Joe Livecchi, a media entrepreneur, is a friend.  Joe's family was an incredible addition to our trip.  Here is his account of the experience.

December 26th 2:30am, Jamaica, NY
The alarm clock is especially cruel this morning. I jostle my wife and two young kids (Sophia 12, Grace 8) to wake up for our 5:30am flight en route to our immersive mission trip in Guatemala. On paper, the trip sounds amazing. Daily mission trips to orphanages, schools, shantytowns and impoverished villages where we will put into practice the philosophy of Serve and Grow. Serve others and grow individually and together as a family in the process. Right now, that doesn’t mean much to my family. They are tired, worried about our safety and getting sick abroad.

We have a handful of sustainable growth projects we are hoping to accomplish on the trip. There is also time for some play, nice meals out, and opportunities to mix with the locals. We drop our bags at our hotel Casa Santo Domingo in Antigua. It’s a former monastery converted into a beautiful historically rich hotel. The expansive grounds are dotted with tremendous art, foliage, exotic birds and several stand alone museums. The staff wear traditional Mayan garb and speak little or no English. Massive volcanoes, ancient ruins and centuries old cobblestone streets surround the city of Antigua. Almost instantly we are transported to another time and place.

Our mission group is an eclectic mix of families and individuals. Students. Physicians. Authors. Executives. Children. I'm not sure why but I'm surprised the group is so friendly and warm.

Still sluggish from the travel, we accept an invitation to visit a renowned coffee plantation in Antigua. Our gracious hosts treat us like family and provide us with lunch and show us the process of harvesting beans for coffee. The quality beans will be sold to Starbucks in the U.S. The locals in Guatemala City will sell the lower quality beans for consumption.

Here, there is no minimum wage and coffee pickers work for as little as a few dollars a day. I cant help but wonder what life is like for the women we see balancing 30 or 40 pound sacks of coffee beans on their head as they retreat from the miles of lush green sun dappled fields. Beauty and poverty sitting so close together. This is the story of Guatemala.

December 27th
A small bus takes our group to a school in the tiny village of St. Thomas. There are hundreds of kids playing as their mothers and grandmothers dutifully watch from the perimeter. There is not one father in sight. After a brief introduction by the schoolmaster, our group is met with applause. This makes me feel awkward.

We spilt into smaller groups and I use my rusty Spanish to connect with the children. When the conversation runs dry, I engage a few kids in a game of soccer on their uneven concrete play area. The children light up. Then without much warning my ankle rolls over while reaching for a ball. I sit on the sidelines with ice on my ankle hoping I could soon walk this off. This sucks. I watch our group hand out pizzas and piñatas for the kids. Despite the language barrier my girls and my wife are bonding with the children.

One of the boys I had talked to earlier came over to check on me. He offers me a piece of the candy he retrieved from the piñata to try and ease my pain. We share a smile and he sits next to me. We talk a little but mostly just hang out. It feels comfortable. That's when it hit me. I had flown thousands of miles to help these kids and I was the one being comforted by an eight-year-old child who has almost nothing. He didn’t want me to sit alone as everyone else played and danced.

Soon after we hand out some donations I had brought over from the States. Clothes gathered from friends and toothbrushes and toothpaste from Colgate. Every child and mother shows extreme gratitude for a single toothbrush. A few bravely asked for a second toothbrush so they could split two brushes among 6 or 8 family members.

Before we leave, a member in our group makes good on one of our sustainable growth projects with a donation to help fund the education of a number of the kids in the school. In Guatemala, most poor kids as young as five, skip school to work with their mothers. If the kids are lucky enough to receive schooling, it's private after 6th grade and considered a luxury.

I bought a pair of crutches to get around. I downplayed my injury but the swelling in my foot betrays me. I did not want my injury to pull focus from the trip or compromise the experience of the others. My group affectionately nicknames me hop-a-long. The three doctors in our group dote over me incessantly. I realize serve and grow is something that could be practiced in small ways in everyday life.

December 28th
We are somewhere in a small hill village just beyond one of Guatemala's most majestic volcanoes. We arrive at a community center and I am determined to make an impact on these kids. I think of how my wife once told me you can’t always control the conflict in your life but you absolutely can control how you react to it. I was going to find a way to turn my injury into a positive. I just wasn’t sure how. There were hundreds of kids and mothers with signs welcoming us. Kids lit off fireworks in the streets to celebrate our arrival.

In my best Spanish, I asked the children of Guatemala to tell themselves every morning, ‘I am beautiful. I am smart. I am important.’ I asked them to say it a few times until the children roared together. ‘Yo Soy importante’. I wanted them to know we believed they were important. Even more, I wanted them to believe it.

I broke into my small group feeling energized. The children forgave my rumpled Spanish and we learned more about each other. My wife and daughters were busy with their own smaller groups but they came over to meet some of my new Guatemalan friends and document the experience. The kids loved looking at themselves in the photos. Taking a picture was a special moment for them. We were bearing witness to who they are and they were loving it!

