Divide and Conquer

The team met for our second meeting on 3/6/2011.  We had some more people come to the meeting that were interested in joining our team.  How exciting to have more people join our team!

We spent some time meeting new people before we started the meeting.  During the meeting, we started to divide up the responsibilities.  People quickly volunteered for roles on the team.  Some of the roles & responsibilities are treasurer, kid's program team, ministry lead, worship music, food, etc.  We have 20 roles for the team.  All were filled and some with more than one person.  It seems like everyone has a heart to serve and a desire to do well.

We also spent a little time drawing for prayer partners.  Prayer partners are two people of the same sex that will go through the journey together.  They will pray for one another and share their experiences.  This really helps to get people connected on a personal level.  This is really important because our team is made up of people from seven, yes seven, different churches in the Atlanta area.

During the meeting, we ran down the one page checklist of things the individual needs to check off prior to leaving for Guatemala.  We also handed out field guides.  Field guides are a useful tool for leading an individual who has never been on a trip through the preparation process.  It's filled with briefings that include scripture from God's word.  It's valuable as one prepares spiritually and tactically for the trip.

Lastly, we closed the meeting after prayer for six things.  The six things our team is praying for right now as a team are:

1. The people of Guatemala
2. Team Unity
3. Our supporters
4. The trippers that have gone to Guatemala before us.
5. The trippers that will go to Guatemala after us.
6. Spiritual warfare

For those of you that are supporting our team through prayer, we would ask you to pray for the above items as well.  Together, we can lift up all those involved with reaching out to Guatemala for Jesus.  Thank you for your support!!

Stay Blessed!!

Kick-Off with the Team

We had our first team meeting on February 20th.  We had several people show up to hear about the trip.  It was amazing to see so many new faces.  We talked about the trip and what the week in Guatemala would look like and what things we would be doing.

Our team will:

• Provide four medical clinics to people in rural parts of Guatemala
• Speak with, pray for, and encourage people visiting the clinics through translators
• Share the gospel of Jesus Christ
• Provide a fun children's program at the clinics and give the parents a break
• Fill prescriptions for the sick
• Visit an orphanage and spend time loving the kids
• Participate in worship at a Guatemala church

Our team will prepare for the trip in the following ways:

• Spiritually - Reading our bibles and following devotionals in our field guides
• Medically - Get all our required shots and malaria prevention pills
• Physically - Exercise now in preparation for the long days
• Logistically - Purchase supplies in the US to take to Guatemala
• Tactically - Develop the ministry and children's programs to be executed on location
• Relationally - Build the support team and instill team unity by keeping our focus on Christ.
• Resourcefully - Prayers to God to raise up people who have a heart and a desire to support this project mission through prayer and or resources.

With less than 5 months to prepare, we have a lot to do in such a short time frame.  Everyone is excited and the enthusiasm is contagious.  We had lots of great questions.  The meeting concluded with people committed to the team, the objectives, and to serving the calling from God on their lives.

Praise the Lord!

Getting Started & Team Recruitment

The vision to commit to a trip began in November 2010 when Hermann the Guatemala Medical Mission Ministries leader visited with our men's bible study group.  The next week we discussed going on a trip and committing our time and resources to form a team and go.  The recruitment process was fruitful.  We reached out to our friends, family, and co-workers to ask them to join our team.

People committed and reached out even further to others.  God send people from several churches to be members of our team.  It's amazing to watch God at work.  The stories by team members of a calling to go on this trip are encouraging.  We are blessed to be a diverse and gifted group of people.  Praise the Lord!

Now, our team doesn't have the backing of a church for this trip.  We had to find someone to back our trip.  God provided introductions to some wonderful people and their organization.  Yay for Seek & Serve, Inc.!  Seek & Serve provides some support tools and allows us to offer tax deductible donations to our supporters.

As we have finished our recruiting, we are now locking down the team member enrollment.  We are now ready to build our team in several aspects.  Please check out our next journal entry as we prepare to serve God and the people of Guatemala.  Please join us on our journey!

Thank you for your interest and God bless you and yours!

Welcome!

Hello Trippers and Supporters!
This is the blog for the team traveling to Guatemala on a medical missions trip.

• Location:    Guatemala City, Guatemala & rural destinations to be named later
• Dates:         July 9th to 16th, 2011
• Team Size:  20 Trippers & ### Supporters 

Please bookmark this page and check back often for more details.
Thank you and stay blessed!
Patrick Moss