Let There Be Light!

Kim, the kids, and I have been having major problems with our electricity since the first of July.  When I say major problems, I am talking we have been without electricity more than we have had electricity.  That means many things: no washing or drying clothes, no cooking, no ironing, no television, no charging laptops or cell phones, no coffee, no hot water, etc., etc., etc.  Try and imagine living your life for over 2 months without having any electricity.  It's been very trying and complicated to say the least.  Most of the things in life we take for granted use electricity.  After reflecting on this, I looked at the life of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  He was and still is the Light of the world.  Without that Light, we are hopeless and have no future.  The hour or so a day our family has electricity we are so excited and hopeful.  When it goes out our attitude changes.  We are not able to do many things.  The same goes for people in the world that does not have Jesus in their lives.  They are missing everything.  Each of us need to be that Light of Jesus Christ in and out of our homes so that others may see Jesus in us.  All people are attracted to Light!  If you are in a dark room, and the tiniest light breaks that darkness you are attracted to it.  Be the Light of Jesus Christ so that others may come to know Him!

2014 Opportunities to Serve

2014 Opportunities to Serve!

December 27 - January 3
March 22 - March 29
April 18 - April 25
May 29 - June 5
June 9 - June 16
June 19 - June 26
June 30 - July 7
July 10 - July 17
July 21 - July 28
September 5 - September 12

If you or your church is interested in a trip to serve in Guatemala in 2014, please contact us through email at: dkblopez@gmail.com

Cost for each person is $400.  This includes everything for your week-long trip with the exception of airfare and construction projects.

May Update

We would like to first of all apologize to all for not keeping everyone updated as we should.  We have been very busy, as always, and have placed our priorities in other areas than email and facebook.  I would like to now give everyone an update as to what is going on in the ministry and with our family at this moment.

Brayden and Brianna are both doing very well in their school.  They have a month and a half left until their winter break of 2 weeks.  This past Thursday the school had a special day to celebrate mothers.  Brayden was one of three students throughout the entire school to be asked to get up in front of the school and all the mothers and say something.  He recited a poem and did an amazing job.  Brayden is also still translating for Kim when she teaches childrens church once per month.  Kim is doing well, but now has extra work to do in the ministry.  A couple of months ago, I put her in charge of being the overall director for our feeding center program in San Cristobal El Bajo.  She has taken this responsibility over and continues to make great improvements to the Bible lessons and quality and quantity of food that is given to the people that come.  This is requiring a lot more of her time throughout the week and weekends.  I am also doing well, and continue to add to my work each week.  There really is no way we can list or tell you all everything that we do.

One month ago, our ministry purchased a piece of land in San Pedro Las Huertas.  We have been looking for land to buy for some time without any luck.  All the land in this area has been over priced and very small.  We finally found a piece of property that we fill will meet our future needs in the ministry here.  It was purchased for $10,385 cash.  This new land will be the future site of our ministry office, mission house, and youth group meetings.  We will build as the Lord provides for us to.  Nothing will be financed.  All construction will be done with cash money.

The beginning of this month, we hired another full time worker to our staff.  Jonathan will be in charge of getting our sponsored childrens school grades up.  The majority of our sponsored children had very bad grades for the first 8 weeks of school.  Jonathan is putting in place an after school program to help each child bring up their grades for the remainder of this school year.  We did not have the money in place to hire another staff member, but through our faith God will provide.

There is much more to share and I will soon.  I need to get back to work for now.  Please continue to be in prayer for our ministry.  God bless you all.

Buena Vista

This is Haley again. I’m just going to talk about why I’m here and what I’m doing here. I had never considered leaving my family for two months to go to some strange foreign country. But sometimes God plans are a little – or a lot – different than ours. It started out with mom seeing where Danny and Kim needed a little extra help over their facebook page. So I get a phone call one night and mom (semi-jokingly) tells me about this and asks if I want to go. The second she told me about it I was already mentally packing my things. The only thing standing between me and some sweet precious Guatemalan kids was my dad. My dad was so not agreeing. He was telling me it was too dangerous and he didn’t want me to be gone for that long. He also said he didn’t want me to go because of school. (Because he knows that I hate it and I don’t want to go back.) BUT the next Tuesday I was taking a check to pay for my tuition and it started snowing so my classes were cancelled. That gave me one week to convince my dad to let me come here. Clearly I won the battle but he’s still not very happy about it. Every time I call home he asks if he needs to come and get me. I think it’s because I’m his favorite child but that’s a different story. 

There are 52 kids in the Buena Vista Project. My main job here is to make sure that the kids and the people back home are communicating. SO SEND ME YOUR LETTERS AND PICTURES PEOPLE. I scan pictures and letters to send to everyone and Carlos has to translate for me because... well... I can’t translate Spanish! I’m also here to love on these kids as much as a possibly can. And trust me; I’m pretty good at that. I would literally take home all of these kids if I were able to. My mom may kill me for saying that but I would LOVE to have them all be part of the Garnett family and I’m sure that they would fit right in. 15 or 20 more kids won’t hurt, right?

Jeferson meets his sponsors!

