Christmas In Guatemala

As you all know Christmas is fast approaching.  We are trying to utilize Christmas here in Guatemala as a time to minister and show the love of Jesus.  We are doing a couple of things here to do that.

The first thing that we are doing is by sharing with our friends and neighbors here and allowing them to have a Christmas through our Adopt a family for Christmas. 

We are also doing a Christmas lunch for about 75 kids here.  Many of the kids here will not have any sort of celebration or special food for Christmas.  So with the help of our ministry partners, Carlos & Thelma and Indy Metro Church we are going to be able to provide a special Christmas Guatemalan lunch to many kids.

We are learning more about how Christmas is celebrated here.  One of the things we are looking forward to is a lot of fireworks at midnight on Christmas Eve.  From our roof we can see Guatemala City and from what we are told it will be an amazing view on Christmas Night.  Another family tradition of ours is looking at Christmas lights so hopefully we can drive around and find some good lights here.

We also have a Love Guatemala Team Christmas Party planned for this month.  Lots of fun things happening!  We are so excited to celebrate with all our friends here.  But we will also miss being able to celebrate with all our family and friends back home. Merry Christmas!

This a large Christmas tree in Guatemala City we passed the other day. Very Pretty!

Escuela de Vacaciones

We have been pretty busy the past couple of weeks!  It has been a lot of fun but a lot of work.  The schools here run from January to October.  So the Art, Cooking and Carpentry Schools follow the same schedule.  After school is over we take off one week and then we have what we call vacation schools.  This is a two week school in which we have all different students in the schools for a two week mini program.  In the art school we had close to 50 students, we had 22 in the cooking school and 10 in the carpentry school. 

This is an opportunity to invite to students into the schools and gain some valuable skills and be able to minister to some different kids and families.  One of the other things we are able to do during these couple of weeks is use the regular students from the schools and give them opportunities to teach and lead different things.  This helps us develop them as leaders and teachers as well.

Jennifer has been teaching young ladies at the cooking school and I have been helping in the Art School.  One of the highlights of these two weeks for me was being able to do some small devotionals for the kids in the art school.  I was also able to pray in Spanish for the first time! Enjoy a few more photos below:

These were the younger kids ages 8-11.

These are some of the regular students in the Art School who were helping teach during the vacation schools.

These are some of the boys in the carpentry school.

These are some more pictures of the young ladies in the cooking school.

 

Adopt a Family In Guatemala for Christmas!

Many families here in Guatemala where we live won't even have a special meal let alone any gifts for Christmas. We have decided as a family to adopt a few families here in Guatemala for Christmas to be a blessing to them and share the Love of Jesus in a practical way.  And we wanted to share this idea with anyone interested in doing the same.  So here is the scoop:

• For $50 you can adopt a family
• This will buy some food for a special holiday meal and a few gifts for the family.
• We will deliver the goods and send you a photo.

Go here and give to sponsor a family.  Please select Love Guatemala - General Support and add a note saying "Adopt a Family in Guatemala"

Thanks for considering being a blessing in this way!

Transitions

We have been living in Guatemala for just over 4 months now and we are continuing to learn A LOT!  Sometimes it is information overload especially when it comes to learning Spanish.  It has been and continues to be the biggest and toughest transition I have ever made.  I have never lived in a foreign country (other than for a few months when I was in the Air Force), I have never learned a different language, and I have never been immersed into a completely different culture.  Not only am I transitioning but I am also trying to help our family transition.  Each day seems to bring new challenges.

Our transitions no matter how big or small are often effected by our preconceived notions about how the transition will go.  That is one of the issues I am facing.  My preconceived notion about our transition here was way off.  I knew it would be tough but the one thing I didn’t expect was the length of time it would take to transition.  I like to work hard and be effective in whatever God leads me to do.  But God has been teaching me through our transition here that I need to be patient.  I need more patience in learning Spanish, I need more patience in learning the culture, I need more patience in building relationships and I need more patience in driving etc etc etc…..  I wanted to be at full speed by now but God is teaching me to be patient in all things.  His timing is better than ours!

We have made a long term commitment to live and minister here in Guatemala.  And so with that long term commitment comes long term goals and desire to see lasting change.  Lasting change comes as we learn what it takes to bring about life long change here in Magdalena, Guatemala and each situation is different and requires different things and more learning and all of that takes time!   We know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is what brings about change and so we are learning how to most effectively communicate that here.  Learning about the culture we are in is very important for effective communication of the gospel.

