A few months after being married, I boarded a plane to a training camp in Georgia and ultimately the mountains of Guatemala. I was again co-leading a team of college students on a summer mission. The previous summer I co-led a similar team to Zambia for five weeks and that was incredibly life changing and I was eager for year two. However, Guatemala felt different from day one. I could not quite explain it to my co-leaders or our field support (who was back in the USA but we were in contact with often.) It just felt different.
The day we landed in Guatemala City, all three of us leaders had missed calls on our team phones. Our field support had been trying to reach us. The town that we were supposed to spend our time in was about 1.5-2 hours away from Guatemala City. However, that day, some unrest was happening in that area. Our host (a Guatemalan national) and our field support were both concerned with taking 25 plus Americans to that city because of the unrest. So, we were in the country, bags in hand, with no destination. Our host, who did not speak English, decided that instead of that first city, he would take us to his wife’s hometown. Our field support did some investigating and a worldrace team had been there two years earlier, so it was decided that was the best option. We got into a bunch of trucks to a destination unknown to us.
Six hours up into the mountain later, we arrived at our home for the summer. During the ride, our host was furiously trying to arrange for a place for so many of us to stay and connect with churches in the area to completely pivot our mission for the summer. It was totally okay though. While it was a little nerve wracking, it was exciting and we all believed that this was God’s plan the entire time.
The elder of the town allowed us to stay in an abandoned school building that had been vacant for several years. Again, it was an adventure. Our host left us that first night to settle in. He did everything he could to help us be comfortable and then said he would let us settle in for the night.
I can’t quite describe our home. We were just grateful that God had arranged for a pretty big place for all of us to stay together. Let the adventure begin. I noticed that there were large chains and locks on both our front and back door. We were told to ensure this was locked at all times, whether we were home or not. That was just the beginning.
That first night we all explored our new home. This old school building had not been used for a few years. There was no electricity and no running water. There were four classrooms. One large one downstairs that could be enclosed and had a door. There were also two other classrooms downstairs that had half walls that did not close the rooms off. The rest of the downstairs was a gathering space and a hallway of sorts that led to the back of the home and the backyard. A portion of this was covered, but the hallway was not enclosed. So, you could see the open sky. The last bedroom was up a very skinny staircase to the only room on the second floor. This room was probably only 5×5, but the windows and door could be closed off.
My co-leaders and I quickly realized that we had been traveling all day, had to change our destination, our host had just left us for the night, and we had not fed our team. None of us had eaten since that morning and this was late evening. We also could not immediately see any place for food around our home and we had been told to keep our door locked anyway. The three of us quickly realized we would make this into a positive and our attitudes and mindset would trickle down.
We had a team meeting and then decided to spread out and claim areas and set up our new home. Most squads stuck together except for the guys. Half of them were hammocking in the open space downstairs while the other half claimed the upper room. The girls all spread out among the three downstairs bedrooms. There was quite a bit of excitement in the air that first night as I settled down into my sleeping bag.
A few hours later, the rains came. The rainy season in the mountains of Guatemala is no joke. It wouldn’t just rain, it would pour, for hours. It was bitterly cold and as I explained, two downstairs bedrooms were open to the elements and we didn’t all fit into the closed ones even huddled. So, girls sleeping by those half walls woke up to pitch black dark and were soaked. Around 2am, we all rushed to move our belongings to the closed room, away from the rain, and tried our best to huddle together for warmth and to stay dry. I don’t think anyone slept after that.
Guatemala was hard. We had all packed for the city, not the mountains. We had very little long sleeves, pants, and our sleeping bags were thin. We were not prepared for the constant rains at night and bitter cold with no way to keep warm. Even in the daytime, it never got above 65. It was cold and many of the team were from the south so were extra cold.
(Disclaimer: I do recognize this is a reality of millions of people in the world and this is very much an indication of my privilege as an American. I recognize what we were experiencing was a choice and many many people do not have that choice. I do not take anything lightly or want to compare our very minimal experience to the very real suffering of people in the world. )
Not only was it cold and our belongings were wet 90% of the time due to rain, we were often hungry. Our new hosts were not prepared for such a large group to suddenly need 2-3 meals a day. This town was very small and there was no super market. There was an open market two days a week that would open and that was the only time you could purchase anything. We tried to support our hosts with money that had been sent for that purpose, but we often ran out of food. It was very normal to only get one meal a day and share it with a teammate. We did not complain as we were treated like royalty to people who had very little.
There is more I want to share about the beautiful experiences, ministry, and life in Guatemala, but I’ll save that. (I have gotten too wordy again.)
Not long into our time, I started to experience headaches and pain in my eyes. I was constantly in physical pain, hungry, and felt very ill with diarrhea and fever. I was miserable. Sleep was hard to come by, I was constantly cold, wet, and the toilets were buckets out back so that was all around pleasant with my symptoms.
The enemy picks our lowest moments to kick us while we are down. I frequently struggle with intrusive and anxious thoughts. That is a part of my life that I can’t run away from. I have learned to accept it and work really hard to keep them in check. During these days of being so sick, I had no energy to fight them. I couldn’t move, but the enemy was putting all sorts of horrible lies into my head. I felt so worthless. I felt selfish and like a burden to my teammates. I felt broken. I felt abandoned. I had no energy to even cry, talk, or even express emotion. So, I laid there, listening to the thundering rain a few feet away from me with a tarp over my blanket to protect from getting wet. I remember thinking that God had forgotten about me and the enemy is super convincing when he starts to attack you. I somehow, probably out of pure exhaustion and sickness, drifted off to sleep.
