Adventures in the Mayan Jungle

By Camden Stockin ('22)

For the Last 9 Months I have been blessed with the Opportunity of a lifetime and to go on the World Race Gap Year Program! The World Race Gap Year is a Program for students ages 17-21 to go out for 9 months and do International as well as a few weeks of National missions. There are various squads on each team, and I was in the Outreach Squad. In the fall of 2022, my World Race began in Georgia for about 2 months for some intensive training and during that time we went to Kentucky and worked with Samaritan's Purse doing disaster relief. Then after that we traveled to Guatemala for 3 months. Next stop was Romania for 2 months, then Swaziland Africa for 2 months. In May, our excursion was drawing to a close, and we ventured back to the states to Florida doing more disaster relief for 2 weeks than lastly back to base camp in Georgia for our final debrief and goodbyes.

Now let me tell you just one amazing story out of the hundreds over the last nine months from my adventures to the Mayan jungle in Guatemala. For context, the main ministry was kids ministry and we were working with The One Way ministry in San Lorenzo as the main base. One day, my Team, the MOGz( Men of God) traveled deep into the Mayan Jungle to do some VBS like ministry with the kids there. For more context we were the first known white people to ever set foot in that village! We had to walk a total of 4 hours in knee deep mud and rocks with bags and supplies. This was the worst poverty I have ever seen and the sad reality is that kids die almost weekly due to malnutrition. There was one day when we were eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and there were 2 kids watching us eat. We had 2 left, so we gave it to these very hungry, near-starved children. Then something happened that amazed me beyond belief: both kids split the sandwich in half and gave it to their friends! Such a simple thing but it was so amazing to see and showed me how much I take for granted and I have so so much more than these kids do. It was truly beautiful to see and I am honored that The Lord Gave me these experiences!