Guatemala Photo of the Day – A Million To One Shot

Before we headed to Guatemala, I picked up two t-shirts. One was a Superman shirt (my favorite superhero), and one was this Rocky shirt. I’m from the Philly area, and I always liked the Rocky story. In fine print on the shirt, it says “His whole life was a million to one shot.” Maybe this was just the right shirt to wear the day we arrived in Guatemala this past summer.

After we checked in at our new “home” for the week, we walked over to the central park in Xenacoj. Believe it or not, we kind of stuck out. After an exhausting day of travel, I found a bench to sit on while our kids started playing with other kids in the park. This young girl seemed to hang around me for some reason. If I remember correctly, her name was Lucinda. She was quiet. She was missing several of her teeth, and she had a beautiful smile. I remember leaving the park later that evening wondering more about her story. Did she still have a dad? Did she go to school? Did her parents even know where she was? Did she have any friends? And did she know the love of Jesus?

When you go on a short-term missions trip, you have all kinds of dreams and expectations. You want to build things. You want to “change” the whole world – or at least change the village. These are great hopes and dreams, but maybe a short-term missions trip is simply about interactions with kids like Lucinda. We had trouble communicating verbally, but it was clear we connected. We had a million to one shot of meeting each other (actually, it was more like ten billion to one shot), and yet, we met. I’m thankful for the “shot” to meet Lucinda.

I wonder what she’s up to today.