A Month of Service

 Visits with "amigos" in Guatemala have truly been a joy!  This family was at one time our pastor's family in Panajachel.  They are now pastoring a church across the lake at San Juan a laguna, which means San Juan on the lake. Here is only one of their four children, as the rest were in morning school the day we visited.

 We were fortunate to come to Guatemala at the right time to attend the wedding of another one of our good friends here,  Rosalia with her new husband, Jonatan.  This was a huge wedding, with about 300 guests!

 Another pleasant surprise was a visit from the family of one of our good friends in our church in Taylors. The family of Nohemi.  All her sisters resemble her and miss her tremendously.  They all live in Guatemala City and came to Panajachel to meet us and show the family the lake.                                   Also, the family of our pastor in the states came to Panajachel to visit with us as well.  What a blessing to see the Godly heritage in these families!

 Our first meeting with teachers for the school program, "Moral Values Based on the Bible", which was begun last year.  The school year starts in January here until October, so they are revving up to go into 2 public schools to teach Bible lessons one day a week in each class from first grade to sixth.  We are excited to have a new director this year and have great expectations that the Lord will mightily bless this ministry as it affects more than 500 children with the gospel of Jesus Christ!

 Another day this week, we are reminded of just how blessed we are and how there are many peoples in the world who suffer from the lack of basic needs like food,water, shelter, clothes, etc.  We visited this Kiche refugee camp up the mountain from us.  They were moved here when their village about 4 kilometers from here was totally destroyed two years ago during a mudslide.  This is a temporary village for them, but "temporary" could mean several years.  The govt. provided tents, then the people put up sheet metal panels around the tents to guard against the cold.

There are 22 families with 45 children.  They have 3 outside "pilas" or sinks for the total population to use for dish washing, clothes washing and hair washing.  They use one tent for body washing where they keep a fire burning so it won't be too cold and of course, outside toilets to share.  We are planning to take the Mitchell Road mission team up there one day to have a day long Bible School.  So, 2 American friends helped me to measure feet so the team could bring shoes for everyone!  We were pleasantly surprised when they all kindly waited their turn and then showed us cage after cage of rabbits!  We are so blessed to have the opportunity to take part in so many ways God is at work in Guatemala and be able to share it with all of you.

Catching Up!

 We are playing "catch up" with our blog.  Last April, we left our ministry in Guatemala to begin anew back in the states.  Greenville, South Carolina, where our son, Aaron and Ruth and their two children, Peter and Marijane , live, as well as our daughter, Sarah.  The focus of our ministry in these months has been with the family - the first time since the kids have grown that we have all lived in one place!  Also, the Lord has introduced us to a small spanish speaking congregation, where we hope to be able to be an encouragement.

This is Mari Jane, now 14 months old.  She is running everywhere, starting to talk a lot, and loves music.  She has more dance moves than anyone we have ever seen!

 This is Peter, now 4 1/2 years old.  He is very active, loves being outside , especially in our 1 1/2 acre lot, where he rides his car and picks up sticks!
He is in a half day program at the same school where his daddy teaches the Bible to 7th and 8th graders.  He likes to find the eggs that our 6 chickens lay in the hen house.








Our big news is that Sarah is getting married to Will Dehart the end of February!  We are very happy to include Will in our family, especially since God included him in His family about a year ago!  They will make their home in Greenville, about 15 minutes from our house.

Easter, 2012

 Right now we find ourselves once again in Guatemala, for one month, to check on friends, ministries and projects that were started while we were here.  In a future blog, we will tell all about our time here.
But for now, please pray for the school project that allowed Bible teachers to enter public schools last year. We are in the midst of finding a new director, more teachers, open schools for this year.

Praise God, our first week to teach the Bible in public schools was a big blessing!  A few setbacks, but over all, our committed teachers were wonderful, the children were paying attention, and the directors were happy!

 All of us realize that this is God's Program and only with His direction and help, will it succeed, so we start every teaching day with prayer for wisdom to reach the hearts of the children that God has given us.

 In this school, the director brought all the children out into the courtyard to introduce our teachers and welcome us into their school.

 Our lessons for this year are from the book of John and emphasize who Jesus is. Ex. Lamb of God, Son of God, Teacher, Living Water, etc.  We are taking two weeks for each of the 14 lessons. The first week, to teach the story and introduce the lesson's quality;  the second week, to review with pupil's books, teach the memory verse and follow up with examples of the quality.

 This teacher, Juan Jose, is teaching two classes each week.  In this particular school, this is a small class because it is older teens who want to finish primary school.  He had their rapt attention for the entire time - awesome!

 As I said previously, we did have some setbacks and need your prayers:

• Wed.'s director forgot which day we were coming and planned a special event that day, so we couldn't start in this school this past week.
• Two of our teachers just didn't show up, so we are in the process of trying to get ahold of them to find out why (don't have phones) and looking for teachers to take their place.

• We also need to find willing substitutes for each of the 3 teaching days.

God has so blessed us with His provision for this project that we are trusting fully in His continued grace to provide what we need for this year!  Thank you for your continued intercession for continued open doors and for the children to whom we minister.

