Photo provided Members of a First United Methodist mission crew along with other workers work at a site in Panajechel, Guatemala.
A mission team from Columbus’ First United Methodist Church recently spent a week in Panajechel, Guatemala building a kitchen and cafeteria extension for a school there.
The team of 10 flew out June 7 to Guatemala and returned on June 14.
According to Pastor Howard Boles, these work trips are a part of a United Methodist Church group called Mission Guatemala. First United Methodist Church has taken four work trips to Guatemala over the years, and their team this time consisted of members of their church, members of other churches and some who do not attend church regularly.
After arriving in Guatemala City, Mission Guatemala drove the group to Panajachel, a town about three hours away, which served as base camp as they worked in a nearby community. Boles said they spent four to five days working in the area to build a kitchen and cafeteria extension to a local school.
“So this year, what they had us doing is the government has recently approved funds to provide lunches for middle school students,” Boles said. “Previously they had all just gone home or had the school close down during that time period, so now that they have funded that, this particular school was needing a cafeteria and a place from which to cook and serve the food, so our task was to kind of help expand the existing school by adding a little cafeteria, a little cook area to it…”
Floyd Satterlee, one of the 10 members on the trip, said that while not everyone on their team knew each other at the beginning, everyone came together quickly and worked very well together. He said they also worked great alongside a group of Guatemalan workers who instructed them in aspects of the construction.
“It really worked well between our team and the Guatemalan workers,” Satterlee said. “And I think this was kind of the highlight of the trip. Certainly there were a lot of other things that we did and saw, but those few days that we were there and working together was really great.”
In addition to helping build the cafeteria, Boles said they also helped at a clinic Mission Guatemala operates, repairing and replacing a roof and updating some water systems. He said they usually go on these work trips over spring break to allow a chance for Columbus students to participate, but another group had already booked that time.
Because of this, Boles said they went this month, which happened to also be Guatemala’s rainy season. He said it rained almost every day at some point, and on the last day they were there, the group had barely gotten started on placing concrete into the walls before it started pouring.
Despite the rain, Boles said the group was determined on finishing this project. He said they went inside, waited for the rain to stop and then continued to work after it had passed.
“… this was a very important point that we wanted to get to with the project and I was really proud because we were wet, we were standing in several inches of water to be able to do this, but they were determined that they wanted to see that through,” Boles said.
During the trip, Boles said their team was also able to pool enough money to give one student a full year scholarship and were able to donate plenty of vitamins courtesy of their congregation. He said one of the reasons they enjoy going to this site in particular is that the community asks the locals what it is that they need.
“And if there’s not a need, they don’t come in and say ‘well we’re going to do this for you, you don’t know that you need this, we’re going to just go ahead and do it,’” Boles said. “They really ask the community ‘what can we do to help you’ and so that means a lot to know that the schools that we’ve worked in, the places where we have volunteered are places where they could use a helping hand and we get to come and be a part of that with local workers as well.”
