New Team (Glory Train) From Indy visits Love Guatemala

We had the privilege of hosting this great group who named themselves the "Glory Train" from our home town last week.  The group was made up of 3 churches from the Indy area.  It included my mom and many friends from the church Jennifer and I grew up in and got married in.

It was a special week as we reconnected with old friends, served with my mom, served many people, the students of Love Guatemala and had lots of fun (minus getting kicked by a horse, but that is another blog post).

Check out some pictures from our week.  It was really awesome to see my kids serving along side my mother.  God is so good and gracious!

 I loved having all our boys involved with this team!

They served in the schools. 

 Devin my long time friend! It was awesome to serve along side him and his girls!

 Steve another long time friend who led the team.  He is awesome and a great leader!

I loved how this team connected with our kids especially Caleb and Luke!

The guys!

The Ladies!

Jennifer and I with Steve and Rebecca Smith the leaders of the team and great friends!  It was great to reconnect with them and get to know them and see their hearts for the Lord!

 This gives you an idea of how everyone included Luke in the activities, even picture taking!

The young men of the group with Levi.  The guy on the far right, Alfonso was a great blessing as he handled the majority of the translating which was a huge help to me.  All of these young men and the young ladies were very mature and worked very hard and had lots of fun!

It was a fun week and we accomplished a lot to the Glory of God! 

Birthday & Beach Trip

We had another birthday celebration this month.  Luke loves life and enjoys watching tv, listening to music and going anywhere.  He loves having people over and being with people in general.  It is hard to believe he turned 17 a little over a week ago!  I can't believe we have been parents for 17 years.  The Lord has used Luke to teach us many things in our lives.  We are grateful for him and the Lord has entrusted him to us.  Luke wanted to go go-karting for his birthday and to eat at KFC.  Jennifer also made him pizza bread and cake.  We had a fun day, well actually a few days of celebrating.

We were also able to get away for a few days to the beach this past weekend.  We are grateful to live fairly close to the beach and to be able to go every once in a while.  We have seen that these breaks are necessary for our family.

Joel and most of the boys enjoy getting in the ocean although they can only do so up to their knees because it is so rough!  But it is still beautiful!

 We usually have at least on beautiful sunset while we are there!  

Joel's 9th Birthday

We celebrated another birthday last week.  Hard to believe our second youngest is 9!  We are grateful for the young men God has entrusted to our care to love, lead and disciple.  Our desire and pray is that the surrender their lives to Jesus and follow him everyday.  We prayed last year for our two youngest would come to know Jesus as their Savior and give Him their lives and both of them did just that.  We are grateful to the Lord for his goodness in our lives.  He is faithful.

Here are some pictures from his birthday.  We ended up having 3 birthday celebrations somehow ;-)

 Celebration with friends

 A little time at the arcade and driving go-karts is always a family favorite for birthdays!

I love that our kids are beginning to have a hunger for the Lord and his word.

New Family Pictures - November 2016

We normally take family pictures with our phones and they are not real great.  So we were blessed by Jessica Ulery with White Elephant Photography with some professional photos.  Thanks Jessica! They turned out great and its hard to believe how big our kids are getting!  Here are the pictures:

Our Team - Love Guatemala Staff

I wanted to take a minute and brag about our awesome team we have here at Love Guatemala!  They have been working super hard this year and especially the last few months.  We have had a lot going on here at Love Guatemala.  Here is a picture of the majority of our team:

This picture was taken the evening of our Independence day celebration. Every year we have a celebration which includes cultural dances, dramas and the selection of our Miss Love Guatemala. This is a lot of work for our staff which they did very well. Check out some more pictures below.

 This was the selection of Miss Love Guatemala.  This is Cindy on the far right that won.  But they all did a great job.  We have seen how this selection is used to help this girls develop confidence and hope for their future.

 These are a few girls (Angela and Andrea) from the Art School and Literacy Program.

 Here are the Carpentry School representatives.