As I was sleeping, I started to dream. Now, let me tell you. Oftentimes in my life, I have had very vivid, specific, real feeling dreams. It wouldn’t be every night. Sometimes it would be months or even a year between them. It wasn’t like normal dreams. It was like I was experiencing it in real life, but then I would wake up. I never really told anyone about them until I was in India. It was that summer that I realized that perhaps these dreams were a gift.
Now, don’t freak out and get all weird on me. I do not believe my dreams were “bad”, but I would not consider them prophetic either. However, they are always extremely specific and full of meaning. Now, back to the freezing dirt covered cement floor in Guat.
I started to open my eyes and look around to see the 5-6 other girls huddled so close for warmth. It was raining, but I wasn’t cold anymore. It was dark, but the stars somehow lit up the room even through the rain. I was thirsty but my water bottle was empty. I remembered we had a tank of clean drinking water at the back of the house right inside the gate. The rain stopped briefly and I stood up to get water before it started again.
I walked to the back and started filling my water bottle, but the tank was almost out. I only had enough for a couple swallows. At that moment, in the dark and dead silence, I started to hear a song. I was confused, but I wasn’t afraid. I was confused where the music was coming from and I was confused why no one else was waking up to hear it. I ran back to the bedroom and no one was there. I ran to the next bedroom and again, no one was there. The music suddenly stopped. That is when I started to be afraid and the panic screamed through my entire body. I didn’t know what to do. I was alone and scared. I was in the dark. I had this overwhelming urge to find light. I can’t explain it other than I had to see any light. The bad thing was, it was the middle of the night and we had no electricity. I remembered I had a small flashlight in my sleeping bag.
I ran to find it and turned it on. I didn’t feel calm, but the panic stopped. This next part is hard for me to explain, but I will do my best.
As soon as the panic ran out, I felt a warmth around me. I felt comfort. I felt calm. I sat down on my sleeping bag with the flashlight still on. I closed my eyes and I had an overwhelmingly good feeling surrounding me. It was like the biggest, warmest, most comforting hug you have ever experienced. Not the feeling of the physical hug, but the feeling in your heart when that happens. Words started to come to my mind. They weren’t intrusive. They were calm. They were definitely not my thoughts.
“When you feel lost and alone I will always find you. I will fill you up when you feel empty. When you are in the dark, I will never leave you there alone.”
I reached out and felt my bible, notebook, and my team cellphone. I opened up my notebook and wrote those words down as they repeated in my mind. I sat there, holding my flashlight in complete darkness at complete peace. I wasn’t alone.
The next thing I knew, I was on my sleeping bag, rain pouring down, sleeping friends huddled around me under the tarp. My filled water bottle was next to me. I was cold, my head was pounding, and I felt incredibly ill.
I was medically evacuated a few days later.
A few weeks after I had fully recovered from my illness, I was flipping through the notebook I had taken with me earlier that summer. I came to the page that had those words written on it from that cold night in the mountains in Guatemala and the rush of those feelings came over me again.
I have never really shared that. Mostly because it’s hard to explain and hard to not sound like I am crazy. It is hard to fully express the feelings of warmth and comfort I felt that night. Sure, it could have been the high fever I had or the lack of nutrients I had in my body. It could also have been the sickness. Maybe. Or, maybe not.
I believe that I needed that truth that night. As most of you know by now, I still struggle with anxiety and depression. The intrusive thoughts can be overwhelming. I often feel like no one understands me and I am alone. Which, to me, is the hardest feeling to have. Depression can feel exhausting and depleting. The anxiety can feel overwhelming with no end in sight.
I check all the boxes with how someone should manage those feelings and I’ve had years of learning to cope and live with how my brain is. Even through all the growth I know is there, it can still feel so isolating and lonely at times.
I am happily married to my best friend and the love of my life. I have people in my life that care about me and truly love me. I have two wonderful (and crazy) kids. I should not feel those things. I have no reason to feel alone.
But, the truth is, as beautiful as those things are, they will never fully fill that place in my heart that literally calms my soul. No action or thing can fill that, and I promise you I have tried. No other human can fill that space even if they love you, care for you, and want to fill it. They are not intended to do that. It isn’t their responsibility or purpose. That space can only be filled with the love, peace, and joy that is hope in Jesus. That is not usually easy, but it is good.
I have not perfected this and often need to be reminded of those promises. Sometimes it takes hard things to bring me back to a place where I hear the truth again. I’m not broken, but I’m also not perfect. I’m not a burden; I am a work in progress. I’m stubborn and I get overwhelmed. Sometimes, my thoughts are so loud that I can’t hear anything. God has never left me in any of those dark spaces alone and he never will. He has never left you alone in your dark spaces either. Sometimes he will find you in loud ways, but sometimes he will find you in ways you will never expect. Sometimes he will remind you of his promises with a flashlight.
When you feel lost and alone, he will always find you. When you feel empty, he alone will fill your cup. When you are in the dark, he won’t leave you there.
KM