Livin' Our Dreams

San Pancho Church Plant Starting Tonight!!!

2012-01-28T09:43:00.002-07:00

Tonight is the first service for our Kekchi church plant in San Pancho. There are no other Kekchi works there. It is at 6:30. Please pray that it doesn't rain since it will be held outside. Groups from several other Kekchi churches are coming to help out with music and such. There are 2 services tomorrow as well. We mentioned in our newsletter that the first service was going to be last week, but we had to bump it a week. So thank you if you prayed, but please keep praying!!

Working Together

2012-01-26T08:28:00.002-07:00

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 outrea

ch Jimmy and Elias 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!

Today Was the Day

2012-01-23T09:55:00.002-07:00

Today was the day in my pregnancy that I gave birth to the boys... so glad Eden is staying put for a little longer!!

We were flipping through photos this morning of the boys at 32 weeks thinking about what she looks like now. The boys were almost 4.5 pounds when they were born. That is pretty good for 32 weeks.

This is a 3D photo of her back at 29 weeks:

She has her knees up at her chin and her hand in front of her nose. You can see her eyes and a dimple though... all my kids have dimples! We move to Guatemala City in 3 weeks. Please pray that she stays snug inside until then. She also needs to move since she is currently breeched.

Under Construction!

2012-01-20T12:57:00.016-07:00

We have had a construction team here for the last 10 days. They flew home this morning. I have so much to share. They were from a supporting church of ours in Topeka, KS and have visited several times now. They are 100% behind the Kekchi pastors' institute (KBI) and we appreciate all that they have invested in it.

This is the view of the main entrance from the main road. The classrooms will be a rectangular building in the front, with an entrance on either side.

The first 3 days the team built a house for our guard, Manuel.
{Silas sitting inside the house}
{Matt & Pastor Time cutting wood for the doors.}
{Clint and Dan working on a door.}
This is Manuel! He has proven himself to be a great worker so far. We are very happy with him. Jimmy even gave him a raise after all the extra construction work he did even though that wasn't part of his job. He is a Christian and from a village, 2 villages past the institute. He is a single man and his mom brings him meals... so sweet!
Jimmy hired some Kekchi men to cut the wood boards out of the jungle for the house. They do it free-hand with a chainsaw. I think they are very talented! The tree in the above picture is where they got most of the wood. We have a lot of stump pieces left over that we will buy from the institute and use at our house for tables.

{Silas & Jonah love construction sites!}

Everything has already been surveyed and marked for the student housing as well. It will be behind the classrooms with nice neat dirt roads. We might even put up street signs named after the churches (Kekchi & Gringo) who helped!

{The foundation for the classrooms}

Unfortunately the rest of their time here wasn't very glamorous. They did a lot of filling in of the foundation, hauling block, and other stuff that isn't that rewarding in this much heat!

They built the forms for the foundation for the posts.

They worked hard! We really appreciate it. They have taken ownership of this institute. Beyond the work they did even, their presence and involvement during this phase was very important. It went a long way with the Kekchi pastors. I will share more about that later.

We just loved having them here. They are so encouraging to be around and really get the long term vision for the institute. We were blessed these past 2 weeks in so many ways.

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: We found this on the road close to the Kekchi land. It was a fresh kill by a truck tire.

Been Green #7: Twin Big Boy Beds!

2012-01-14T09:56:00.003-07:00

I probably would have kept them in their cribs longer, but there is no way we were going to own 3 cribs, and Jonah and Silas needed to transition into big boy beds so that Eden could have one of theirs in March. They were ready for big boy beds, I was the one that wasn't. Thanks to the super heavy duty cribs that their daddy built them they could have lasted in them a while longer. They didn't have the thin slats that you can rap your toes around and climb out of, so we never had issues like that. With all the bouncing and jumping they did together, I don't think a regular store bought one would have lasted a year with these monkeys!

I showed Jimmy a picture of what I wanted and he built 2 beds for me! I am so thankful for all the nice things he builds for us. I asked for large bolts and he made that happen too! I didn't want any headboards, so that they could feel connected.

I was having a little anxiety about the transition. I wanted them to have beds in the same spot as their cribs... in this house before we moved, so they wouldn't get new beds and a new room... and before Eden got here, so they wouldn't associate the change with her.

We made the swap on Christmas day before nap time. The whole thing was quite exciting to them! For a while I think they thought we swapped their beds for 2 play tables!

Once we got the mattress and sheets on them they realized it was like Mommy & Daddy's bed... that we wrestle and have pillow fights on = Party all the time!

They bounced around between the 2 beds for a while.
At first it looked like they had decided to switch spots...
but that only lasted until about 10 minutes into their nap time. They couldn't stand it, they had to switch back.

{Their first nap time!}

Until this point I had been insistent on there not being as much as a bumper in their crib. I was afraid of suffocation. I just dressed them warm if we were somewhere cold. They have never slept with a blanket, a pillow, or a plush toy. Once they got older if we ever gave them a stuffed animal they would launch it out of their cribs, so I guess they didn't mind... they had a brother to keep them company.

