The first missionary team from the Ledyard United Methodist Church since the church was founded nearly 175 years ago almost never left the airport. Three days before the five members were about to be off, the team found out the travel agency they had hired to make the arrangements never made any arrangements.

And this was during February break, a high travel time.

With a lot of prayer and a little good luck, they found a travel agent who helped them schedule new flights, and they were off to Chiltepe, Guatamala.

On Sunday afternoon, Pastor Russ Riddell and the team gave a slide presentation of the highlight of their missionary journey after the congregation celebrated with a lunch together in the church hall.

“Over the February break, I had the extreme blessing to be the leader of a mission team,” Riddell said.

There were 16 members, three from the Ledyard Church and the rest were from other United Methodist churches from central New York.

“After the flight, we had a three-hour drive to the southeast corner of Guatamala, near El Salvador,” Riddell said.

The projects that the team members would be working on were the resurfacing of a basketball court by the small, run down and overcrowded school and the enlarging of another area to be the foundation for a new building. Heavy construction equipment was not part of the equation. Riddell explained the process.

“It involved lugging heavy rocks for fill and carrying the bags of cement,” he explained. “I thought they weighed 50 pounds, but they were 100 pounds each. No wonder they felt so heavy. Everyone on our team worked their tails off, from the youngest to the oldest.”

The mixture was made by creating a huge mound of cement, gravel and sand then scooping out a crater in the center. Water was poured into the crater and the materials were worked in until the concrete was the right consistency. Riddell said when the week's work was finished, they had used 400 100-pound bags of cement (that's 20 tons) plus 30 cubic yards of sand and 25 cubic yards of gravel.

The work became easier as the week went on, after a start with a small crew.

“At first the community members were suspicious of us Americans, and they did not want to help,” he said. “After we had worked for several days, and after we had given a donation of school supplies to the students, many of the local men came out to help.”

Riddell said giving the school supplies to the children was the highlight of the trip. Katie Merckel, who was one of the youth members of the team agreed.

“The children couldn't believe the school supplies were actually theirs to keep,” he said. The teachers were grateful as well, because the school had just run out of paper, and they did not know when more would arrive.

Many Cayuga County and other area farmers donated money for the expenses of the trip in appreciation for the work Guatamalan workers perform in their fields. Many of them use the pay to support their families back home. The Peacemakers Quilting Guild, based in Moravia, made school bags for the Guatamala children.

But, Riddell explained, there was another reason the team had gone to Guatamala.

“The mission was not the project,” Riddell said. “The mission was the people. The

project was just a disguise for us to bring the gospel to the people.“