We started the day with a morning hike of Mount Mirador. Fredy, Chico and Efrain led us to the top and the views were incredible. We were inspired to see the locals climbing up the steep mountain to farm the crops.  By 10 AM, we were back to building stoves. Our houses were close to the lake and to a local park so we took the children to a dilapidated playground that had extremely rusty, run down equipment and was surrounded

Stoves 5 & 6- complete! Today a young mom told us that her new stove will serve the community as she will cook for other families too.CJ and I were working in different homes again. It turns out we are both machinist’s! We cut the cinderblocks…it’s a dirty job, but someone had to do it. lol. All kidding aside, it was another beautiful day as our team and the team from “Dreams and Hopes” continued to bond and grow on

Where does one begin when each day is so filled with learning and friendship. Tuesday, June 17th began when Trayce divided us into well balanced teams to build a smokeless stove for a deserving Mayan family. Our family is multigenerational and lives on ancestral land that has been in the family for decades. As they have worked their land they have discovered Mayan relics so started a small museum which they showed us. After all the hard work we are treated

I woke early Monday morning and sat in the courtyard of our cozy hotel. As I sipped my coffee, birds chirped and mist blew over the mountains surrounding San Juan La Laguna, our beautiful home for the week. After a hearty breakfast, we set off in tuk-tuks to build our first stoves in the neighboring town of San Pedro. Our group was to work together that day to build two stoves for related families living next door to each other. Their

On Saturday morning, June 23, 2024, the Union Church Mission Team to Guatemala met at O’Hare International Airport for our American Airlines flight to Guatemala City. The team included our leader, Trayce Biancalana, and members Jane Grimm, Robb Knuepfer, Cathy and CJ Mitchum, Hugh, Nate, and Bella Robinson, and June Scott. We would meet team members Kristen and Katie Meyers in Guatemala. As we completed our immigration forms for Guatemala in Spanish, we realized we were “not in Hinsdale any

On June 22, a group of 11 set out for San Juan Laguna, Guatemala on a journey to make a lasting impact. Our journey was focused on building connections, learning about the Mayan people and their rich history and creating tangible change. We set out to construct smokeless stoves and support an educational program for Mayan children. The smokeless stoves project aimed to improve health conditions by reducing indoor air pollution, while our time at Hope and Dreams, the educational program