Day 3..our favorite day!

We had been anticipating this day all week. We got to meet our sponsor child, Gerson. But first, on our way back to the city, we stopped at one more Compassion Project. This project had never been visited by sponsors, so they were pretty excited to see us! On the way, we ended up sitting in traffic for over an hour. Literally sitting. It is not like the traffic we are used to here. There are no highways with 8 lanes, only one main road with 2 lanes. Just so happened they were doing construction on this road and instead of having someone direct traffic so that one side could go by, they just shut the whole thing off. Then, being in Guatemala, people do not really obey the traffic "rules", so people would drive by the wrong way in the other lane backing traffic up even more. Drivers pass other cars left and right (Adam almost lost it a couple times!). Somtimes I wondered if they really look ahead to see if there were other cars coming. Anyway, we finally made it to the project and were so glad we did. They started the program the same way the other projects did by introducing the staff and telling a little bit about the school. Then, we got a really special treat. Their very own percussion band perforomed and it was outstanding! I never knew that percussion could be so moving! We know they had worked so hard make their performance perfect, and it was. Then, they brought up families who had testimonies of how Compassion had helped them. One family had a daughter (little girl with red shirt and jean skirt in picture below)born with spina bifida. The daughter slowly got worse as she aged, and at the worst, she couldn't even sit up. Through Compassion, she was able to get the medical help she needed and is now walking and sitting up with no assistance what so ever. You would never know that she used to have a huge lump on her lower back and was embarrassed to go to school.
We heard some other miraculous medical stories and then had to leave pretty quickly since we were already behind schedule due to the traffic. After a quick stop for lunch, we arrived at the market where Gerson had been waiting for over 3 hours!! Poor thing! His father and one of his teachers from his project were with him, so we heard they enjoyed their time by getting ice cream and walking around the market. The bus pulled up to where he was standing and we got off the bus. Gerson immediately hugged us and was so excited to see us. We learned very quickly that his name isn't pronounced with a "G" sound, but rather an "H" sound. We had a translator with us, so we were able to communicate pretty well. I don't think he ever understood, though, that we couldn't understand him. He was just talking away the whole time. We were so surprised how mature he seemed. Being only 6, we thought he might be shy and not know what was going on. Thankfully, it was totally the opposite. He knew exactly what was going on and how much a sponsorship meant to his and his family's life. He was asking us about our family, jobs, house, etc. He was also really worried that we wouldn't write him letters. Another reminder of how important communication with a sponsor child is. We got to spend a lot of time walking around the market and buying him some little gifts. We also bought his family a huge blanket for their home. Once we were done at the market, he rode the bus with us back to our hotel. We got to really talk to Gerson and his father on the ride back to the hotel. Did you know that Compassion is the only organization that sponsors are allowed to ask the family about their faith? Pretty cool. We can't wait for Gerson to teach his parents more about Jesus as he learns through his school. We had a very nice dinner once we got to the hotel. I am not sure that he had ever been to a hotel that nice, much less, had a dinner that nice. The first course was some kind of soup, which Gerson wasn't too excited about. His father made him eat it all and then he wasn't hungry for his dinner! We boxed it up for him to take home to eat later. We really got to see his personality shine through at dinner. He kept the whole group laughing all night. At one point, he held up his glass and said "a toast to the sponsors"! What 6 year old thinks of that?!? It turned out to be a long night and Gerson had school the next morning. It was really sad to say goodbye to him. He asked when we could come back, so we told him when he graduated, we would come back (God willing). It was such an amazing trip. We were so blessed to have this opportunity. It changed our whole outlook on promoting Compassion at Adam's concerts. We now have our own personal story.