With their beds we presented it to them with pillows, a quilt, and monkeys from Becca. They accepted it all... but the monkeys have to sleep in the crack though!

Their quilts were the first ones I ever made. It was literally blood, sweat, and tears! I used this tutorial and had to use a lot of plan C and D's in order to make it work with what I had... but I finished them, and I love them! There is no way I would be able to find bedding down here that I liked, especially 2, that were similar but different. I wanted fluffy batting so it would be nice and comfy (which is good since that is all I could find!). The batting wouldn't fit through my machine, so I ended up tying them. Thankfully my friend Holly loaned me the largest embroidery hoop I have ever seen to be able to tie them. She saved the day... I was at a very low point by then and ready to chuck it all. I really like the look of the back of them.

{It is with red yarn, so it's hard to see in a photo}

As you can tell from the photo above, Silas chose the gray and red and Jonah the blue and red. They know whose is whose and I like that! The transition was incredibly smooth, not the traumatic event I was expecting at all!

Here are some other things we made/put together for them for Christmas... I say "we" because Jimmy diligently helped me scavenger all the pieces!

Stick horses:

I got the tutorial from here. I think their favorite part of these is that they jingle when they ride them.

{Silas riding his horsy}

Grandma & G-Dawg sent guns, holsters, and sheriff badges to complete the outfit. I made the vest from a pattern downloaded here. Mine are out of suede like material though since my boys would rip felt apart at this age.

They love the guns, but I don't think they understand the vest/sherif badges quite yet. I thought they would get it from watching Veggietales' "Moe and the Big Exit", but maybe soon.

We bought the leather tool holder part from the hardware store and then made the belts with their favorite claps on them... they love snapping them for some reason. We found the toy tools in Guatemala City and then Jimmy had some dummy keys made for them complete with a whistle keychain... like all toddlers, they LOVE keys!

{Jonah loading his tool belt}

They got some regular toys too, but I hope these will inspire imaginary play. We hope to add to the collection each year.

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: This is what Jonah and Silas were doing when they woke up from their nap one day. Because of our night night routine they think that after you sing a song you are always supposed to pray! I didn't realize it at the time, but it was one of their last nap times in their cribs. I am so thankful I got it on video!

An Awesome National Youth Team

2012-01-09T21:02:00.012-07:00

December 26th a Guatemalan Youth Group travelled 18 hours by bus for a missions trip to Petén. Luis Batc is the pastor of a Spanish-speaking church in the mountains. While we were in language school we hosted our first group (a medical team) and took them to Huehuetenango to help Luis start two missions out of his church. 6 months ago he contacted us about bringing his teens to Petén to "expand their vision."

They had choreographed their wordless skits to music (actually youtube videos played off of their phones into our speaker) and even matched their clothes to the parts in one of the skits.

Because these were "city kids" it was amazing to see how similar this group was to our US teens that visit. There were lots of digital cameras. They had never seen a thatched roof before. They thought the food was weird, but congratulated themselves on choking it all down. They had to speak through translators...

They arrived on Monday and on Tuesday we set out for two villages. The first was Ebenezer (a town neighboring the town that neighbors our institute land) and the second town was San José Pinares. San José is where we will be starting a church with Elías in February. In each village they performed their two skits, sang songs in Kekchi, two teens gave testimonies, and Pastor Luis led a presentation with the Evange-Cube on the Gospel.

{Pastor Luis is in blue and Elías is in orange, translating}

While he was talking, each team member also had a cube and would stand in front of a group of people so they could see better.

Wednesday I sent them to see Tikal while I had a Kekchi Pastors meeting in Sayaxché. Thursday we went driving to the villages of Mojarra 28 and Río San Pedro with a lunch break in between in San Miguel Alto Uno. They were able to see several different areas of Petén and meet many Kekchi people who share a common trait in that there isn't a church in their village.

Next week we are going back to San José and Mojarra 28 to show movies and have a follow-up service. In each village there are two families that want to accept Christ the next time we come. Pray for those outreaches and the missions that will be started in those villages this year.

{Silas, Shelley, Lucía, & Luki}

We are so thankful for pastor Luis and his wife Lucía. Their passion to serve God is very inspiring to us. We love being around them! We were honored to have them come.

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: Shelley would like for me to travel with a shovel always in my back pocket so that I can bring her back any interesting plant I might find along the way. I have gotten really good at finding orchids and air plants growing on the sides of trees in the jungle and I can get those with my pocket knife. Luki, one of the adults from the Huehue church and Lucía, Luis' wife, were both very thankful for my scavenging skills as they wanted some free, living souvenirs from Petén. And orchids are easier to get out of a tree than a monkey!

We Found a Place to Stay!

2012-01-05T06:00:00.001-07:00

Jimmy has been searching for months. We needed a place to stay in the capital for the last month of the pregnancy since that is where I will be giving birth. It is difficult to find places to rent for shorter than 6 months unless it is a vacation home and those places are very expensive. Jimmy found this place after searching for corporate housing. They let you pay by the day and water, electricity, phone, and internet are free (well... included).

It is gated, inside a gated community. It is surrounded by beautiful walking paths and even a little brook. AND it is 20 minutes from the hospital where I will be giving birth!

