Jesus Estas Aqui

Post by Zack

Our morning out here at the Casa de Fuego, we started early with breakfast and soon after headed to the place where Healing Nations is set to establish a clinic. Craig and Corey expressed all the great visions they had in place as a team for the layout and we then walked the grounds praying as we felt led. After reveling in the revelations God had given us we went on our way to one of the local churches, “Nueva Vida” (New Life). “Bienvenidos” was a perfect description of our arrival. All of New Life church was extremely welcoming and supportive of our presence and eventually even shared stories about the missions team they had sent out. The words that stuck out during worship, not only described the worship of the church, but also the day, were “Estas Aqui”. Though a simple explanation for the words sticking out would be the current level of my understanding of Spanish, I think singing with boldness that, “Jesus you are here” with people I’ve never met, yet love the same God I do, rung deeper into my soul than I think any other line in worship had before. Our time at New Life Church continued to be welcoming and awe-inspiring with the church having one of their staff members translate for us as we learned about Romans and Paul’s encouragement to love and tell the gospel to all people. After service we got to know the people we were in service with more and played with some of their kids. Leaving New Life Church we went to stop for a very delicious lunch, before heading to Antigua. Once arriving at the historic city we went through the markets and starting there, the ports and the stalls felt like windows into the lives of the Guatemalans there. We stopped eventually to a friend of Craig’s, Carlos who gave us very generous and kind deals on his handcrafted works. Spending a bit more time with the vendors in each archway we all got to experience more of the kindness and generosity of Guatemalan people. Heading further into the city of Antigua we got to where the community of that city held a procession for Lent and the coming of Easter. Despite everyone in that crowd having different faiths and ideas we could still know from what we saw that, “Jesus, estas aqui”. Before leaving I personally got to retake a picture, from exactly where I stood over seven years ago. Being able to do that allowed me to further realize the depth of work God has been doing in my heart at the same time I was witnessing the work God has been doing in Guatemala. We got to see a bit more of the history and beauty of Antigua before heading back to our van which we had to rely on Jesus to bring back someone to unlock the lot we had parked in. Since we got back late enough not many people stuck around. Eventually we got out, headed back on our way to Casa de Fuego sharing with one another the beauty God had shared with us and that He undoubtably was here in the midst of it all.