Help Send Ellianna & Her Mom to Serve in Guatemala 🇬🇹❤️
‼️UPDATE‼️
‼️ our goal has now shifted from $6000 to $3000 as I want to make it a priority to send Ellie! Maybe someday down the road the opportunity for me to go and serve alone or alongside her will come, but for now I want to set a more realistic goal for her to be able to go this time! ‼️
My 13-year-old daughter, Ellianna, recently came to me and told me she wants to go on our church’s 2027 mission trip to Guatemala.
And what struck me most was why.
She didn’t come to me because she wanted to travel with her friends or have an exciting summer adventure. She came to me after watching her peers return from our church’s 2026 Costa Rica mission trip changed.
She saw a new countenance in them. A renewed fire for Jesus. She watched teenagers her own age pray boldly and effortlessly over one another. She saw confidence in their faith that hadn’t been there before. She saw them filled to overflowing with faith to the degree that it spilled out onto those around them… spilled out onto HER… they returned to the United States positively CONTAGIOUS with the love of Jesus!
And she told me:
“Mama, I want to go to the mission trip next summer in guatemala, I know it’s expensive but I will save money and fundraise myself to help pay for it and if I don’t raise enough I know that means I can’t go, but I want to TRY!”
When I prodded her more about WHY she wanted to go I watched her eyes light up as she told me how boldly her friends pray over one another and how the words flow from them because they aren’t their own words, they’re His, and their tongues are merely the vessel!
I heard her try to put into words how her heart felt pulled to serve people as she paused to acknowledge that she knows her tender heart will break when she encounters the suffering of children outside of the privilege of a first world country where she is blessed to enjoy a life of “luxury” by comparison and more than that the freedom she has to Love Jesus out loud, boldly and with little concern for persecution!
I saw her countenance shift as she talked about the impact she felt she could have over the hearts and minds of those less fortunate than her by sharing the gospel!
I saw her lay her heart out vulnerable to being crushed by the weight of suffering she herself has never and likely will never face in her part of the world!
I saw a maturity surface as she acknowledged how hard it will be, emotionally, physically, and even spiritually as she knowingly prepares her heart to be broken for what breaks His!
And I KNEW… in those tender moments that the answer was not only “yes” but “YES… AND I will hold your hand and help make this happen no matter what that looks like!”
As her mom, how do I say no?
I never want finances to be the reason I tell my daughter “no” when her heart is leaning toward Jesus and service to others.
So we are stepping out in faith and trying to make it happen.
Our church, Antioch Church, will be sending a mission team to Guatemala July 12–19, 2027. Before we ever board a plane, we will spend months preparing through required training from January through June—spiritual preparation, cultural orientation, team building, and learning how to serve well.
This isn’t intended to be a vacation. We are going to serve.
And Ellie has already decided she isn’t going to sit around waiting for someone else to pay her way.
She has a Mason jar that she superglued shut so she couldn’t be tempted to take anything back out of it. 😂 She has been feeding money into that jar, little by little, and it is FULL.
That little jar says so much about the posture of her heart.
She isn’t simply asking to go.
She is working to go.
And watching her has awakened something in me that has been there since I was a little girl.
Growing up, some of my parents’ closest friends were Jim and Sheryl Lear, missionaries who spent much of their adult lives serving in Ghana, Africa. They would live there for years at a time—even raising their two daughters there—learning the native language so they could painstakingly translate the Bible and make the Gospel accessible to people who otherwise could not read it in their own language.
Every few years they would return to the United States and visit us and our church. I would listen to their stories of hardship, sacrifice, heartbreak, victories and lives changed.
And even as a child, I remember thinking:
They have the most precious job in the world.
They had laid down the comfort of their own lives to become fishers of men.
Something about that never left me.
For years I have carried a desire to someday go—to serve people in another part of the world, to experience both the heartbreak and the triumph of mission work, and to share the Gospel promise of Jesus Christ with people who need to know that they are seen, they are loved, they have value, and they are adored by Christ.
Not by us.
By HIM.
And now, all these years later, it is my daughter who has reminded me of that calling.
So we are going to try.
The cost of the trip is $2,500 per person, meaning we need $5,000 for the two of us. That covers airfare, lodging, meals, transportation within Guatemala, medical/travel insurance, project costs and team apparel.
There will also be expenses outside that amount, including Ellie’s passport, culturally appropriate clothing for the trip, and personal/spending expenses.
The truth is, $5,000 is completely outside our family’s budget. We are already doing everything we can to meet our ordinary household expenses. There simply isn’t an extra $5,000 sitting somewhere that we can pull from.
But I don’t believe that means we shouldn’t try.
We will fundraise. We will save. We will work. Ellie will keep filling jars. 😂 We will pray. And we will trust God with the outcome.
Our goal is to raise enough for both of us to go together.
There is very little I would treasure more than standing beside my daughter in Guatemala, serving Jesus together.
But I want to make one thing very clear:
If we only raise enough money to send one of us, Ellianna goes.
Without hesitation.
I will stay home, hug my girl goodbye, and send her to Guatemala knowing that God made a way for her to answer the desire He placed on her heart.
And if God provides more than we ultimately need, any excess funds will be given toward another team member’s mission expenses so that someone else may have the opportunity to go and serve too.
If you feel led to support us financially, whether it is $5, $20, $100, or more, we will be incredibly grateful. Every gift moves us one step closer.
But we are asking for something else just as sincerely:
Please pray for us.
Pray for Guatemala and the people we will meet.
Pray that God prepares our hearts long before He prepares our suitcases.
Pray that we go with humility—not believing that we are arriving to “save” anyone, but understanding that we are there to serve, to listen, to love, and to point people toward the One who saves.
Pray that Ellie grows into the bold, confident young woman of God she longs to become.
Pray for an effortless prayer life.
Pray for courage.
Pray for compassion.
Pray for hearts willing to be broken.
Pray for opportunities to be the hands and feet of Jesus.
And pray that whatever God intends to accomplish through this journey begins in us first.
I don’t know yet how we’re going to get there.
I just know that when your 13-year-old daughter looks at you and essentially says,
“Mom, I want to go serve Jesus.”
…you don’t tell her the dream is too expensive.
You grab a Mason jar.
And you start. ❤️
Guatemala 2027 🇬🇹
July 12–19, 2027
Fundraising goal: $5,000 for Ellianna & Mom
“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” — Matthew 4:19
