(Sara) - Common Hope Kick Off

Today our Vision Team got together with our Common Hope coordinator, Brianna. I think it was exactly what we needed to get us mobilized after the initial excitement of being chosen to go to Guatemala on this mission trip. You know how it goes - summer wound down and then there was Labor Day...time passed and it was definitely time to "get the band back together" (as my teammate Julie would say).

We spent an hour learning more about Common Hope and how the organization operates to improve life for the citizens of Guatemala. I learned a lot in those 60 minutes:

Guatemala is a country whose land is half the size of Minnesota

There are 14 million people crammed into that space; by comparison we have about 5 million people in MN. Wow.

Guatemala endured a 36-year civil war that just ended in 1996.

The legal age to begin working full time in Guatemala is 12. WOW.

I can't help but think what I was doing at the age of 12...I was in 7th grade and my time was consumed by homework, talking on the phone with my friends, after-school sports, and creating choreographed dance routines in my bedroom to C+C Music Factory songs. You know - being a normal kid. Well, normal by American standards. This trip is definitely going to recalibrate my standards for normal.