Go Where I Send You

First an update, then the story.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to follow this project. Thank you to everyone has donated. With the donated money we are able to purchase 150 sheets of tin. Another donation purchased 20, leaving a remaining 55 sheets!!! When we toured the little community, they showed us the kitchens, all lined up along the edges, many constructed with tree branches and a canvas, canvas pushed down by water and easily burned. 

So far, three kitchens have been completed! They have solid walls, a roof, and a door, and will not catch fire like the canvas does.

Yesterday, we delivered enough laminas to build kitchens for six more families, and these are a few of the people who were the firsts to receive. 

Even though soon all the families will have a kitchen, we provided first to the family who's canvas burned, shelters where multiple families cook, and others constructed of poles and canvas. 

(Yes, this was their kitchen.)

A few hard working families were able to buy some sheets of laminas and boards themselves, though the tin is old, rusted, bent, and has holes that rain seeps in. God wiling, we will be able to provide new tin for them as well.

Some of you have asked who we are working with...My friend Kari and I are independently doing this, along with our new friend Mariel who has been helping since the eruption. She organizes the Guatemalan Volcano Relief Community on facebook and has been amazing connecting us with everything and everyone we need to make this a reality! However, there is no organization, no funding, no planned program. We are relying on donations and taking it one day at a time!! 

We still have a ways to go...if you would, please consider sharing and donating if you are able! It means so much to so many people. You can do that here:  Light Through The Fuego

Much love friends. xoxox

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"Whatever you did for one of the least of these...you did for me." 

The verse will not leave my mind. The faces will not leave my mind. The sound of the crunch of the volcanic sand beneath my feet is ingrained. The silence, the tears behind the eyes, the gratitude, the ash...The feelings welling from the deepest part of my soul, overflowing, stabbing emotions; walking through the remains. Stepping carefully through the sacred burial ground. Looking into the weary eyes of innocent victims, dealt the cruelest cards life could offer, and still giving the most genuine, "Thank you."

Today rocked me. I feel as though I was emotionally beaten, numb, sad, inadequate, yet full of an everlasting hope and joy and an undeniable sense of purpose...Somehow, a couple of average girls from the midwest are making a difference. 

Let me back up...What kind of story did I fall into?

Today was the day we prepared for, waited for, looked forward to. But no part of me could have expected the impact inflicted. For the last week, Kari, Mariel, and I packed 178 food bags, ordered laminas and pareles (Tin and frame boards), and went shopping for toys, candies, and pinatas for the kids of the Los Lotes community, a town completely wiped out by the volcanic eruption on June 3, 2018.

Today, we delivered them. We were met by our driver Ruben bright and early to load the pareles, laminas, and pinatas, then for the 45 minute drive to Esquintla.

We arrived to a place that looked something like government barracks...Cabins built with four rooms, and in each room, one family, on average with five children.

Each cabin had numbers...around 180. In the middle was an open shelter. On one edge, a clinic, a tienda, a psychologist office. Surround the outside, were "kitchens"...shelters made out of poles and canvas. Inside were a few sticks, makeshift tables, an occasional stove or propane tank and a random pot or pan. One of the kitchens had burned. The canvas is highly flammable, but what other options are there? 

We took in our surroundings, completely unsure. Kari and I looked at each other, we looked at the curious eyes peaking out from behind pilas where they were washing clothes.

Others leaned casually against the buildings; clothes lines crossed between the cabins, seemingly hanging all the clothes from the community.

A couple approached the truck and introduced themselves, and in the hour that followed, we were surrounded by nearly 500 of the 900 people displaced from the volcano in this community alone. A few of the men unloaded all of the laminas and supplies, and the families lined up and they called one name at a time, and we handed them a food bag. 

Some barely looked at us. Some sincerely thanked us. Some looked broken and dull. Others a huge, grateful smile. A man came up and with tears behind his eyes, he said, "Thank you, deeply. These people lost everything, we have nothing. We do not have money, we have no way to pay you, but we know you are doing this from your hearts, and we appreciate it so much."

In the beginning they were unsure, but slowly, they began talking, coming closer, children crawling out from behind their parents to crawl up on the truck bed by us.

One beautiful elderly woman shared how she had purchased the supplies herself to build a kitchen...But when the supplies arrived at the camp, it turned out that all her poles were too short, and she was left without money, and still without a kitchen. But soon, soon she will have one, too.

