Orchestra Mission Trip to Guatemala - BEST EVER!

At the end of 2022 and into the beginning of 2023 I was able to participate in an orchestra mission trip to Guatemala, through Global Missions Project (https://www.globalmissionsproject.com). This was my eleventh mission trip experience, six with GMP and five with Johnson Ferry Baptist Church. For many reasons, this was the best mission trip ever for me! First of all, this is a trip that GMP makes every year, with Camp Kirkland as the music director, so they are able to build each year on the progress from the previous years. Secondly, the local missions contact on the ground there in Guatemala, Heber Morales, is so well connected there in the country, creating quality touches with the Guatemalan people at every point of the trip.

One particularly memorable part of our recent trip involved the entire orchestra group (around 50 musicians) busing to Lake Atitlan, getting on a ferry to cross the lake (with all our instruments), then walking up a steep hill (with our instruments) to a municipal auditorium there in San Juan La Laguna. We walked in to find a choir of around 350 singers, from 19 different churches around the countryside, gathered in rehearsal, awaiting their American orchestra to accompany them! We performed four numbers from the classic worship musical, "God With Us." What an experience!