• The cost of postponing a mission trip

    ByKristin Guatemala

    UPDATE: In a Twitter conversation with American Airlines customer service, I learned I could get full vouchers without having new travel dates. When I called American Airlines to officially cancel our tickets this morning, that customer service representative said our tickets were eligible for a full refund! That’s better news than I was expecting, and I’m grateful for the accommodations that were made. The airline turned out to be more helpful than the travel agent who specializes in humanitarian travel. At least now I know for next time.

    We have to indefinitely postpone our mission trip to Guatemala, again, thanks to COVID-19. And we are going to lose $1,800, thanks to American Airlines.

    In the spring of 2019, we started planning to lead a short-term mission team to Guatemala with our friends who serve as Bethel Ministries International. We prayed, raised money, collected household and school items to give away, and watched God assemble a team of 12 people – five adults and seven kids. The plan was to build two houses, distribute 50 wheelchairs, and visit about 20 families during our families’ Spring Break, which would have been in April 2020.

    A couple of weeks before, as our country and others shut down, we had to postpone this trip. At the time, October seemed far enough removed from the worldwide pandemic. Of course, we’ve since realized that’s not happening next week like planned.

    Yes, Guatemala borders are technically open. With a negative COVID test, we could get into Guatemala City. But that’s just too risky for us and the people we want to serve. There are local COVID precautions here in rural Kentucky as well as rural Guatemala where we’d be serving that make this trip not viable right now.

    That’s disappointing, obviously, but understandable. One, there’s a risk of having to quarantine in a foreign country with parts of three families still in the U.S. and not with our team. Plus there’s no vaccine yet to offer another layer of protection for us and the Guatemalans who struggled with malnutrition and limited access to healthcare before this coronavirus altered our world.

    Making plans these days, especially too many months in advance, is difficult now. So many uncertainties exist, especially when considering traveling to a developing nation with an at-risk population. Of course, this also makes us want to help the more. We’ve been able to send some money to aid Bethel Ministries in the work the missionaries are continuing to do.

    With that said, we don’t have dates set for our next attempt at a mission trip. And without travel dates set before the end of 2021, American Airlines won’t refund our tickets in full because of the type of ticket we bought. We were trying to be good stewards of the money people donated and sacrificed for us to go, but now we are going to lose $150 per ticket, so $1,800 total for the 12 tickets we purchased in January, well before we knew COVID was going to be a disruption.

    In Guatemala, that $1,800 could provide so much relief. Specifically, the money we are just wasting with American Airlines would provide:

    • a month’s worth of food for 36 families,
    • six triple bunk beds for families who sleep on dirt floors,
    • eight wood cook stoves that pipe the smoke out of the house,
    • a good portion of a metal house with concrete floors, or
    • twenty-one wash stations that have sinks and holding tanks for water.

    I understand COVID has been hard on every single business, ministry, and family in some way. I know people’s livelihoods are at stake. But I also know we have a team of people willing to go serve when the time is right. My hope is American Airlines would just let us leave our tickets open for when we have dates, like a great big team voucher.

    The question isn’t if we will go but when. And that’s uncertainty I have to go be okay with. I wish American Airlines could be too.

  • Let’s live with heaven in mind

    ByKristin Guatemala, Porch Stories
    16 Comments

    After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

    – Revelation 7:9-12 (ESV)

    I thought of heaven when I listened to my Kenyan friend pray last week at small group. I remembered the prayers in Spanish when we blessed the home we built for a family near Tecpan, Guatemala in June. I am drawn to worship music that lets me hear accents of people’s homes, whether that’s Ireland or Georgia.

    All the tongues, even the ones I can’t understand with my American ears, are praising the same God, the one who sent his son for us. Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us and the tapestry of accents is going to be beautiful when we get there.

    “The fact is that you cannot make sense out of life unless you look at it from the vantage point of eternity. If all God’s grace gives us is a little better here and now, if it doesn’t finally fix all that sin had broken, then perhaps we have believed in vain. … There has to be more to God’s plan than this world of sin, sickness, sorrow, and death. There has to be more than the temporary pleasures of this physical world. Yes, there is more, and when you live like there’s more to come, you live in a radically different way.”

