Mixco Matthew's Teaching Adventure

Hi there everybody!!  Los eché de menos --I really missed y'all! Anyway, here's a quick update on what I've been up to so far.  Christmas, first of all, was great. It was full of time with family, celebrations of Jesus's life and all the blessings He brought in 2025, plenty of gifts (including a few that I brought back from Guate), and a spur-of-the-moment trip to Disney World for the new year! Yet in the middle of all that joy, I still felt a great longing--to go back and pour my heart once again into these wonderful students.      A selfie I took of me and my family on Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom   I don't think I shared this before, but I actually took the test to become a Foreign Service Officer while I was down here. On October 20, I seized the opportunity of the school being closed to finally take my FSOT (Foreign Service Officer Test) after more than a year of waiting. With no update on my score (they were not released this cycle, for whatever re...

Another month goes by with the Lord's mercies being new every morning!! Not long after I last published this blog, we went and served with the Salvation Army in the city of Tecpán, approximately 40-50 miles west of the school (though with the state Guatemala's highways are in, it felt a good bit further). We put on a show for the kids based on this Korean sketch , prayed over anxious family members in a hospital waiting room, and organized a crafting session for local women.  Yet what gratified me the most was not any individual thing we did. Rather, it was the initiative the students showed. Whether it was native Guatemalans or recently arrived Koreans, everyone identified their role and rose to the occasion. Even having served on mission teams as such myself and being around some enthusiastic peers, I had never seen anything like what those kids showed me. It was a determination to love the Lord by serving others--and more importantly, to do the not-so-fun work (like painting...

Did you miss me?? I certainly missed you all!! To those of you who continue to support me, thank you. It truly means the world to me. Your prayers and pennies have allowed me to do even more in a few short months than I could have imagined! If you would like to donate to support me, please click on this link , and remember, EVERY LAST CENT IS TAX-DEDUCTIBLE!!!     A pineapple grows in a pot at Vikingos,  a favorite local hangout of mine and many other CAG teachers.                                                                   Now, on with the show! I guess the biggest update is that I've started with a Model UN club here at school! OK, it's technically a Debate Club with a Model UN focus, but still--a chance to teach the skills I learned in college and grad school to an e...

Welcome back to the blog!! I missed you all so much. I thought I would talk about how I ended up here and how I managed how I've been managing so far. I guess we should start at the beginning.  Six years ago (2019), during my senior year of high school, I went to Guatemala for the first time on a mission trip. I got to see God working in all kinds of incredible ways. I got to witness healing, which is an incredible story in and of itself that would honestly deserve its own posts. (Stay tuned, maybe in November or December I’ll write more about that!) We worked in remote villages remote villages where we got to hear how God was working in them, even if they believed in a different version of Him. I was really touched by the people there. They're incredible. They're hardworking, salt of the earth people who often have been neglected by the powers that be. There's been a lot of suffering, a lot of poverty, even as the country becomes more affluent.  And this brings us to a...

 Settling In      Hola a tod@s!  It's so good to be able to share my new life with you from so far away. I know this is a bit different from what you may have expected...turns out my old site got lost (as in, permanently deleted)!! Yes, it's frustrating to no end, but you know what?? That's a good thing. Let me explain.       I believe that if we are completing God's will, the Enemy will come back and attack us for trying to do it. After all, Jesus Himself told us, "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." That my transition has been a bit rocky--since arriving, I've had my debit card captured by an ATM, been saddled with increasing responsibilities on the job, and had trouble getting my donations transferred to me. (That last problem's been solved--if you would like to support me, click on the link at the bottom of this post!) And now, the old site I worked so hard to build over the summer do...