After the food bags, we invited the kids into the shelter and hung the pinata, and fell in love with the little babes, many that will be too young to remember the awful event. 

Others, teens, eyed us warily, speaking only when spoken to...but by the end, they too participated. 

(They are counting the pieces of candy they got)

And when the pinata broke, even the elderly ran to grab the treats inside.

We walked around camp, greeting everyone. Everyone knows everyone. The kids followed us. Attached. In love 

One child dragged the pinata, tried to hang it on a tree, then chucked it at another kids head when he failed. I couldn't help but laugh. Such innocence, such beauty, despite such a painful situation.

And then we said goodbye, promising to come again soon, next week, with the next delivery.

As we left, a girl came up and offered us each a cold soda. The most meaningful gifts...especially when expecting nothing.

...And then...we left the camp, and 15 minutes later, arrived at the place where their precious lives had been changed forever...A place where perspective was gained, and determination was further built.

I had driven by El Rodeo and Los Lotes several times. But I realized that the pit in my stomach while driving by, could not compare to the depth, the heaviness, the feeling of pain that surrounded us as we stepped into the mass grave.

We parked besides the road, at the entrance to the once habitable town with beautiful views of the volcanoes. As we stepped out, an eerie silence surrounded us. 

Walking up the cleared road, volcanic ash and rock towered one and a half stories above us on each side.

Ruben explained...the holes in the houses were where people beat the walls, searching for air, or where family members and firemen searched for their loved ones. 

The volcano had spit burning gas and rocks at hundreds of miles an hour, engulfing the town in a matter of minutes. Some people got lucky enough to be able to run to either side. Anyone in the path, was not so lucky.

(You can see the ash stuffed full through the door's windows.)

The houses are coated in ash. Windows were shattered. Charred items littered the once town; bottles, backpacks, mattresses, dolls, masks, melted shoes...

...kitchen items...two completely intact Bibles, bend and bruised, but untouched by hell's fire.

A teen sat in the entrance of one of the houses.

I greeted him as I walked by; behind him, the first floor was completely full of ash. The second floor above him, was half full. His eyes held a million stories. I wondered if he had lived there. If he had lost his family, his brothers, his mom. I wanted to ask, longed to know what he knew, but sometimes stories are not meant to be told in the place of pain.

Ruben explained that for several weeks, people desperately searched for their loved ones...but the rocks and ash was still burning, and their boots were melting as quickly as they could buy them. They brought in machinery to try to dig for more people, but when they found them, there were just remains...an arm bone, a skull...the skin and muscle completely disappeared.

So they let it go.  They said no more. It was impossible to know the souls that the bodies had belonged to....so they agreed to let the town become their final resting place. 

Nearly 300 bodies were found...It is suspected that another 300 are still buried, in this town alone.

I wandered through the houses, my heart heavy, fighting sobs. Not understanding. Wishing there was more I could do. 

I climbed up to the second story of a house and across the way saw the teen I had seen earlier and another. They raised their arms and waved. I waved back. A beautiful gesture, a subtle connection in the midst of remains. 

The ride home was silent. I am still in a state of numb processing. But It will not end here, and we will not stop until the families are back to some sort of normal. 

As normal as life post tragedy can be...This story is still unfolding, and God can still make beauty from the ashes.

Note: I write this with all the respect possible. It is a deep, humbling, beautiful, and painful experience to walk through a land so destroyed by the earth, knowing that so many people so violently lost their lives. Part of me felt as though I do not deserve to walk there, that it is sacred ground, that taking pictures was violating in some form. We walked with love. We walked with intention. And we need you to know. These are innocent people, victims of chance, surviving on the goodness of giving. This is why we are fighting for what we are fighting for. That the least that we can do, is provide a simple kitchen and some joy, and I am so blessed, so grateful that this is a journey I have been called to.



"Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

Light Through the Fuego

A few of you may know that nearly a year ago, June 2018, Volcan de Fuego in Guatemala erupted, wiping out entire towns within a matter of minutes with its deadly polycratic flow of rock and gas. At that time I was in the US, in my comfortable house, surrounded by everything I've ever needed or wanted, looking at pictures and videos of the aftermath.