Jennifer and Ben in their typica clothing. Every dresses in the clothing of Guatemala.

This is Mr Matthew, Carlos Lopez father.  I found him praying at the front of the room before the activity began.  He is an amazing man.  He is 87 and still works every day in the field.  

Each month we have a dinner with our staff as well to celebrate together what God has been doing and celebrate birthdays.  Here are a few pictures from our last one this last Friday which we were able to celebrate with our team from Virginia.

 These are the four that had birthdays in September. Guicho, Katie, Patty and Jose who is Antonietta's (Cooking School Teacher) husband. We had plenty of cake for them!

 Please pray with me for our staff.  We have about 5 weeks left in the academic year and there is much to be done.  We have our graduation on October 19th. Thanks for all your prayers and support for our family and our team here!

Encounters with God

It is an amazing thought that we can encounter the living God.  We can communicate with, be empowered by, be loved by, and love the One who created all we see.  I love to read the old testament stories of how God interacted with people like Abraham, Moses and Joshua.  Sometimes we can separate what we see in the Bible from reality and think that God no longer speaks and acts as we find in Scripture.  But that is not the case...

God longs to communicate with his people and show them his presence, power and glory.  God is often communicating to us and sometimes we just miss it.  It is not always in a church service or in times of prayer that God communicates with us.  Sometimes in the small, seemingly unimportant things he shows us his glory.

God desires that we see, experience and share these encounters.  One reason God allows us to experience this is so He will receive more Glory and more people will come to know who He is.

So be looking and expecting to see God at work.  Expect to encounter God! It may not be in the way you think but God is moving and working.  Sometimes it is  in the still small voice as was the case for Elijah in the passage below:

"The Lord said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by." Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper." I Kings 19:11-12

In this "God Encounter" we see many things happening, the powerful wind, the earthquake, the fire but God was not there.  Instead he was in the whisper.  It is sometimes, many times that God speaks to us in the whispers.  Maybe it is through your kids, or a conversation or something you see that God speaks.  Take the time to listen.  If you are like me you may find yourself asking and talking to God but to just sit and listen in his presence is a difficult discipline.  But many times when we take to the time to do this God speaks and we encounter God and we are changed!

Jennifer's Birthday, 18th Anniversary and other random stuff...

It has been way to long since I have updated this blog.  I thought I would take a minute to update on a few things as well as share some pictures.  First check out this sunrise that I got to experience a few weeks ago.  It was a great reminder for me of the beauty of this country and the goodness and mercy of God in my life!

Luke continues to teach me and challenge me with his life.  This was snapped when he got so excited about something so simple (I don't even remember what it was) I need to approach life with the same excitement and joy as Luke!

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I got to visit this young lady last week.  Her name is Nancy and she graduated from the Art School about 2 years ago.  It was great to see her.  She is still studying and fighting for a better life.  She is becoming a beautiful young lady and I am excited for her future and praying she pursues Jesus with her life!

The pic above is of a house that one of our feeding center kids live in.  We are planning to help improve their living situation in the coming month with a team that will be visiting soon.  Praying through this we will have the opportunity to speak into their lives more!

Jennifer celebrated another year of life last month.  It is never enough for one birthday celebration her in Guatemala ;-) So we celebrated with her by herself and with our staff and with friends. Below is her birthday lunch at Applebees. 

 Luke didn't make it into this photo. ;-)

This lady continues to amaze me and stun me with her beauty! I can't believe we have been married for over 18 years!  I am grateful for our marriage, friendship and love.  God has been so gracious to me and our family!  May we continue to pursue Jesus together and follow his lead!

We found a used basketball hoop! It has been fun to be able to play with the kids.  Some of them are enjoying it although not all of them enjoy sports as I do so I have to find other ways to connect with them.

We continue to pray for water for our well.  I have enjoyed meeting with these 2 men every morning at 6am to call on God!  They have encouraged my faith!

Thanks for your continued prayers and support as we strive to serve Jesus here in Guatemala!