Saturday

I would like to start out by saying thank you! Thank you to all those that are supporting us financially and prayerfully. Today we were able to buy food for the children in San Cristobal El Bajo. It is such a great thing to be able to bring food to the hungry through your support and the help of our local church in San Pedro. There is a vision for building a missions center in this village that would serve as a church, meeting area for weekly Bible studies, and be an area for feeding the children breakfast on Saturdays. Please pray for this village and this great need.

After lunch this afternoon Danny and the kids took a little trip to upper San Pedro (the town where we live). They met a few kids and invited them to come and play at our house. Danny told them he would be right back and brought our kids home to make room on his small moto. However, when he went back up to pick up the few kids there was about twenty-five kids. They started trying to pile on all at once. So Danny told them that he could not take them all to his house and that he would return in 5 minutes with a soccer ball and his family. We found a soccer/basketball area and were able to play a game of soccer while Brianna played in the dirt. Danny asked them about church and found out that most or probably all of them were not attending anywhere. He told them the name of our church and said if they would like to go
with our family in the morning to meet us in the street close to their houses at 9am. They
were very excited and indicated that they would be ready. Pray for these kids that they will
come to hear about Jesus in the morning. With our limited Spanish, this is the best way to
share the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Kim

Language School

Yesterday was the beginning of school, not only for Danny and me, but also for the Guatemalan children.  They began a new school year yesterday.  Their school year begins in January and ends in October.  School was a wonderful thing for me, the beginner, but a little more intense for Danny.  He is in between the beginner and the intermediate stage.  I learned numbers, colors, and greetings, while Danny learned lots of vocabulary and verbs.  Danny goes to school in the morning for four hours while I do Brayden's school at home.  Then after lunch, I go to school for four hours.  My teacher is really great and very patient with me.  A huge blessing for a slow learner!  At 6:00pm when I was done with school, I walked to the bus stop about a fifteen minute walk.  I didn't have to wait long for the bus, however it was full!  When you think of full in the states, you would think every seat is filled, right?  Well that and much more.  The seats were over filled, the isles were filled, even the top of the bus was filled.  Needless to say there was no seat for me so I had to stand on the steps and hold on tight.  At each stop, I had to get off the bus to let someone off then get back in position after even more people piled on too!  I wanted to laugh out loud, but no one else was.  It is what they do everyday when school is in.  I cannot imagine how many people were on that bus, but it was a lot!  What an experience!  My stop is the last one on the route.  I finally got a seat the next to the last stop, but I was by the window and there were two others in the seat with me.  I did not realize that same bus was on it's way to Guatemala City after my stop.  I was waiting for everyone to get off, because my seat mates were not getting up.  I realized at the last second what was happening, and quickly got off at the last second.  Danny and the kids were waiting for me at my stop.  They met a group of sisters that had to sit at our bus stop for a very long time waiting for their oldest sister to come on my bus so they could get on another bus to go to a different city.  It was 7:00 at night and these kids still had not made it home from school.  This is their way of life and that is how it is for so many Guatemalans.  We have so much to learn about this culture!

Kim

San Cristobal Sacatepequez

January 8,2011

Our family made our first visit today to the village of San Cristobal Sacatepequez in the mountains near our home in San Pedro las Huertas.  Pastor Israel, his wife, Manuel, Carlos, and other leaders from the local church (Iglesia Vid Verdadera) here in San Pedro took our family to visit one of the local ministries of the church.  We took breakfast to feed around 30 children, sang songs, and had Bible study with them.  This was an amazing experience for our family to serve alongside our local church.  The church feeds the children breakfast on Saturday's, twice per month.  One of the leaders of the church, Manuel, goes to San Cristobal every Saturday evening to have Bible study with the adults in a small home.  Manuel also makes house visits in this village every Tuesday and Thursday evening to have prayer with families.  This is one of the many extremely poor villages in Guatemala.  Many of the families harvest coffee beans in near by plantations.  Depending on the season, they make around $3-$5 per day.  I met a young boy named Douglas that has 2 brothers and 1 sister.  He recently had a younger sister die from sickness.  His mother left the family, and he and his siblings live with their father.  The father works every day and leaves the 4 kids alone at the home.  Douglas is 13 years old and the oldest.  They search the trash at the bottom of the mountain and the end of the road for food and toys.  Douglas is very sick, and has a hard time breathing.  I could hear his chest rattling every breath he took.  His father doesn't believe in medicine and gives him caterpillars soaked in alcohol for his medicine.  Douglas' sister has been taken from the home and put in a hospital.  She is extremely sick and they took her because of the recent death of her sister from illness.  In the U.S., we rely on doctors and medicine for most of the time when we feel sick.  Here, we must trust that God will heal Douglas and his siblings.  Please pray for Douglas and this family.  Please pray for this impoverished and diseased village of San Cristobal Sacatepequez.  Please pray that through the local church they will come to know Christ as their Savior. 

