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After three hours of sleep, everyone was summoned by the early morning rooster; unless you are Deaf that is. 5 am came earlier then anyone wanted it to. Remember: Guatemala City is 2 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Boarded a bus in a pitch black Guatemala City proceeded to to a local church where we met up with the local youth who would be attednidng the camp. This was the central location for camp registration and searching all luggage to make sure no one has any weapons of any kind. This process took 2 hours from start to finish with approximately 100 youth checking in.

All the youth/mentors boarded 2 buses and we boarded ours and proceeded to the camp located in El Faro. The bus trip took us six hours with one pit stop. The two youth buses continued on while we made a detour and ended up at a marinia with boats. Our voyage had us getting on boats with thunder and lightning and the driver threw a tarp over us all and proceeded to the camp. It is AMAZING to say the least. Pictures and video will follow soon as we finally got internet today.

The Guatemalan Youth arrived to the camp on buses and the look on their faces when they saw this place. They had big bright smiles ear to ear.

Checked everyone into their dorms and had dinner followed by evening worship service.

Our days typically are 6:30am to 10:30pm.

The humidity is crazy here. So much so, that you are soaked in sweat after 30-45 minutes. Well at least I am!

More to come.

After a whirl wind of a day, we finally made it to our final destination....Guatemala City, Guatemala. Our flight out of DCA was delayed one hour so when we arrived in Miami we had 10 minutes to make our next connection. Fortunately after arriving to Miami, our connection was delayed by one hour.

We finally arrived safe and sound to Guatemala City at 9 pm local time.

After going through customs, we got on a bus and stayed at Mission Hostel, and everyone slept 3-4 hours max before getting up at 4:30pm and getting on the bus and starting Day 2 Guatemala.

Good Morning:

    Today is Saturday June 25th, 2011 and it is day number 1 which is travel day for the crew of 38 departing Washington, DC. Just

wanted to give you the itinerary of what our travel day looks like today. 

Departure: Washington, DC (DCA)  at 3:25 p.m. EST

American Airlines (AA) 

Flight Number: 1758

Arrival: Miami, Florida (MIA) at 6:10 p.m. EST

Stay on the same plane then,

Departure: Miami, FL at 7:15 p.m.

American Airlines (AA)

Flight Number: 2125

Arrival: Guatemala City, Guatemala (GUA) at 7:45 p.m. (Guatemala is two hours behind DC time)

Pray for safe travels to Guatemala, in the country and travels back home. Keep our team in your thoughts and prayers as we go into the country where crime is high. 

National Community Church (DC) has partnered with Champions In Action to bring a team of volunteers to Guatemala to help cordinate and run a boys youth soccer camp. Not only are we help with the camp, we are making a difference in the lives of these youth by sharing Christ with them and being a positive influence on their lives.

    Most of the youth attending the camp often come from broken homes, families and have no where else to turn, but to gangs at a young age. Their fathers are not around anymore because of the recent Guatemalan War so there are no positive male role models in their life. The Mexican Cartels come down from Mexico and drug traffic is one problem and often they recruit these boys to steal from foreigners, and get caught up in gang violence.

    During this trip we will be providing these youth with more then they typically see in their everyday lives. Something more positive and developing relationships with them. Having Jesus apart of their everyday lives.

    I will be serving as a Media Leader, which I have a team of five to seven people from my group. Many will be photographers while I will be filming the camp itself plus the living situations in Guatemala City. My team & I, will be profiling two youth. One Hearing and one Deaf. This will eventually serve as a promotional video to sponors of the camp such as Nike and Puma to name a few.

    You can check back daily as I will try my best to provide a daily summary of what is going on in Guatemala.