It’s 5:15 am and I’m sitting in the dining hall drinking coffee with Marion. Tomorrow, we head back to the good old US of A. But today is a play day. A reward for all the hard work. Today, we go to Antigua to eat and shop the markets.

There are a few other tired members of our team sitting around at other tables. We’re all a little achy. All glad to have completed our house builds. The chatter is upbeat. The sound of conversation in the background echoes like the drone of a crowd in a gymnasium.

Block walls. Hard tile floor. Metal ceiling. The perfect resonator.

The concrete walls are painted what my pitiful eye for color would call turquoise, which is not exactly a color that comforts my stomach at this hour of the morning. But it is one of the many bright colors in the Guatemalan pallet. The storefronts in San Raymundo are like a ribbon of blues, greens, yellows, and reds.

The new facility at Casas por Cristo is remarkable. It’s not the Hilton by our American standards, but it is the Ritz Carlton by mission standards in third world countries. Not that I’m an authority of any kind, but most of my mission trip experiences include sleeping on concrete floors in a sleeping bag and taking a “bath” at some makeshift sink in water that is cold enough to make certain body parts disappear temporarily.

This is not that.

This mission started over 30 years ago. They have worked hard and selflessly to give their best and to honor the support that comes their way. This building is proof that they have been good stewards and that they have a vision for doing their work and sharing their passion with volunteers like our team of regular folks who know next to nothing about what we’re doing.

If you ever think about doing something like this, spending a week in a foreign country, traveling down bumpy dirt roads in a bus with no suspension, walking up steep hills, stepping over chicken pooh, and eating stuff which you cannot identify…having an actual bed and a hot shower goes a long way toward helping a person find the courage to take a risk on mission work.

The dining hall crowd is getting rowdy. I’m back to the table with my second cup of coffee. I’m trying to focus on telling you this story. Somebody yells from across the room.

“Hey, get Craig to tell you what happened to his belt yesterday.”

Craig is the Senior Minister at SWCC. He loves mission trips. Been doing them a long time. So, I leaned back in my chair, looked over my shoulder, and requested to know more about the belt.

“Not much to tell,” he says. “I felt the call of nature, and when I backed up to the facility and unhinged my belt, I heard something clink.”

By facility, he means rustic toilet over a hole in the ground behind a piece of plastic flapping in the wind that is somewhat loosely tied to a few sticks poked in the ground with a sheet of tin overhead.

“My belt buckle broke and fell down the hole,” he says.

Groans came from those sitting around me.

“I couldn’t leave it. I didn’t want to clog up the system.”

No. No he didn’t. We’re all thinking the same thing.

“So….I reached down in there and pulled it out.”

It’s gonna be a few weeks before I shake Craig’s hand again at church.

Breakfast comes and goes. The buses will be here soon to get us over the mountains to Antigua. I head back to the dorm room to get my backpack together and to brush my teeth.

The sleep here has been good, but restless. So, I’m a little loopy even after several cups of coffee. The first tube I pull from my shaving kit is an ointment not made for cleaning teeth. As I started to put it on my toothbrush, I noticed it didn’t look right. I checked and it did not say “Colgate” on the side. Let’s just say that I almost tightened my smile.

We walked down the gravel alleyway between the buildings to board our bus. I have become fascinated with the buses down here. These guys have taken “tricked out” to a whole new level. The amount of chrome is insane. The paint jobs are crazy good and creative. Some of them have more lights on them that on the runway at the airport.

I told Marion that I think Pine Mountain could use a bus. I just need to find me a 40 year old yellow school bus, diesel of course and throw a little money at it. Chrome wheels and chrome duel exhaust stacks that come out the back and turn up above the rear roof line. Chrome ladder and luggage rack on top. Chrome grill. Chrome windshield hood. And lights. Lots of running lights and custom turn signals.

The only thing to do on the inside is to install overhead racks for bags and personal items, along with a grab bar that attaches to the roof and runs the length of the center aisle. And I’ll need an air horn. The bus has to sound like a ship coming into port when you touch the horn.

So, I’ve got that to think about when I get home.

The road to Antigua was long and bumpy. It was paved, which means no dust. But my back and neck are compressed about two inches after the ride over and back.

But while there, we had great food and a lot of fun wandering the downtown markets. I hear Craig bought a new belt. I got a few T-shirts and a new guitar strap. It was a good day just to relax and unwind.

Back at the Casas compound, and after supper, all 75 of us gathered up on the rooftop for our devotional time. And tonight was different. Not just one person spoke, but any who wanted to tell part of their story this week were invited to speak.

I listened as young kids spoke of how God had touched their lives this week. Moms and dads spoke. There were three teenagers from another church group who got invited to sit with us tonight, and they spoke. Old men spoke about not being emotional right before they got choked up telling about what they saw this week.

For some, this was their very first experience of anything like this. They talked about perspective. About being grateful. About recognizing a bond between themselves and the families for whom we were building. They talked about being changed.

One couple stood up. This is their 15th trip. “We’d move heaven and earth to make this trip for as long as we’re able. That’s how much it means to us.”

Harrison, one of our teenagers, said “This is the most memorable trip of my life.”

It’s late now. The lights are out. I’m finishing this up by the glow of my laptop.

I’m glad I came…and I know for sure…

I’ll be back next year.