God Bless,

Danny

January 2, 2011

January 2, 2011

This is the day the Lord hath made!  We will rejoice and be glad in it! 

We awoke this morning to another beautiful day in Guatemala.  Getting ready this morning was a little difficult due to the fact that our hot water was not working.  I have such a hard time with cold showers!  Kim tried heating water on the small, electric cooktop that we have and putting it in the bathtub.  That just wasn’t working to well.  Eventually the hot water decided to work again and we all took quick showers to get ready for church.  The day before, our water didn’t work at all for about 4 hours.  I guess there are some things we are just going to have to get use to, and try to adjust our spoiled, North American nature a bit.  We met with our neighbors and walked to church.  The church is located in the middle of a small coffee field which is pretty nice and refreshing.  Our kids did well considering church lasted three hours.  It was nice to see some familiar faces from my past trip in November, and to see Pastor Israel again.  Pastor Israel wants to come to our home tomorrow evening and meet with us about our plans and vision in ministry.  We are excited about him coming, but also wandering where we will sit down to meet in our home.  We have only a small futon sofa and no chairs.  I was thinking it would be nice to offer him some coffee, but then remembered that I only have one coffee mug.  Maybe tomorrow morning would be a good time to shop a little, you think?

Danny

January 1, 2011

January 1, 2011

New Years Day!

Work, work, work, but it was fun cleaning and organizing my new home here in Guatemala.  I had previously lived in a home for 13 ½ years so it has been a while since moving into a new home.  Well then after all that, we were invited to have New Years Day lunch with our neighbors behind our wall.  They were very gracious and had a wonderful meal prepared for us.  They have very little in their home and have worked extremely hard for what they do have.  I honestly don’t know how or where Mrs. Hernandez cooked the food.  It seemed to come out of nowhere.  I did not see a kitchen or bathroom.  Wow, what an afternoon.  We enjoyed conversation between Carlos and Danny.  Mrs. Hernandez and I did not speak much.  She speaks no English and I speak no Spanish.  We both still enjoyed being there.  Then their children came to our home to play.  What a lovely day!  God is so good to send families for me to have as friends while I get adjusted to this new life.  I love my Lord!

Kim

December 31, 2010

December 31, 2010

I started a new day today, my first full day as a resident of Guatemala.  I am so excited!  We went into Antigua planning to have breakfast and go to the grocery store.  We also wanted to price the much needed furniture and other items for our home.  After breakfast we started to go to the bank, and of course they were closed for the holiday, New Years Eve.  On the way we found the “amigos” that Danny met in October while he was getting the house rented and set up for us.  What a wonderful experience!  We were able to visit their home and meet the family and neighbors.  I felt so welcomed into their little home and so loved.  This family is so special.  We spent over an hour in this family’s house visiting and trying to speak Spanish (which is the children’s second language to Quiche).  Danny does very well, so mostly, I just listen.  Then we walked back to the park where the children work selling ice cream, gum, and shining shoes.  We will see them again when they come to visit the kids on Monday or Tuesday.  Our next visit was to our American neighbors, Gary and Ann.  They have lived here for 4 ½ years and are such lovely people.  Ann answered some of the many questions that I have about living here.  And they gave us turkey soup for our dinner!  That was wonderful!  Then we had a visit to our home from our Guatemalan neighbors that live behind us.  That was a wonderful surprise and a nice visit.  They have 2 children ages 8 and 4 and they played well with Brayden and Brianna.  Carlos speaks some English so our visit was mostly Spanglish, ha ha!  It was such a wonderful first day.  These neighbors invited us over for lunch tomorrow.  We look forward to another great visit with them.

Kim