Oh hey everyone. Larissa here.

(Ha, who else would it be?)

Here is the quick (yeah right) Guatemalan update:

* We are now eleven people strong. We gained another girl, Michelle, who is a doll and I think she will fit in rather nicely with the crew. So that makes 3 guys, 5 girls, Lindsay our staff leader, and Arika and I. Solid, solid team.

* We have been focusing a lot of getting to know each other and building trust as we let ourselves be vulnerable. Its a struggle sometimes but everyone is pretty amazing and God has taken them down such beautiful paths to bring them to this place. Its pretty incredible to see each individual and then see our potential as a team. I think God just may do some incredible things with us...if He wants.

* Our main focus is going to be shifting from so much team bonding (which we will continue, of course) to learning as much as we can about Guatemalan culture and fundraising. We have decided that we are raising funds as a team rather than as individuals and it will be very interesting to see how that all works. The team came to the decision themselves to pool our funds and I think the Lord will really provide if we are all using every resource we have.

* As for fundraisers, we are going through King Soopers grocery store and buying gift cards that people can load money onto and for everything they buy, we get 5% of the money. So, if you are a shopper and King Soops and you wouldn't mind putting money on a gift card and then using that to buy your groceries, let me know and I'll hook you up and you can support us financially as you shop. This will be the first of a couple fundraisers so I'll let you know more when we get things nailed down with the next money makers.

* As far as the cold hard facts go, we are about half way to our plane ticket goal of $6,000 and we have to have that money in by Friday. Please be praying for these funds so we can get those plane tickets and take the next step on this awesome adventure.

* This coming Thursday night my school is having an event called "Bowl-4-a-Buck" where my missions department rents out the bowling alley and everyone comes to bowl and support all the mission teams. Each team has a couple lanes and they dress up and decorate their section like their country so its always a crazy, crazy time. I am going to try to bring my camera so I can snap some pictures and post them for you guys. So stay tuned for that.

Uh, yeah, that is all I can think about right now. Some specific things we could really use some prayer for is finances, good plane tickets, and a deep desire to better understand what the Lord is teaching us today. We are doing a lot of preparation in our heads but the most important prep is in our hearts. Thanks so much for reading this and for your support, it really means the world to me.

:)