 

 

 I felt my heart go out to the people, but like most natural disasters in the world, figured there's not much I can do, there's plenty of people already helping, I would just get in the way…and I went on with my life.

 Now, I no longer want to go on with my life without doing something. A few days ago, I personally met two victims who lost everything to the volcano, as well as a few of the firemen who were there to help. Erica, Rudy,  Edwin, and several others gathered around a table with us, and for an hour and a half, they shared chilling stories.

Erica, a young mother of six, was born and raised in Los Lotes, a small town at the base of Volcan de Fuego. The morning of the eruption, Erica noticed that the volcano was acting strange, and things just seemed...different. Erica suggested that they should leave, but her friends and neighbors replied with, "we have lived here forever, we will be fine." A few hours later, Erica heard the explosion and left her house to see, her kids trailing behind, all barefoot. That’s when they saw the lava and huge plumes barreling towards them.

The kids started screaming, Erica desperately trying to console them, even though she was paralyzed with fear. In the next few minutes, Erica´s family of 38, mothers, fathers, cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and children, witnessed a scene that would change the rest of their lives. They felt the heat; they saw it all. They saw the wrath of the volcano consume their neighbors, just ten meters from where they were standing. If they had lived ten meters closer to their neighbors, they too would have died.
 

They jumped in their cars and sped away, "We didn’t close our doors, we didn’t grab anything, we didn’t put on shoes, we just left." 

 

 

Erica and her family were lucky. Tears filled her eyes as she told me, "It is so hard to remember…all of my neighbors died." 

I asked Erica how many people lost their lives that day. The government says the death toll is 165, but she told me, "At least 500 people. Almost our whole town died."

 

 

Rudy, a father of three, said that the hardest part after the eruption, was dealing with the nightmares. "Now it has calmed down, but in the months after, the kids would wake up at 1 am screaming and crying saying, 'the lava is coming'."

 

The bomberos shared stories as well, about how they were there for nearly six months, searching for people, cleaning up, taking food to the people. The chief of the Antigua Bomberos told me that there were so many donations, but he saw the money so misused. He encouraged me, "[If you want to help] Go do it yourself. Buy the things and deliver them, because if you give money, it will not get to the people."

 Thanks to the kindness of others, people affected by the volcan were welcomed into homes and given food and shelter as they tried to recover from the devastation.

But people lost everything. Everyone knows people who have died. Everyone lost their homes, their cars, their pets.
 

It feels like such a daunting project, everyone is in shock in the days and weeks after, and then everyone's lives go back to normal...Except those affected. So, I asked the one biggest need, If there was one thing, how I could help. The answer? Tin for siding the kitchens. They have no kitchens, they are cooking food outside in makeshift tents.

And that leads me to where I am at today.

The price for one sheet of tin is just under $10. For the one community where Rudy and Erica live, they need 215 sheets of tin to complete all of the kitchens - A total of $2,150.

My goal is to raise enough money for 225 sheets of tin, and I will personally go buy the sheets, deliver them to the community, and help to build their kitchens.

But I am asking for your help. Just one sheet will make such a difference. For the price of one night out, you could provide tin for a kitchen for one whole family to eat for years.

 

 

The crazy thing through it all, was they were so thankful just that we were there listening. They were not asking for anything. They have nothing, I have everything, yet they asked for nothing. They simply responded to my question on how I could help: they need tin to finish the kitchens, to have a safe place to cook.

 

 

With this project, 225 sheets of tin, will help complete building kitchens for an entire community of nearly 500 people. 

I am so grateful, and Erica, Rudy, and the Bomberos of Antigua, Guatemala, send their sincere thanks and deepest appreciation.

Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.

If you would like to donate, please visit my GoFundMe at Light Through The Fire

 

The joy in my soul is a steady reminder that I am, without a doubt, living my best life.

 

I keep waiting for it to go away, but it just doesn't.  I wake up every morning, not believing that this is my life. Not believing that every goal I made five years ago, every dream I dreamed, is now reality. That all my hard work, determination, perseverance paid off.

 

But here I am. On a rickety chicken bus smushed against the window with five people and seven kids to my right. (Maybe not, but it feels like it.) Definitely what I signed up for.