Hola! This is Haley here, Danny and Kim put me to worth writing a blog. I’m new to this. I’ve never blogged in my life so please be patient. I’m going to tell you what I’ve experienced just from being here since Tuesday afternoon and I’m always going to tell you about Jeferson getting to meet his sponsors!!! Exciting right? I’ll start by telling you about Jeferson and his sponsors. Jeferson is a little boy who is ten years old and it’s sponsored by a couple and their son. (I didn’t get permission to write the sponsor’s name in this blog so they can just be anonymous for now!) Jeferson also has a smile like no other, he’s adorable! Anyway, so on Tuesday night me, Danny, and Vilma headed to town to pick up little Jeferson and take him to the mission house where his sponsors were staying. Naturally Jeferson is going to be a little nervous. We drive across town which took us about 40 minutes or so? Then when we finally arrive it was obvious how nervous Jeferson is. The family then took us on a tour of their mission house that they stay in and it was very very nice, very big also! I should have already mentioned that his sponsors were here on a mission trip, but they were with about 35 other people. So you can only imagine how nervous little Jeferson was standing around tons of people that he can’t understand. (Trust me; I know how confusing it is.) Around 7 or so walked down stairs to eat, and I being from the states didn’t think anything about eating Domino’s pizza. Jeferson was so excited about that pizza, that’s the first time he has ever had pizza. He ate at least five pieces of pizza and then got to take a box of pizza back home with him too! Right before we started to leave his sponsors brought out a ton of new clothes and a brand new bicycle. You should have seen Jeferson’s face! Priceless! He was so happy! He started hugging everyone. Then Jeferson passed out on the way home, hahaha! He was one happy/ tired little boy! I saw Jeferson today at the feeding center with his brand new bicycle. He’s so proud! Thank you to Jeferson’s sponsors for everything! He’s still smiling ear to ear.

 

Now I’m just going to share a little bit about my trip so far! I arrived around 12:30 Tuesday afternoon. On Tuesday we visited some of the kids that the Buena Vista Project sponsors. By far some of the sweetest kids I have ever met in my life. From the second I laid eyes on them I knew that I was where God wanted me to be. I just want to take every single one of them home and let them live with me. If adoption was open over here I promise that I would have at least 82 new brothers and sisters. (Sorry mom). Everything here is so different but so simple and so beautiful. These kids can go days with little food and water and they’re still much happier than any kids I’ve ever met. My name here is hard to pronounce so it’s like they call me Heidi. It makes me smile every single time. Tuesday night is when I went to the mission house with Danny, Jeferson, and Vilma! Wednesday was a very laid back day! I got to meet Evelin, which is the little girl my parents sponsor, and she was absolutely adorable. So sweet! Greeted me with a hug and so did her brothers and sisters. (I almost just wrote hermano instead of brother, I guess it’s getting to me.) She looks so much like my adopted sister Yuri, who is also Guatemalan, that it’s scary! Thursday we worked at the office some of the day then I tagged along and went to the feeding center with Danny! I don’t know why our kids in the state aren't as sweet as these Guatemalan children. I absolutely loved getting all the hugs and kisses. People here are so welcoming. There were probably about 30 people in the feeding center, so Danny covered a bible story and then the kids ate. Friday night I went to the youth night and got to be around a lot of teenagers my age. I really enjoyed that. I forgot how much I liked being around people my age! Saturday morning we went to the feeding center and in to town for some groceries. So far one of my favorite things was the church service on Sunday morning. It was just a blessing for me to get to watch other people worship in another language. It's something I never thought I would get to do. I never really realized how good I have it at home until now. Being here with these families make you realize that you take a lot of things in your everyday life for granted. I’m just glad that I’m getting to be here and experience all of this. Prayers are always appreciated and I think Danny and Kim would agree! Please say a prayer for Kim and her family. She lost her grandmother Thursday morning. Oh, and Happy late Valentine’s Day. :)

A New Year

This is the day that the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it!

Our father continues to bless our ministry and I want to continue to give Him all the glory!  Our feeding center in San Cristobal El Bajo has kicked off its second year of running.  We are feeding people from our center in a small part of the village 6 days per week, providing vitamins each day, and teaching them the Word of God each day.  Our youth group has started back up meeting every Friday night.  We feed the teenagers a small dinner, play games, and teach them the Bible each week.  We have been ask by a large non-Christian organization to bring our youth groups together for a special event on January the 26th.  This will be a great opportunity for us to share the Gospel with other teens in the surrounding villages.  Our ministry has already had its first mission team for the 2013 year.  A group from Fairview Church of God, along with Becca Bentley from Georgia and Nathan Hampton from Kentucky, came to work through our ministry December 27th - January 3rd.  The team had 2 dentists that served the local people of San Pedro Las Huertas and San Cristobal El Bajo.  The team also built a house for a large family that has a very close relationship with our ministry.  We hired another full-time employee on faith that the Lord will provide.  We now have a full-time staff of 4 people, including our cook for the feeding center.  Our ministry took on a small family to assist the children in being able to go to school this year.  The family consists of Carmen (mother), Myra (12 years old), and Wendy (7 years old).  The two girls would not be able to go to school this year if we would not have stepped in to help.  Myra has missed two years of school for having to help her mother work to supply daily needs for them.  She will be entering the 3rd grade.  Wendy will be entering the 1st grade.  Our ministry has already found sponsors for these two young girls for $25 per month for the 2013 year.  This will provide the girls with school uniforms, shoes, school supplies, snack money, books, etc.  We will also be looking to help improve their home with construction projects.  Our children, Brayden and Brianna, will be starting school January 14th.  Brayden will be entering the 3rd grade, and Brianna kindergarten.

Thank you everyone for your continual prayers and support!  God bless!