Update: After speaking with staff on the ground in Guatemala and with Compassion’s trips department, it’s been decided to continue with our blogging trip this week with only minor tweaks to the schedule. Please continue to pray for the people of Guatemala and for safe travels there. Thank you.

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Over the weekend a tropical depression caused a foot of rain to fall in parts of Guatemala. Then there were landslides. A bus was buried. People died. Thousands have been evacuated from their “homes.” And the president of Guatemala has declared a state of emergency.

I’m supposed to fly to Guatemala tomorrow afternoon with my blogging friends, to experience and write about Compassion International‘s ministry to children living there. Compassion’s trip department, and Patricia and I, have spent this morning collecting information on the conditions there to determine whether the trip will happen at all and, if it does, whether our plans have to be changed in any way. More on that later.

For now, what I can’t get over is one word I’ve both heard and read this morning: typical.

As in, this kind of damage from rain is typical in Guatemala this time of year.

According to Google it sure is. I found news stories on flooding and mud slides in Guatemala spanning every year for the last five. I’m sure I could go back even farther. Typical.

Homelessness. Evacuations. Funerals. All typical?

Pray for the people of Guatemala today and please pray for us as we leaders make final determinations about our trip there this week.