A crowd favorite from our trip was the time we spent in a local village in Chichicastenango. This village was outside of town, approximately a 30 min walk from any local store for food and drinks. There was ONE road for the whole town and no one had cars. To say we were in a rural area was an understatement!
Our contact, Juan Peliz, invited the team to share at a small church service of 15-20 people and then visit homes.
God, however, had different plans. Here is a 1st hand account from our team member Kathy Sikora:
“Another really great experience we had was the day we got to go visit a nearby village a few minutes outside of Chichi. I’ve seen villages in the past, and whether in Mozambique, Niger, Haiti, Bolivia, etc. they all have this impact on you that you can’t even begin to explain. I was excited to visit this village and meet all of the people because I knew the impact that past village visits have had on me and how God has used that to move in me. It’s an indescribable felling – trying to bring hope to someone who has no hope, to bring peace to someone who can’t find peace, to bring joy to someone who doesn’t have joy, and to give love to someone who thinks that love doesn’t exist in their world anymore. But make no mistake, I’m not the supplier of any of those things. You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Such freedom can only be found in one thing and one thing alone, and that is Jesus Christ.
I was excited, anxious, nervous, and a whole bunch of other things about this village visit, mainly because I had decided to share my testimony for the very first time. As I started to prepare and think about what I was going to say, one thing was very clear to me and that was that I was to do this without any sort of notes in my hand. What I was going to say would come directly from the heart and the heart alone. We were initially told that between 15-30 people would show up at the village church upon our arrival. Well, God had other plans as probably about 100-150 people showed up to greet us. HELLO STAGE FRIGHT.
The crowd ranged from toddlers to grandparents, and if I’m being completely honest it was straight up panic inside my head. Apparently the pastor of this church had made an announcement on the radio about our arrival and the entire village basically showed up! I don’t normally have an issue with public speaking, but this was a total different animal to me for some reason. And then I was told that I would be speaking first…say what! I wonder now what my composure looked like on the outside, because on the inside I was legit ready to run for the hills. But it was time to share my story. It was time to share how God has moved mountains in my life and how He has given me more peace and joy than I ever could have asked for.
I never thought my story would be shared in front of 150 complete strangers, but when God says go, heck you just gotta go! It was like I was standing on the ledge of a cliff preparing myself to jump feet first. God gave me a nudge and I jumped. And as I jumped I was surprised to find that God had equipped me with a parachute that safely guided me to the bottom of the cliff. As I braced myself to take the ‘stage’, Matthew 28:20 popped into my head—And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. My testimony, my story, flowed out of me like nothing I’ve ever spoken before. What exactly I said seems like a blurred memory, but I know it came our exactly how it was meant to come out. God planted a seed somewhere that day through my testimony, and whether that seed was in me or someone else I likely won’t ever know the answer, but I do know that that seed is going to grow and that’s just amazing.”
Our team was able to minister to an ENTIRE village of people! What an experience!
We shared testimonies, preached the gospel, healed the sick, played with the children, and BLESSED everyone we came in contact with us!
To read more about Kathy’s experience click here.
