An update of the work I have been doing for May-August 2024. -Lauren White
First I want to start off by expressing my gratitude for your support of these missions here in Guatemala. Without your help we wouldn’t be able to do the work in front of us, so we are beyond grateful and thankful. As some of you may know I have been doing missions since May 2024 since I felt a pull in my heart to set out to help. Out of the many places to lend my time, I found myself working closely with Ahava Ministries as well as helping here and there with other ministries when I can give my time and resources. I am happy to be able share positive moments along with some of the realities of life here.
Since May, I have been able to plant, grow and harvest from the organic garden that we planted at Ahava Ministries, these plants are used and given directly to the children and staff at Ahava. (The staff consists of individual Guatemalans who live in the area, some have kids who attend Ahava. The individuals are employed through Ahava.)
Growing our garden from seed.
With my focus being on organic permaculture practices, the garden has a variety of plants. We have harvested cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce, spinach, beans, tomatoes, parsley, cilantro, basil and a few native leaf plants for lunch at Ahava. We started from dirt and now you can see in the images below how it’s thriving and providing.
On top of the garden, we have 14 egg laying chickens and 1 rooster. It has been a great gift to have fresh eggs to provide for the lunches. It is very common to eat eggs, beans and rice for lunch and now we add in organic vegetables straight from the garden.
To support healthy soil in the garden, I had suggested we start a worm compost and we got to make this a reality with the help of the team at Ahava. The worms eat our food scraps and plant material from the land and in return the worms make nutrient dense compost for our soil to replenish its nutrients. This is a practice I wanted to implement instead of adding chemical fertilizers to the soil which is common practice... but we all know it can be detrimental to our health and the soils health long term
Pictured a before and after of a portion of the garden.
Currently one goal at Ahava is to incubate eggs so that we can have baby chicks to either raise more and produce more eggs, give away or replace our hens in due time. Currently there are 2 other guardians working and helping clean the chicken coop and kept their needs met.
Each week Jhonatan leads the children in a bible study and I have gotten to sit in a few times and listen. It makes me happy to hear the knowledge some of the kids have of the bible. We are constantly in need of your prayer at Ahava since most of the children live in poverish living conditions with very little. Yet they show up with a smile on their face most days! 😄 ♥️
Personal Highlights:
I love seeing the kids exciting about gardening! I enjoy when they ask questions about the garden or share their stories with me. ♥️
I got connected with a past christian friend here in Guatemala. Her and I got to learn how to make artisanal soap from another Missionary! This was a hope of mine to somehow learn before I came down to Guatemala, such a blessing to gain this knowledge which I hope to implement very soon for the community somehow.
My Spanish is improving and I am slowing being able to communicate more with the kids and community.
I have been intently studying the Bible and gaining much peace when it comes to navigating. His word is live-giving and true.
Lows:
During this raining season I witnessed whole foundations of homes stacked in the mountains being wiped out. We serve these communities by giving food when we can and prayer. There was news of homes collapsing in our area and fatalities occurred. Keep those families in your prayers. (This is a common reality because of the lack of structure in the mountain homes. Regulations are few to build homes.)
The shock of pollution still lingers even though the first time I visited Guatemala was over a year ago. The obvious pollutions are the trash in the streets, waterways and the air pollution from the burning of trash, fields and who knows what else.
Pictured above (from left to right): 1)A collapsed home of a family where Ahava was bringing food for, this happened a few hours before we arrived. 2) A family we prayed and supported in Pastores, her young baby (not photographed) was extremely ill in this time so we prayed the medicine he was receiving would heal him. 3) A mountain village connected by dirt trails where I set up water filters with another ministry my friends started.
If you wish to give monthly to support our efforts of education, support of well-being spiritually and physically, I am accepting donations through paypal, venmo @ or directly through my website.
Venmo: @Lauren-White-237
Donating directly through my Website Back to Eden Wellness
If you want to give directly to Ahava Ministries
Prayer, please be praying as we wish to continue to aid and meet the needs of the families at Ahava and allow for more resources. Currently I am not backed by a church back home so I rely on individual prayers and donors like you, who feel called to support and I appreciate everything!
Current needs (labeled as Personal and Ministry):
(Ministry) fund for seeds, organic growing tools like twine, stakes and watering containers, seed planting containers, gloves, weeding stool, Thieves herb spray for insects (we are avoiding chemical pesticides due to toxicity) ($XXX)
(Personal) fund for Heavy Metal Detox (a supply of a detox is $35) and Replacement Air Filter ($100), Replacement Water filter (On my amazon wishlist linked below, I recently found out I have Lead and Cadmium in my body which I think is due to industrial work/ constant burning of trash/material near my home.)
(Personal) Monthly Expenses of Food ($200) and Rent ($200)
(Personal/Ministry) I would love to expand to be able to teach the children leather working, book binding and pineneedle weaving. Leather work is very common in the town they live in. To be able to educate them and open up doors of being a craftsman could set some up them up on an entrepreneurial track! (The kits are on my amazon wishlist, I would love to start with 5 so I could teach a small group one at a time. We would buy the leather here to support local leather producers)
Missions in Guatemala: Amazon List
If you wish to purchase from the wishlist, please contact me, we have a missions team coming down in October and we can ship directly to their house so they can bring in their suitcase as International Shipping fees are expensive, its helpful we have teams coming down every once in a while! Feel free to respond to this newsletter with any inquiries, comments or questions! If you wish to set up a phone call, please do! I look forward to hearing from you all. May God bless you! ♥️
Pictured above (from left to right): 1) The children helping plant the garden, this day we were planting onions. 2) Andrea and I separating out the compost from the worms that we put back into the garden for nutrient dense soil 3) The kiddos separating the worms from of worm compost. They LOVED this activity haha!
Comments