    – Paul David Tripp in “New Morning Mercies”

    As I shuttle kids around and navigate all the conversations required, I don’t think about heaven as much as I should. I think about what it’s like to live here in our self-absorbed culture, how I should best raise my kids to be believers here, and whether I’m doing enough to point them to Jesus. But I don’t parent with heaven in mind.

    I want to change that.

    I want to point them to Jesus because he’s preparing a place for them too, not just because his example is the right way to live here in our temporary homes.

    I want to teach them about living with an eternal perspective because then so few things will matter like we think they do. I want to love and learn alongside them.

    I want to believe what Jesus says. I want to live with a gaze toward heaven, where all the tribes and nations will be one. I’m guessing I’ll understand those prayers from the Guatemalans when we get there.

    *****

    Extra, extra!

    PODCAST: In honor of Valentine’s Day, I got to chat with my friend Mary Carver about TV marriages for her podcast, The Couch. Be sure to tune in to our episode plus the other recent episodes. {LISTEN HERE or HERE.}

    LOVE STORY: Plus the story of #TeamTaylor began 21 years ago when Greg and I went on our first date on Valentine’s Day after we’d met a week earlier. {READ HERE.}

    *****

    Kristin Hill Taylor - Porch Stories

    #PorchStories Party

  • Going as a family where God leads

    ByKristin Guatemala, Porch Stories
    16 Comments

    Some people wondered why I was taking an eight-year-old boy to a foreign country. Some people were surprised I was taking my third-grade boy. Some people encouraged me to take Ben.

    I’m here to say, I’m glad I took Ben to Guatemala for a week-long mission trip.

    Cate, who is now eleven, went with Greg and me in 2015. I always assumed when we went back we’d bring Ben. We debated on going last year but for various reasons I knew and others I still don’t know I knew we needed to wait.

    My momma heart thinks God may have been waiting for the right time for Ben. He’s a very different kid than Cate (what siblings aren’t, right?), but I’m grateful he experienced this country we’ve come to love through our service. Honestly, while preparing for this trip, I struggled more with leaving Rachel than I did with taking Ben.

    In almost every way, having Ben with us was easier than I expected. He bravely connected with other kids with whom he didn’t share a language. But he shared suckers and gum and toy cars and Legos.

    Ben takes medicine twice daily and he was on an antibiotic to heal the infection that had to be drained from an abscess just a couple days before we left. So I brought a bag of medicine for him and included other things I thought we might need.

    Turns out we needed the ibuprofen and a teammate’s Tylenol after Ben tripped and fell into a pool without water on our last night in Guatemala. He landed with his knee twisted and we really thought it was messed up. It swelled and he hurt. But then he woke up ready to walk on it.

    We consider that a miracle.

    We also were relieved he didn’t fall down the mountain where he chased chickens in moments between helping us build a home for a family of seven. We loved seeing him bond with Marvin, who works with Bethel Ministries International, and Joshua, whose birthdate is two days before Ben and who is the son of my missionary friend Hannah. We loved to see his smile help others smile.

    Really, living with Ben shows me ordinary miracles regularly. He’s spunky and adventurous. He’s brave and curious. He’s sweet and remembers more than anyone thinks he does.

    He finds joy in everyday moments. His strengths are my weaknesses. God uses my boy for my good and the good of many around him.

    That’s why I wanted to take him to Guatemala. Plus we believe in serving as a family, so as a family we go wherever God leads us.

    *****

    This is the third post I’ve shared about our mission trip to Guatemala. You can read about what God showed me about intentional sacrifices as well as seven ways to serve missionaries. I’ve got another post or two brewing, so let me know if there’s a specific aspect of the trip you want to hear about or questions I can answer.

    *****

    Kristin Hill Taylor - Porch Stories

    Hey, #PorchStories friends! You may have noticed, I started publishing this weekly linkup post a couple hours earlier, so now it’s live at 4 a.m. central time. I know some of you are early risers, so I hope that’s helpful!

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