GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala – Instead of lounging on the beach, eight engineering students from the Baptist Student Union at Missouri University of Science and Technology (MS&T) spent their spring break sharing the gospel among some of the most impoverished people in the world.
Michelle Price, a Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) campus missionary in Rolla, had been to Guatemala on a research trip and organized the MS&T trip in cooperation with a local church in Guatemala City, Iglesia del Camino (Church of the Way).
The group toured “Zone 18” – the poorest of the poor sections of the city – and worked through Iglesia del Camino with a local boys home, a disabled children’s hospital and a nutrition center for starving children. Utilizing the student’s engineering skills, they also built two houses for poor families and built a guardhouse at the boys home.
“Changing the mindset of a generation of boys is key to changing the country,” Price said. “They’re trying to raise a generation of men like David’s ‘mighty men.’”
The images of human suffering the team saw were a stark reminder of blessings in the United States, she said.
“One of the little boys we played with was 12 years old who had been living on the street,” Price said. “When he was found, he weighed 27 pounds. When we were there, he was probably around 35 pounds.”
Seeing the human suffering, and the dramatic need for saving knowledge of Jesus, was one of Price’s goals for the trip.
“I took them to those places because one of the things the Lord showed me as we were preparing for this trip together was the reality that a week may not be enough to build a strong relation to impact someone’s life for the Kingdom,” she said. “It can happen, and God can make it happen, but we wanted to support ministries that are ongoing. While we were there we challenged our own views of the world. The kids that went are forever altered. It was very humbling.
“Just going down to help build a house is great, but you don’t really get a full picture of what life is really like in Guatemala,” Price said. “It’s not an easy place to live, visit or even share.”