In the summer of 2018, my 17 year old daughter and I traveled to Guatemala for a Humanitarian trip. Over 5 days, we were to mud houses, build new outdoor latrines, and put together much needed bunk beds for families who were sleeping on uneven dirt floors. We were high in the hills above Panajchel in remote villages. They were the poorest people I'd ever seen.
On day 2, I was put in charge of putting the bunk beds together because I was the only one in the group proficient in power tools. Using sketched drawings and Spanish instructions, I figured out which pieces of wood were the four posts, then the side rails, and then the many wood slats going across. Armed with nothing but a charged power-drill and a large box of wood screws, I began assembling the bed. It went rather quickly, and within an hour I had one bed assembled. I had started the project alone, but now had a large group of village kids gathered at the door watching. For the second bed, I decided it would be far greater to bring the 14 year old girl who lived there, in to learn how to put together her own bed.
The joy that came over her face as she did something for herself was a beautiful thing to witness. The next day in a neighboring village, I was able to do the same thing, except this time I brought in the Father of the home from the beginning and taught him the bed building for his own 5 chiildren. We then brought in the teenage son to also participate.
At the end of that week of service, I had been bitten by the service bug and knew that I wanted to do this kind of work for the rest of my life.
So you can imagine when my first recipient Amy Mills told me she just wanted a bunk bed for her girls, my heart leapt in my chest and it was like God's way of telling me that I was on the right path.
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