Lake Aitlan in San Lucas, Toliman, Guatemala
A year ago today we were wrapping up a week in Guatemala working with the San Lucas Mission. This morning on my run I was remembering our time there, and also our friends in Haiti. Thinking about the smells and sounds of other villages and how much I miss going other places. Where is the first place you’ll go once you get the chance to break away from out self-induced quarantines??
Here is a little more about our trip to Guatemala, I highly recommend you put this on your bucket list.
San Lucas, Guatemala
My youngest son and I visited San Lucas, Guatemala in the summer of 2019. We went to work with the Friends of San Lucas and their mission. If you are looking for a new spot for taking your family to do missionary work - this is the perfect way to ease into it. And it's a great vacation spot if mission work isn't your thing. It's so stunningly beautiful - check out some of our Guatemala photos BELOW. It's also reasonably priced. And there is a ton to do. San Lucas is on Lake Aitlan and is one of seven villages on the 50 square mile lake. You can take a boat to a different village each day to have new foods, explore the village, go zip lining and hiking through the volcanoes and coffee fields. For more information about Lake Aitlan go here.
If you do want to dip your toe into the mission - but you're not super into religion - this is a great start. Friends of San Lucas Mission was found by a Catholic priest named Fr. Greg. While it is a Catholic-based organization the focus is really on supporting the development in the communities of San Lucas in Toliman, Guatemala. You will learn about the entire mission - their unique programs including a women's center, coffee program, a school and hospital, plus a building program to support the community who needs a hand up. They employ over 100 people in San Lucas. We love mission trips for so many reasons but it's the getting nitty gritty with the locals, seeing what makes them smile - not just seeing the tourist sites - that makes it so compelling.
We brought home some items from the Women's Center to sell in the shop. 100% of the money the ladies makes goes straight to them - the mission doesn't take any of it.
Check out our Guatemalan Inventory HERE.
"Monuments are anchors in time. Epochs pass, weather erodes, people lose interest. This cannot be helped. But patina itself is worth appreciating. Patina is the value that age puts on an object. It’s what makes an antique antique. It is experience, maturity, the soft sheen of time. Patina wasn’t present at the spanking-new creation. It comes from a life lived." John Yemma
ON THIS DAY in 1954... Col. Carlos Castillo Armas is elected president of the junta that overthrew the administration of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in late June 1954. The election of Castillo Armas was the culmination of U.S. efforts to remove Arbenz and save Guatemala from what American officials believed to be an attempt by international communism to gain a foothold in the Western Hemisphere.
In 1944, Guatemala went through a revolution that saw the removal of a long-time dictator and the establishment of the first democratically elected government in the nation’s history. In 1950, Guatemala witnessed another first with the peaceful transfer of power to the newly elected president, Arbenz. Officials in the United States had watched the developments in Guatemala with growing concern and fear. The Guatemalan government, particularly after Arbenz came to power in 1950, had launched a serious effort at land reform and redistribution to Guatemala’s landless masses. When this effort resulted in the powerful American-owned United Fruit Company losing many acres of land, U.S. officials began to believe that communism was at work in Guatemala.
For the United States, the election of Castillo Armas was the culmination of a successful covert operation against international communism. The overthrow of Arbenz had added “a new and glorious chapter to the already great tradition of the American states.” Many Guatemalans came to have a different perspective. The new regime rounded up thousands of suspected communists, and executed hundreds of prisoners. Labor unions, which had flourished since 1944, were crushed, and United Fruit’s lands were restored. Castillo Armas, however, did not long enjoy his success. He was assassinated in 1957. Guatemalan politics then degenerated into a series of coups and countercoups, coupled with brutal repression of the country’s people.
“God is too busy making the sun come up and go down and watching so the moon floats just right in the sky to be concerned with such rubbish. Only man wants God to always be there to condemn this one - and save that one. Always it is man who wants to make heaven and hell. God is too busy training the bees to make honey and every morning opening up all the new flowers for business.” Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
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