Mother's Day Celebration 2014

Mother's Day here in Guatemala is really big.  It is a major holiday and celebrated as such.  Which the United States should adopt in my opinion as Moms have a big impact on our lives!  I know my Mom has been the single greatest influence in many ways on my life!  Every school celebrates with parties, it is a national holiday here and many places are closed as everyone celebrates with their Moms.

It was not different for us at Love Guatemala.  We had a couple of celebrations with the Moms of our students.  One of the things we did was have every student make a gift for their Moms and present it to them.  Several of them got up to courage to honor and speak words of thanks to their Moms.  One of the big things we emphasize and teach in the school is respect for other people especially your parents.  Many of them have difficult relationships with their parents, especially their dads.  It was great to see them show respect and love to their Moms.  Slowly with time we are seeing God change the hearts and lives of our students and that is why we are here!  Thank you for continuing to pray for our students and staff that God would continue to change lives!  Enjoy a few pictures below of our celebration.

 The gifts the carpentry school students made for their moms.

 Of course, we had lots of good food made by the Cooking School!

 So cute!

We of course played some fun and embarrassing games with the Moms!

It was a great day!  We need to celebrate Moms more often and the 24/7 work they do for us!  Thank You Moms everywhere!  

I don't deserve this!

I sometimes sit and think about how good God has been to me.  About how much I have and how rich I am.  Not physically necessarily although I have much in perspective to all my neighbors, but more relationally.  Life when we boil it down to the basics is all about relationships and people.  We can not take much with us after this life, but we can take people with us.

I was reading this prayer of thanksgiving with the kids tonight after dinner from King David in 2 Samuel 7:18-19.  He kind of had this same feeling after the Lord revealed to him that his kingdom would be established forever. Check it out:

"Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and he said:“Who am I, Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? And as if this were not enough in your sight, Sovereign Lord, you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant—and this decree, Sovereign Lord, is for a mere human!"

King David is overwhelmed by God's goodness in his life and recognizes that we are yet mere humans and deserve nothing and yet God in his goodness, kindness and mercy gives us so much!  David recognizes God as the Sovereign Lord, the one who is control of it all, the one above it all and yet he desires to have a relationship with us and bless us as he does.

I can think of many things that God has given me that are gifts that I don't deserve.  Most of all is the gift of salvation God has given me through his son Jesus.  I don't deserve the wife and kids he has given me.  He has blessed us our family.  He has blessed the ministry we are blessed to be a part of.  I could go on and on.

But what about when we go through trials and difficulties?  So is God still good when we go through difficult times.  What about when we lose a loved one or lose our job?  What about....?  He is good and he is faithful even through the tragedy.  Often times we cannot see it and we forget it during these difficult times and the truth is we don't know why some of these things happen, but God doesn't cease to be good.  He is faithful and desires to help use through these difficult time as well.  He walks with us and never leaves us to go it alone.

I don't deserve it but He is so good to me!