5 years in Guatemala!

It is hard to believe we have been here 5 years!  It seems like just yesterday we were selling everything and getting ready for our move here.  Much has happened in 5 years - the boys have grown up, we now have young men in our house.  Love Guatemala has grown and been used to transform lives.  God provided a building for Love Guatemala miraculously. Levi's surgery, many teams have come and visited, started new trade schools etc...

One of the cool things to sit back and watch is how our kids have grown both physically and spiritually.  Here are some pictures of how they have changed over the past 5 years:

Thanks to all who have prayed and supported us over the years!  We could not be here without you!  Please continue your prayers and support. We need them!

This is our prayer for you:

Philippians 1:3-6 "I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

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!