 It would be easy to get involved in many things that changes things for the moment but don’t really change things long term.  So we are praying, learning and growing and trying to follow God’s lead in how to be most effective for His Kingdom long term. Please pray with us as we continue to transition and continue to learn patience. 

The Lord continues to go with us as he has promised!  I have clung to a verse that the Lord brought to me through a friend and partner in our ministry here.  It is Exodus 33:14 it says “The Lord replied, “I will personally go with you, Moses, and I will give you rest—everything will be fine for you.”  If you think about it, Jesus was the one who went through the biggest transition of all times when he left heaven to come and dwell among us. (John 1:14)  I am thankful that the one who has been through the biggest transition is walking along side me and my family through this time.

Thank you for all your prayers and support for us during this transition and journey in our lives. We are so excited to be here and learning so much and loving on the people he has sent us to!

Perspectives

Today was a great day!  We had a lot of fun working, praying, visiting and playing with several different families and friends.  We began with a visit to our friend Cesar.  Cesar is man who has touched many lives and some of you reading may even know his story.  Cesar has been bed ridden for years and has a degenerative bone disease which is very painful.  Today as he shared with us he shared about several times when he has almost died.  He has terrible pain almost constantly and yet this man is full of nothing but praise for Jesus!

We sat there as he quoted verse after verse from memory sharing encouragement and hope for us and for the young men from the carpentry school that our friends Carl and Danae had brought to with them to glean some wisdom and encouragement.  One particular verse stuck out to me as he shared today it was from 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 which says "¹⁷ For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! ¹⁸ So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever."

It would be so easy for someone in Cesars place to get focused on the pain and suffering and have a "woe is me" attitude, but instead Cesar has used this time in his life as an opportunity to minister to the many people who come through his doors.  I have never met a more encouraging person so full of the Spirit of God! 

The Lord has been teaching me a lot over the last 4 months that we have lived here and one of them is about perspective.  Not necesarily perspectives of living in Guatemala versus living in America, but more about eternal perspective.  We often live and make life all about things we can see, touch and smell instead of about unseen eternal things.

We make life about what we can get, eat and do.  We make it about having fun and living the American dream.  When the Lord reminds us that those things whether good or bad won't last forever.  In fact they won't last very long at all in comparison to eternity.  James reminds us that our lives are but a vapor here one day and gone the next.

So let us spend our days, hours and minutes living for things that will last forever.  Living to be the husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters and friends we are called to be.  Living to make a difference for eternity in all the relationships we have.  Living to invest our money in places that will make a difference for eternity.  Lets use our lives together to make a differnce for eternity!

Home Visit

Today we visited a precious family with a new baby!  Griselda has been in the cooking school for a year.  Her baby was a whopping 8 plus pounds when he was born 38 days ago, which is wonderful and very uncommon here!  Her husband, Julio, is a local pastor in Magdalena.  They also have a seven year old daughter and a three year old son.  They were so sweet and so thanful for the opportunity for Griselda to be part of the Cooking School.  Pastors here do not make much money at all so this allows her to help provide basic needs for their family. 

 

A big thanks to all who sponsor ladies in the cooking school, or kids in the art or carpentry school!  It makes a huge difference in their lives!

Family Visit to the Beach

We were able to get away as a family for a few days earlier this week.  It was great to get away and take some time to rest and relax and spend time together as a family.  We have had a busy stressful last three months and it was nice to be able to enjoy these few days.  It is great to be so close to the beach.  We have always lived a long way away from the beach and in fact this was our kids first time visiting the beach.  The ocean was pretty rough where we were so the kids couldn't swim in the ocean much but they enjoyed putting their feet in.  But we spent the majority of our time at the pool which over looked the beach.  Enjoy a few pictures below:

 Here was the view we had from the pool overlooking the Ocean.

 Joel cheesing.

 Our room.

 Joel and Jacob

 Another georgous view as the sun was setting.

 You couldn't really swim in the ocean because it was so rough, but the boys played a bit in the waters as the waves came up.

We had an interesting trip home as it was raining a lot and we drove up this street that was a bout 2-3 feet of water for miles.  I had never seen anything like it.  I was glad our suburban didn't stall out!