What a mudslide can do to a village. I’m stunned and heartbroken.

Yesterday a young woman’s body was recovered under a thick layer of mud by volunteers. Her baby was still wrapped around her back. She was found in the room next to the one I was shoveling endless amounts of mud out of today alongside several Guatemalan volunteers. She and her baby were carried by the mud and water 3 blocks from her home into the home they were discovered in. This is just one of the tragic stories from the village of San Miguel Escobar this week. I can only imagine how many villages in Guatemala have similar tragedies right now.

The village of San Miguel Escobar hugs a volcano (as many villages here do). One of the nonprofits I have been working with, Global Visionaries, has its office in this village. This last weekend the torrential rains caused a section of the mountainside to give way along with a flood of water. A rushing wall of mud and debris covered houses, cars, and everything else in its path. Luckily, the mudflow missed the Global Visionaries office by about two blocks, but many families were not so fortunate.

As I waded through the sludge today, I was in awe of Mother Nature’s power. Giant boulders now sit in ten feet of mud in the middle of streets. Cars are barely recognizable (a few settled inside houses). Streets resemble large riverbeds with small streams of water still cascading down them.

Despite the power of Mother Nature, the will of the people here to recover the missing and return their village to a recognizable state is a far greater force in my eyes. I’ve never felt a stronger sense of community. We held hands to help each other through the mud. I saw several bucket brigades working in perfect sync for hours at a time. Without needing to say a word, people would find something useful to do and get to work. Village mothers made plates of tamales and rice for workers and people walked up and down the streets handing out bags of water. The pats on the back and warm smiles to one another were given out generously. Although we were not all from the village and several not from Guatemala, today we were a community of people working together.

Avivara (one of the nonprofits that I am here working with) is located in an area that has also suffered a lot of destruction from the hurricane. Avivara has already given $550 to a nearby church to buy water, food, and diapers for about 150 families that are currently staying at the church because their houses were destroyed. More supplies are needed for these families. Please donate even a few dollars if you can. A little goes a long way there and these villages really need our support. Donate here to Avivara. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart and from those that live in these communities! More news to come as I head back out tomorrow with the Global Visionaries crew and a few volunteers I recruited from the house I'm staying at.