One of our neighboring groups had found a dance station on an old boom box the community center owned. I grabbed my crutches and headed for the center of my group to get the dancing started. My usual white man shuffle was know reduced to a one leg side to side shimmy. I raised the crutch over my head and screamed out loud with the music. My rhythm was questionable but my passion was not.

The mothers and children laughed and my group recorded way too much evidence of my dancing. I told the kids in Spanish I have only one leg, you have two and that they had no excuse not to come dance. We got a bunch of kids and moms to let down their guard and join our makeshift dance floor. As I retreated for a seat, an impromptu conga line formed. Hundreds of children and mothers were dancing through their play yard and laughing.

Once again, a young boy had befriended me when I had to rest and sit on the sidelines. His name is Angel. He followed me everywhere I went and carried my knapsack. We created 'secret friendship handshakes' and talked sports. While I was meeting his mom and learning about his home life, my youngest daughter Grace had bonded with a 10-year-old girl named Jocelyn. They walked the yard hand in hand and had fun discovering the wonders of my daughters iPod touch.

We later visited Jocelyn's home up further in the hillside. Surrounded by barbed wire and a dirt backyard it was one of the nicer homes of the children of the village. It was made of concrete and had indoor plumbing. Jocelyn was proud to show us where she lived. She gave my children each a toy to remember her by. We found a small way to help these kids by sponsoring their education and nutrition for the next year. When word got out that we made this donation, mothers began coming to me asking if I could help their children as well. I looked at them and promised I would share their stories with the world and that there were others who cared out their children's future.

That night dinner with the group was magical. I learned about another one of our sustainable projects from last year was still going strong --- creating a soy milk producing center for one of the local schools.

Now they were looking for $3500 to purchase a bottling system that would allow them to generate revenue by selling their excess milk supply year round. A member in our group has agreed to match every dollar leading up to this target goal of $3500. We continue to work toward making this project a GO and getting this school one step closer to sustainability!

December 29th
My family and I have continued to grow deep relationships with the people on our trip. There's no doubt this is a heightened experience. It has accelerated our interactions and trust in each other. Our service trip today was at an orphanage deep in the fields of Guatemala. Behind large iron gates and an armed guard was a beautiful respite for over 50 orphans as young as 1 year old. Crime and Corruption has been a long running problem in parts of Guatemala. It’s one of the reasons international adoptions from Guatemala are currently closed.

The orphanages headmaster tells us that many Guatemalans don’t feel they have a lot to be proud of. Our group decides to make it our mission to engage local business owners to join our efforts and help support and realize future sustainability projects. At this present writing, we have commitments from two local Guatemalan business owners to join our effort and help give back to their own people.

 

December 30th

An X-Ray at a local hospital confirms I have to stay off my sprained ankle for 15 days. I initially feel bad for myself but then remember in 15 days I will be walking but in 15 days the lives of these children will most likely not have changed much.

I wrap up my ankle and hop to the next mission trip. This is a village center surrounded by an entire shantytown. Before we take a tour of the town, my own children lead the donation line handing out drinks and food to the kids in the village. My wife dances and laughs as she leads a group of kids in Spanish Simon Says. Later, my wife is moved to tears as a young girl presents her with a certificate and a flower thanking her for her service. We tour the village and meet a few families who graciously welcome us into their homes.

Here families rent 30' X 40' plots of land that they call home. There is no running water. No plumbing. Corrugated metal walls surround a dirt floor. The noise from neighboring home sites spill into each others yards at whim. The locals don’t seem to notice. Privacy and quiet is not a priority. Life here is about finding work and getting clean water.

I spoke with a single mom named Maria who has put on her very best clothing in anticipation of our arrival. At 32, she is a single mom with three jobs, three children and a strong faith that she says keeps her alive. I had gotten to know one of her boys earlier in the day when we visited the town center. He was proud when I told his mother he and I were friends.

What Maria hopes for most is that children can escape the cycle of poverty in the shantytown. As we talk, chickens poke around our feet and her dog suspiciously growls at us. Maria tries to silence the dog but after hearing about her troubles with her former husband I'm glad Maria has someone making noise on her behalf.

As we leave I tell Maria we will be praying for her and her family and I give her 100 quetzals, or $13. Maria makes a little more than this working 50 hours a week in the fields picking coffee beans. I remembered the women I saw in the coffee fields on the first day we had arrived. I wondered what their lives were really like. Now I knew. As we leave, the volcano that borders the shantytown lets off a giant plume of smoke. From our vantage point the eruption is beautiful. We stop and stare and I think again of the beauty and the poverty that is Guatemala. Only this time I also think of the hope that lives in the faces and hearts of these children and their mothers.

This dusty village is in desperate need of a rain tower to collect fresh water. This is a new sustainability initiative we are in the process of putting together. Over the past few days I've thought a lot about my experiences here. I am so happy my family and I got the chance to serve and grow in Guatemala. I hope you will join us on our next adventure to Guatemala. In the meantime, Serve and Grow can also be Share and Grow. Please join me and share this blog with the world. Lets share and grow together!

You can learn more about how you can be a part of our Serve and Grow efforts at http://www.keithferrazzi.com/about/charity/

Mucho Gracias!

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