 

This weekend I took advantage of the money I had saved up for travel and headed to Panajachel, a beautiful town on the edge of Lake Atitlan under two lovely volcanos. I was tired of the hustle and bustle of Antigua and needed to escape to some solitude, and it was perfect.

 

I went alone but headed across the lake to San Pedro where I ran into a good friend I had met in Antigua and another new friend, and we spent the day laughing and talking and exploring. But, in the evening I headed back to my solitude, and in that aloness, was a mess of thoughts around one topic specifically.

 

On December 28th, someone very close to me sent me a message that has not left my mind since. They said,  "You're everything everyone has always wished they could make themselves do. You're the courage everyone envies. You're the freedom and wisdom lacking in all of us."

  
While the comment was probably the biggest compliment I could have received, it also broke my heart a million times, and its not an isolated comment. I don't go a few days before receiving others...

"You're so lucky."

"I can't believe you up and left."

"You're crazy."

"When are you coming home?"

"When are you going to stop living a fantasy and return to real life."

"You're amazing, I could never do that."

"I can't even come visit, I have adult bills…"

 

Hold up, stop the music!! Let me grab the mic, and for the next few minutes I want to encourage you all, while at the same time clearing up a few things that seem to have gotten cloudy and grey in all this volcano ash.

 

"When passion meets determination, you become unstoppable."

A few years ago, I got this crazy idea in my head that I wanted to travel to 25 countries by the time I turned 25. I planned out which countries, I made a budget, I figured out how many hours I had to work to achieve it...and I did it. Thirty-two countries before my 25th birthday.

  
Somewhere in those travels, I decided that the US was not where I wanted to be at this point in life, yet I was tired of the constant moving, meeting people and falling in love, just to say goodbye. So I decided that I was going to live in another country.

 
And I made absolutely no plan, I just booked a ticket on my credit card and figured I would figure it out when I arrived because I KNEW that’s what I wanted.

 

And I did. And I figured it out. And I'm okay. I am working, playing, and paying off my debt despite a million people telling me I wouldn't be able to while living in a third world country. I figured I could work and be happy here, or work there and always wonder...So I just did it.

 (All these guys are from Wisconsin too!)

But guys, I am no one special. I'm a painfully average girl from the Midwest that loves Jesus, people, and cows. (And horses!)

The only difference?

I decided that nothing was going to stop me from getting where I wanted to go. Nothing. Not criticism, not doubters,  not my insecurities, not lack of money, NOTHING.

We as humans do not realize the amount of power we hold in our minds. I remember the day my life changed. It was the day I decided to change my mindset. If you knew 16 year old me, you know, I was insecure, unconfident, I hated myself, my body, life. I spent years wanting to die...but knowing, “I don't want to die, I just know there is more to life."

 
So I changed my mindset. Only positive thoughts. Only I love life. I am happy. Only I am rich. I am successful. I am living my best life. I am beautiful. I am powerful. I believe that God can and will do abundantly more in me and through me than I could ever hope and imagine.

 

You have this power, too. Maybe you aren't going to travel the world and live in another country at a base of an active volcano; maybe you have a family and little babies that need you, but what do you want?? What do you really want in this life? You know. You know what makes your heart come alive. But maybe you have been beaten down by the lies of the status quo. The lies of you need to do this or live this way or save money like this. But you can do it. Make a dream. Make a goal. Make some steps. And make up your mind.

  
Yesterday, I headed for my second vacation in a weekend. I worked last night, but thanks to Dave Ramsey’s budgeting ideas, I had enough Qs to head to the beach, too. I just woke up like, I really don't want to stay in the city today.


 
So I packed my bags, hopped on a bus, met an incredible lady that I talked to for hours, rode three more busses, and arrived at the beach. A futbol game, some beers, more friends, pool, sunset, and a bonfire on the beach, and my soul is content and (almost) ready to head back to work.

 

It’s needed sometimes. Self-care. Alone time. Old friends and familiar places. And my two jobs and constant human interaction wears me out sometimes.

 

And all this magic is within a couple hours of my house.

  
And I don't plan to change a thing, for now. In the next five years, I have some pretty big goals, but for now I am content.

  
And I really, truly want you to be as well. Life is too short to not love what you do every single day. And if I can help you in any way, I'm all ears and practical advice.
So much love sent from me to you. Thank you for your love and unending support. You are powerful.

 Xoxo