Thursday, January 26, 2012

Working Together

The team's trip coordinated perfectly with the yearly General Assembly of the Kekchi Baptist Churches of Petén. This was a great event for the guys to attend to be able to meet the pastors that we are working with, and for the pastors to put some faces with the name of the church I have been talking about helping us. Also, US groups love to cross the river on the ferry...

{Pastor Tim on the ferry}

There were 250 men in attendance representing the 72 churches and missions in Petén. These were pastors, deacons and Sunday school teachers who brought their churches' yearly love offerings to set the association's budget for the year. They use these funds to support their missionaries and support new missions with building projects and land purchases.

They were thrilled to find out that these gringos not only gave the money to buy the land (close to the same amount as the associations' yearly budget) but that they came and were hauling block and rocks just like each of these men do for their own building projects. Pastor Tim gave a greeting but the men also wanted to hear from the other members of the church as well. Only Dan was fast enough to escape through a side door!

Here are the guys with Mateo Botzok. Last year they were in his church that was one month old. They recognized him from across the aisle and he came outside with us to give the guys an update. He has 45 people that have been saved and are part of his church and in addition to the main church (still in his house) he has another preaching point on the other side of town he visits each month.

These are the members of the KBI board of directors. We just found out yesterday that we need to add 5 more people to this board due to a change in the law.

The team was here for 10 days.

That is a long time in this heat, so we gave them breaks every once in a while...


We took them to a new place for us. It has hanging bridges. They said it was a really nice experience. We will have to start taking more teams there.
{Matt on the hanging bridges tour of the jungle}

Jimmy also suckered the team (I think that is the word the team would choose) into a cave excursion. We have only taken one other gringo team there before. It is pretty intense.
Jimmy claimed that it is very cool underground and would be a nice break from the heat. Jimmy didn't go... haha. Evidently it was extremely hot and muggy. Oops! It is an experience though.

The team thoughtfully offered to watch Jonah and Silas for us one afternoon so that Jimmy and I could go on a date. (This was before the cave incident!) Jimmy took me to the market real quick to show me a store that he had found with all kinds of sewing notions. There is no way I would have ever found it myself... he is so sweet like that. He knows how to get points! Afterwards we just went and had coffee and dessert in the air conditioning at Pizza Hut. (It is incredibly hot here right now if you aren't picking up on that.) It was so nice just to talk. I love spending time with my husband!

Jonah and Silas really had a good time at the hotel with the guys while we were on our date. Silas loved their pool. (This team stayed on Flores in a different hotel than we normally use... we are trying all kinds of new things lately.)

These guys were so sweet to our boys. We really appreciated it.

{Clint, Silas, & Tim watching a parade passing the hotel}

Ladies from the church sent presents for Jonah, Silas, and even Eden. Once again, just so thoughtful.

Here is Jonah playing with some new legos. Evidently my boys are very into legos now!

Sunday we all went to San Jose Pinares to hold a small service and show a film. This would have been our third outreach in this village where we want to start a church. It is 10 minutes past the institute land. We were going to hold the service in this couple's home.

{The wife boiling us some rice drink over her stove}

They were the first Christians in the village. A second family accepted Christ on the first outreach Jimmy and Tutor #4 did in December. This family though heard the Gospel as a result of the church in Ebenezer (even closer to the institute land). That village had no Christians in it 4 years ago when we showed a film there one evening after the village that hates us wouldn't let us in. Now there is a church there, not as a result of our work, that was started by a Nazarene national. They feel secluded and have asked for our help and want to become Baptist. They need some mentoring and want to get connected with the other Kekchi Baptist churches for fellowship. Did you get all that?!

Unfortunately the new mayor was throwing a party, so all of the village was attending that. We ended up just having a time of fellowship with this sweet family... well as much fellowship as you can have with 2 language barriers. The team smiled a lot though!
{Matt and Pastor Tim}
The husband told Jimmy that he wants to become a pastor and is interested in attending the institute! Please pray for this family of new believers and that a church will be started here in Ebenezer very soon!

We were sad to see this team go. People like them are just such an encouragement to be around. They are excited about what is going on in Petén and are genuinely behind what God is doing here. We are so thankful for them!

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: We had some wild restaurant experiences with this team. A new restaurant had been recommended several times by some missionaries that used to live here, so we finally decided to try it. The food was delicious, but while we were sitting there we saw a rat come up several times and eat some of the tortillas on the counter in their little tortilla making nook. We told several people that worked there and they just laughed... they didn't throw any away, they just laughed. We didn't eat any tortillas!

{Tortilla nook in background}
{Feeding the fish tortillas after the meal.}

Then later on in the week they went to my favorite restaurant and ordered strawberry licuados (strawberry smoothies), the same ones we always get. This time they found little pieces of glass mixed in with their ice. That's not dangerous or anything... The owner wasn't there, but the workers said that they had run out of ice and had bought a bag from someone down the street... nice!

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