Sunday, May 25, 2014

Guatemala: Day One

"The Journey of a Thousand Miles begins with one...flight.  No, two flights, a layover, and a snoring neighbor."
-Joe Dorris, butchering an otherwise reliable proverb

And so it begins.  

On Friday May 2nd I arrived in Guatemala City feeling great excitement that I'd made it and relief that I was free from the ridiculous confinement (for a tall guy) that is modern airplane seating.  I smiled awkwardly at the customs clerk as I hoisted my custom-wrapped video equipment "luggage piece," which, on this particular evening looked eerily reminiscent of a Cuban missile, onto the security belt to be scanned by the Cuban missile detector.

After receiving a friendly "bienvenido" from the customs clerk, I stepped outside to a grin-inducing warm breeze.  For one year, my life, work, and worship will be based in Guatemala.  Who am I? What will I be doing? See the links above for a refresher!  If you prefer the short answer, well, my name is Joe.  I'm going to be working in a dump.

Hola!

Welcome to the "Joe in Guatemala Blog!" As with most trip blogs, this is where you will encounter updates on my dealings.  But with this first post, I would like to make clear that my interest in your lives is greater than ever.  My hope is to interact with all of you over the course of the year.  Certainly, you can wait for me to reach out to you.  But please, if you feel the urge to catch up, please shoot me a message (See side bar for contact info!).

Some Guatemalan's proudly displaying their catch, a great white shark.


Navigating this Blog

If you are one of those wonderful people who have committed to pray for me, you will find that the link above entitled "Prayer Requests" will be updated every time I send out a new blog post.

Amidst the sea of blogs, books, websites, etc. that you could possibly be reading, thank you for following my little blog.  Thank you for reading, thank you for making this trip possible, and thank you for your role in my life leading up to this point.  I hope the words of each post will bring you joy.

Let the fun begin!

Love,
Joe Dorris