MBU Students Minister to Families in Central America’s Largest Landfill
Missouri Baptist University students and staff flew to Guatemala City on May 12 for the third year in a row to minister through acts of service and worship.
The trip, led by campus minister Aaron Lumpkin and Marie Tudor, coordinator for assessment and success initiatives, began with serving with Casa de Libertad, an Acts 29 network church that is planting a church in the city of Los Chilitos.
“Just a few years ago, the church planting process was only beginning,” Lumpkin said. “Now by God’s grace, a church has been planted and missionaries are training and supporting a local pastor, helping him learn how to shepherd the church.”
The team spent the majority of their time with the children of Los Chilitos. Students hosted a camp which included Bible studies, crafts and many games of soccer.
MBU students donated items from home to the community as well as led sessions each day to focus on telling the story of creation, the fall, redemption and new creation.
While in Guatemala, the MBU team also traveled to the Guatemala City landfill — the largest landfill in Central America — where people live and scavenge through the trash to sell and recycle in order to provide for their families. The landfill is very dangerous, and many people, including children, die there.
The MBU students took a tour of a preschool owned by Hope Renewed International in an area of Guatemala City called Zona 3. The area which is less than 30 years old was built due to lack of real estate in the area by filling a section of the landfill with concrete. It provides a place for people to live as squatters on tenements on top of the concrete-covered trash. The preschool was built in an attempt to educate the first generation of Guatemalans who were born inside the landfill.
“God is at work among the people of Guatemala, and he is working in the lives of our students,” said Lumpkin. “I am eager to see what he has in store for MBU in the days ahead.” ■
