by Christina Roulund

written on our last night in Guatemala Saturday 07/15/17

Seven nights ago around this time I was getting ready for bed so that I could get a good nights rest for our trip to beautiful Guatemala. I had no idea of what to really expect, but from what I heard from my husband, it was rough, beautiful, rewarding and heart breaking - all at the same time. 

And yes, It was a lot to process. Especially this being the first time I’ve ever been to another country and near conditions like what we were in for five days. 

The way the people live, the food, culture, sense of community, landscape, smells, sounds - it was ALL very different from what I’m used to. 

A couple things stood out to me almost immediately. The obvious

Where Joy, Beauty and Leadership Meet Poverty

by John Dennis, Stove Team 4

If you ask someone who has never seen poverty before what what they perceive it to be, the typical reply would be a rather bleak viewpoint. You’d likely hear things like, “poverty is sad” or “poverty is when people have nothing.”

To be quite honest, that’s how I probably perceived poverty to be before I experienced it in real life. Sad. Hopeless. Bleak. Having Nothing. So, it’d be no surprise that someone who hasn’t seen it would assume these things. The truth is

Where Joy, Beauty and Leadership Meet Poverty

by John Dennis, Stove Team 4

If you ask someone who has never seen poverty before what what they perceive it to be, the typical reply would be a rather bleak viewpoint. You’d likely hear things like, “poverty is sad” or “poverty is when people have nothing.”

To be quite honest, that’s how I probably perceived poverty to be before I experienced it in real life. Sad. Hopeless. Bleak. Having Nothing. So, it’d be no surprise that someone who hasn’t seen it would assume these things. The truth is

by Darrell Darnell

Yesterday I was asked to identify the best gift I’d ever received.  I had a hard time coming up with an answer.  I mean, it was easy to think of gifts that I’ve received that meant a lot or left a lasting memory.  But coming up with a gift that exceeded all the others was quite a difficult task.  For that level of esteem, a gift needs to represent something beyond the ordinary.  Even after I came up with my answer and felt good about it, I still felt like it wasn’t really fully representative of the type of gift that bears the title, “Greatest Gift of All Time.”

If someone were to ask me that same question today, just 24 hours later, my answer would be

By: Brody Myklegard

This is my first mission. I am 9 years old and my mother made me come.

We flew in to Guatemala City from Washington, D.C. It was 3 hours from D.C. to Houston and I saw a Texans football jersey at the airport. My mom said Texas is known for Football. On the flight to Guatemala City I was able to watch movies over the Gulf of Mexico.  

When we first got to Guatemala City