A Special Guest and $300,000 Worth of Cocaine

We have a 19 year old intern/friend that is staying with us for 5 weeks. He feels like the Lord is calling him to missions. 5 weeks sounds like a long time for everyone (haha), but Samuel is really thoughtful when it comes to our family and he is a hard worker when it comes to our ministry. He is Pastor Andy's son. We are so thankful for Pastor Andy and his family. They have been a big part of our ministry and are always personally encouraging to us. 

Our boys were so excited about Samuel coming… and it has been everything they were hoping it would be! 

Poor Samuel is their gringo piñata! He knows how to dish it right back though, he has 6 siblings.

Of course Petén had to welcome him! One of the first evening he was here was spent without power!

We had s'mores that night. Lesson learned: don't give children s'mores in the dark because when the power comes back on, your couch will be covered in surprises! 

 The first 3 days Samuel was here he worked on clearing a field and burning it off, for a project I'll share about later. He also plays the piano extremely well. One of the strings broke on my guitar Sunday night and he jumped right up and finished the worship service on the keyboard! 

Here is another testimony of God's care and protection! Samuel was supposed to stay in the hotel across the street from us (there is a house in between, so it is really across a small field and a street from us). Several months ago, Pastor Andy's church sent us money specifically designated for our house. They didn't know what we were going to spend it on, but we used part of it to finish our guest room. It is on the side of our house that isn't finished, so it still needed a floor, stucco, bars on the windows and doors. Since it's finished now, Samuel stays in our home instead of that hotel. (SO much easier for everyone!) Well, Monday I was driving home from the institute and there were about 5 police cars kind of barricading that hotel. There have been lots of wild parties there on a nightly basis with shots being fired. The news around the neighborhood is that the police decided to do a sting there Sunday night and arrested everyone in the hotel. There are only about 7 or so rooms, so it's not like you could stay there and not be in the middle of whatever was going on. I didn't see anything in our national newspaper, but I did find this article that said they confiscated a pickup with over $300,000 worth of cocaine inside, but didn't know who it belonged to… and I wouldn't have expected it to end any other way. 

Welcome to Petén!