto and it was their three year anniversary! Following church, we enjoyed a pot-luck style luncheon with the church family. It was a breathtaking experience to listen to and watch others love and serve the Lord. The worship here is truly like no other and we were able to enjoy songs together in English and Spanish. The sermon was translated for us, too! After lunch, we embarked on a boat tour of Lake Atitlan and enjoyed a short walk thru San Juan! We’re here with students from Athens First United Methodist as well, and dinner and worship tonight were with their team too. We can’t wait to continue the week in this beautiful country!

Tomorrow we begin our days serving. We’ll be traveling up the mountain to a remote village called Panyebar to serve with children and make home visits. Check back soon for more updates!

-Addie Grace Card and Caroline Ebelhar

April 9, 2025

Day 4 - Abuelitos, Happy Tummies, More Home Visits

Hola Amigos! Day 4 was such a blessing! We started the day off with an early wake up call to go to devotion and breakfast with Pastor Luis. His devotional was about favorite verses of the bible. A couple of us got to share our memorized Bible verse! We had an amazing breadfast with mangos, which is personally my favorite fruit (MK). Then we made our way to Happy Tummies in San Juan for day 2 of an amazing time with the abuelitos. We got to make resurrection eggs with them and play pin the tail on the donkey! That was such a fun game to play with them because some didn’t close their eyes and some got a little dizzy after spinning. It was such a good time with them! Then our group split to do two home visits. One group went to Maria’s house, a nice home with many things. She was full of so much joy and her smile could light up every room she walked into. Then the other group went to Juan’s house which was a completely different experience. Juan had a room as a home with no air flow, no lights, and about as big as a soccer goal. He had so little yet was so quick to thank God for everything he has. Truly an experience that will forever impact the group. Then we progressed back to Impacto for a yummy lunch with chicken sandwiches.

After lunch we headed back to Happy Tummies to hang out with the ninos! Today we made cute jumping bunnies with solo cups and we played head, shoulders, knees, toes and CUP! For the rest of the time we played with the ninos outside and had a great time! When it was time for teh ninos to go home, we all got in a circle and prayed together. We said our goodbyes to the ninos then we walked back to the Impacto campus and played card games and ate gummy worms. The guys visited a coffee shop and were nice enough to bring us back coffees too! Then we gad a delicious dinner. After dinner we went to a Bible study where Addie Grace and Zane (from Athens first) led worship songs. When the Bible study was over, we headed back to our rooms to wrap up our night and head to bed.

-written by Avery Hall & Mary Katherine Loomis

APRIL 7, 2025

Happy Tummies Panyebar

Although we had a little bit of an early wake up today, we were able to hear a sermon from Pastor Luis and enjoy an egg and cheese sandwich breakfast! Then, we began our journey up to Panyebar, stopping at a little church devoted to kids ministries and Happy Tummies - one of the ministries Impacto supports (they feed many children nutritious meals here in Guatemala). After our stop and prayer time at the new church, we continued our bus ride up the mountain and when we got to Panyebar we were quite literally in the clouds!

Once we were there, we split into two groups to go on home visits. Katherine and some others went to visit a hardworking mother with two amazing children; while Melody met a mom of seven children with a 75 year old Mayan grandmother. Everybody was so thankful for the food provided and overall it was a very insightful experience being able to ask them questions about their lives. Afterwards, we taught the resurrection story to the sweetest children at Happy Tummies Panyebar and we played lots of games with them, even putting on an Easter egg hunt.

We arrived back at Impacto for a nice dinner of chikcen burritos and some of the most delicious pineapple we’ve ever eaten and then enjoyed worship time and some fun with the students from Athens First. Tomorrow we look forward to working at the local Happy Tummies facility here in San Juan.

-today’s post is written by Katherine Dyar and Melody Lytton

April 8, 2025

Day 3 - Abuelitos and Happy Tummies

Today we got to sleep in a little later . . . until 7:45! While the extra 15 minutes doesn’t seem like much, when you’re on “Guatemalan time” it makes all the difference. At breakfast our guide, Peter, gave us a beautiful message about being present in our relationshp with Christ.

After breakfast and our sermon, we made our way towards Happy Tummies right here in San Juan, which is about a five minute walk from our dorms at Impacto. Today at Happy Tummies we got to meet the Abuelitos who shared the most beautiful smiles and bundles of joy, even though most of them spoke Mayan so our poquito espanol was not much help. With the abuelitos we made five finger prayers and played balloon volleyball!

After the abuelitos went home, we all headed to the Super Q (basically a Guatemalan Walmart). It was a pretty unassuming store, but once you were inside, it was actually fairly large and had multiple floors selling everything from sodas to halves of mannequins. After the Super Q, we explored San Juan a little more, seeing vibrant public murals, and numerous storefronts, all with shopkeepers and huge smiles! Some of us enjoyed an ice cream and others a cold boba tea.

After our exploration of the town, we returned to Happy Tummies, where we waited and practiced spanish with our translators. After a little while, a few kids arrived at the facility and immediately wanted to play soccer, swing, run around and talk with us. After all of the kids (about 40-50 total of them) came inside for lunch, and today was a share-a-meal, meaning that they could bring a friend. It being share-a-meal day meant that we would also be eating with the kids. To our surprise, the food was really good! After our meal, we headed outside for about 30 more minutes of playing while the kids ate a special treat of chocolate covered bananas and we taught the kids a few dances. After their playtime, it was time to make the resurrection eggs, telling the story of Easter in a very hands on way, as well as giving them something to take home and spread the word of God to their brothers, sisters, and parents. After we said our goodbyes, we headed back to the Impacto compound for dinner, games, worship, and small group time, before heading to our dorms to get ready for bed.

-today’s post is written by Camden McCreary and Henry Hill