A Whole House Full!

We are really excited about our discipleship group. Sometimes it's tough because you know all the things they are struggling with… more than you want to know maybe. Seeing God work in their lives though, makes me pay closer attention to my own. I want that to be a constant thing in my life too - growth. Nothing like a discipleship class or having your own kids that makes you constantly have to be honest about where you are at and where God wants to take you!

Another person in our discipleship class (2nd time this has happened Yay!), brought someone who needed Christ to church. The guard at the institute (who trusted Christ last year) called Jimmy one Sunday morning and said that there was a man in the village next door who really wanted to put his faith in Christ. The guard had been talking with him over the course of a couple weeks. (Very cool!) He wanted to know if he could bring him to our discipleship class. Well sure!

After class Jimmy went and visited the man's house. Jimmy wanted to council with him and see if he had any questions. The Holy Spirit had obviously been working in his heart. He wanted to put his faith in Christ and the only thing that was holding him back was that he wanted to make sure that everyone in his family wanted to as well. He didn't want to leave anyone behind. That is very Kekchi, to discuss something like this with your family for hours/days/weeks and then make the decision together. Well he and his wife, 3 daughters and 2 sons were ready to take that step of faith, putting their confidence in Christ for their eternity and beginning their new lives as children of God.

 

They are just the sweetest thing ever! They are smiling in the photo above because Jimmy told them to in Kekchi and they thought it was funny! The mother doesn't speak Spanish (which is pretty common in Kekchi villages), so P (one of the institute students) went with Jimmy to translate. A, the oldest daughter does speak Spanish and I just love her!

 

Domingo (white shirt) happened to be passing through town that night and came to our church service! He is a national missionary we work with very often to help plant churches in unreached villages. He is the president of the institute too. Jimmy presented the family to our church and then Domingo and several of the men prayed over them.

The village this family is from has no church. They ride the truck that brings the students to ours. That truck is packed usually, so very soon we will be sharing news of a new church plant for that village! So thankful for our God and how He does work in our lives! 

CULTURAL ITEM OF THE DAY:

A couple Sundays back we found this when we arrived for our discipleship class that morning.

 That is our church building on the left. The whole street was blocked off and there were about a dozen large speakers behind that stack of tables. In Guatemala you take whatever number of speakers would suffice and then multiply that number by 10 and that's how many speakers you need.

 The neighbors across the street are very nice. Jimmy went to ask them what hours their party would be, just so we could make other plans for our evening service. The man said that the party would start at 1:00 and last for about 2 hours. He said, "We don't want to hinder anything the Lord is doing, so we will be done before your church service starts."

I know we are the crazy ones here. Have we learned nothing after 8 years. Did we really believe that a street party in Guatemala would last for 2 hours... seriously I am embarrassed.

Well when we got there at 6:00 that evening to set up for church, it wasn't even close to wrapping up. I'm surprised we couldn't hear the party from our house.

 

 It was pouring rain. Inside our building you couldn't hear what the person was shouting next to you. You don't know loud music until you come to Guatemala! Their party tent was tied to our gate. The party could not have been any closer. Well... we couldn't do anything but laugh.

 

We had to cancel church, there was no other place we could go to in the rain. But they did give us all cake as we were leaving. I love the sense of community here!