Bible teaching in public schools

Since spring of 2011, when we heard about a program in Huehuetenango to teach moral values based on the Bible in public schools, God has been touching our hearts to begin such a program here in Panajachel, Guatemala. We traveled to Huehue to observe how this program works and found out that it has been in place for over 20 years and is now in over 22 public schools, with 150 Bible teachers, entering public schools for one hour each week, teaching Bible stories with a corresponding character quality.

This blew us away!  What a wonderful opportunity to impact the lives of children who will never enter an evangelical church in Guatemala!  So, we came back home and began the process of speaking to many evangelical churches in our area explaining the program and entreating them to participate. After receiving about 20 names of potential teachers and meeting with them to ascertain their commitment level, we began to ask God to open doors of public schools to receive us.  Directors of 3 public schools received us with enthusiasm, as they are concerned about the moral values of their students! Each school gave us a day and time to teach over 600 students!

 Scheduling a time to train our teachers with the material was a challenge, but when they arrived, they were anxious to begin!  We have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of teachers who have volunteered for this ministry. 

With new ideas for teaching Bible verses,   new choruses for children, and learning how to teach the Bible stories with the character qualities,  they proved to be enthusiastic and eager learners.
God had given us teachers, open doors to public schools, but we were having problems finding the material that we had decided to use.  We were a little concerned, but felt sure that God would provide.  After contacting over 10 people and stores in Guatemala and the U.S., we finally found a Bible store in Quetzaltenango who had just the right amount of teachers manuals that we needed!  What a wonderful God who provides all our needs!  From a special donor in the states and our ministry funds, we were able to provide a kit of teacher necessities such as glue, construction paper, etc, as well as student books to correspond to the lessons.
Our starting date to begin teaching is the week of Feb. 13, so we will continue to update our blog with pictures and information.  Please pray for the continued favor of the school directors, the commitment of our teachers, and especially, that God's Word would penetrate the hearts of the children with the desire to know our Savior.

Panajachel Festival

 Every October 4th, there is a fiesta in Panajachel to celebrate their patron saint, who is San Francisco.  They have parades to honor him, school and work are canceled for the day and vendors come from all around to sell their wares.

 The strangest and saddest part of this fiesta is the Mayan/Catholic synchronization that goes on, as you can see here.  The masks and costumes are Mayan, as well as the incense and music.  It is commonly accepted even with most evangelicals as a kind of fair day.  Public and private schools participate in the parades and they even have a band competition from the schools that most of the kids participate in.

 This Maya culture and mindset is the reason we are here.  Even believers have as their central belief system, a Maya belief.  This is why we are encouraging the evangelical churches to participate in a program to teach moral values based on Bible stories in the public schools.  Reaching the children for Christ is the only way to change this acceptance of the culture.  This program will begin in Feb. of next year, but we still need Bible teachers to commit to teach - our primary prayer request this day.

Marimba music had it's start in the Mayan culture and for this reason, many evangelical churches will not have marimba music in their buildings.

 At this time, more than normal, you will see many drunken men just lying in the street.  People just walk over and around them.  Whatever they drink is extremely potent and when it hits, they just hit the pavement.  Alcohol is a huge problem here.  People who drink get drunk and many families are destroyed by it.  For this reason, alcohol drinking is prohibited by evangelicals.  However, many of our Christian men have a drinking problem and the church doesn't seem to know what to do about it.

Amusement rides are brought in from who knows where or when to be enjoyed by all.  Some of the kiddie rides would remind you of the 40's and 50's in the states - really cute and old!  Some of them are actually run by hand.
We had four ferris wheels this year, put together by rubber bands, I think.  But the price was only 1 quetzal per person, which is about 15 cents, so Niel could not pass that up, so he talked me into riding it.  It was a unique and a bit scary experience!

Good evening to our friends and blog readers.  We have had major hassle trying to access our own blog, and to add a new submission, so this is mostly a test!
Thanks for your kind attention.  Hopefully later we'll have the real thing on here!   niel

Medical Clinic in Mayan country

 Praise God!  For the 1st time ever, (except for VBS), our indigenous church (Iglesia Emanuel), has received from the Lord - a missionary heart!
Four months ago, when we received news that our yearly medical mission team from the states couldn't come this year to minister to the poor of Guatemala, we were very disappointed as we already had chosen 2 needy places for the clinics.

 But, just as He always does, God had a better plan for this year!  As Niel talked up the possibility of our church picking up the slack, God provided partners from the states to send down meds and vitamins we can't get here and donations for other medicine, as well as accommodations for two Korean medical missionaries, two acupuncturists, and a Guatemalan dentist. 

Then our precious believers from our church started volunteering to divide and pack up medicine, help in the clinic with Mayan dialect translation and pharmacy, prayer and talking to patients about the Lord as well as training in cleanliness.

Reading the Gospel of John that they had been given!

So, for two days, predominantly Catholic Mayan communities witnessed God's love in action! 
Lord willing, when it was all over, every heart was softened or changed - patient and servant alike!