The owner is a Christian and showed us around. He was so kind. He has answered the phone each time we have called (even at 9:30pm), so I think he takes a lot of pride in the place and it shows. It is SO clean!

All the apartments are the same. The living room, dining room and kitchen are nice and open. The kitchen is actually furnished, so I will not have to bring very many things to cook with. It does not have a real stove/oven, but the owner said it would be no problem to bring in one for us.

It has 3 bedrooms (my Mom and maybe some other special guests will be coming for part of the time we are there!) and each have closets with plenty of space.

All the beds have drawers underneath too. We may ask to have the bottom of the bed taken out for J&S' room since falling out of a bed this high would really hurt!

The master bath has a bathtub for the boys!!!

And here is my very favorite part...

Look... isn't it wonderful!

The tap water is all purified and they have hot water even in the kitchen. It is a lot nicer than our rental house haha! The owner said they have lots of church groups stay there and even Michael W Smith and the Barlow Girls have stayed there when they were in town for a concert... pretty cool random fact!

This is a big answer to prayer. Last month we were pretty discouraged about finding a place and didn't even find this one until about 13 hours before we left for this trip. We are just so thankful.

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: When we pulled into the hotel parking lot in Guatemala City the guard had a ski jacket on and a scarf around his face... it scared me. We had been in the truck all day with controlled temperatures. Then I looked at the thermometer and I got even more scared...

Guate is a different world from Petén.

Family Traditions #9: Christmas 2011

2012-01-03T08:47:00.000-07:00

"Family traditions give identity and belonging to each member." - James Dobson

Like November is a month long celebration of thanksgiving to our God, December is a month long celebration of our Savior's birth. This year was even more fun than last because the boys are really starting to pick up on the Christmas story. We only get a short time to instill in them the truths on which we base our lives before they decide for themselves what they want to embrace for their own. These holidays provide a wonderful opportunity for this. For that reason we are very picky about what we choose to include as part of our Christmas.

Here are the traditions we started last year:

1. Decorate the Tree Together by December 1: We lit the pine scented candle Kiki shipped us, poured the ponche and turned on the Christmas music. I wasn't sure if the boys would ever be interested in decorating our tree, but they found it rather entertaining at least for a while this year. They loved pointing out our photo ornaments and finding their tractors.

{Silas helping Daddy with the tree}

They aren't normally allowed in the the living room since there are cords and a fan, so that helped add to the excitement.

Soon they moved on to other fun things like taking turns rocking each other in the chair.

It ended up being something we all shared together. It surprised me since I had low expectations for 2, 2 year old little boys. This was taken right before bedtime. Jimmy and I finished after the boys fell sleep.

2. Ornaments as Souvenirs: We had several to add to our collection this year because of our furlough. These 2 were my favorite.

{The spot where Jimmy proposed that we got to revisit close to our anniversary.}

{From our first trip to the zoo with the boys!}

3. Soccer Socks for Stockings:

{The boys with their stockings on Christmas morning}

4. ~~Nance Garland~~ Homemade Garland: This Guatemalan tradition must be a mountains thing here because I never found nances this year except for on the way home from Guate, which still didn't help since they wouldn't make it through the fruit check point after entering Petén. Instead of nances though, Becca made us a beautiful garland while she was here.

She made the letters from scratch. They are sparkly and I love sparkles at Christmas time!

Each year when we hang it we will think of Becca!

5. Ponche: This is one Guatemalan tradition that we can keep. Jimmy even made some from scratch this year. (Usually we buy the prepackaged dried fruit and sugar cane to boil). Jimmy has been making at least a batch a week since the beginning of November. We love this stuff!

Domingo gave us some sugar cane plants that are now growing at our forever house.

Maybe we can harvest our own next year!

6. Fireworks on Christmas Eve: Here in Guatemala, Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) is Christmas. They stay up till midnight and then set off fireworks. Until the boys are a little older we will set ours off before the boys' bedtime.

I think this was the first year that the boys really enjoyed fireworks.

They brought their flashlights from Kiki & Papa outside with them!

Their faces don't look that thrilled in this shot, but I think they were a little shocked after the whole thing. Atzi & Lucha jumped our backdoor gate and were hiding in our house because of all the fireworks in our yard. They are not fans.

7. Open a Family Present on Christmas Eve: In future years when the boys are old enough it will be a game that we can all play together Christmas Eve night. This year they skyped with Papa, Kiki, and their Great Grandma Wootton on Christmas Eve and got to open the presents from them. Part of that present was the flashlights pictured above. They had a blast with those.

8. A Birthday Cake for Jesus: So last year my mom brought down a mix but I didn't have a tube pan. This year I found a tube pan and made Alton Brown's Angel Food cake from scratch. I was super thrilled with how it turned out. It smelled good. I think of scents rising into Heaven as a type of worship. That is how our family meant it. We sang happy birthday to Jesus.

9. Attention to the Little Things the Boys Might Miss from not Being in the States: The smells and sounds of Christmas!

Besides our pine candle which we might each morning during breakfast, this year we did find pine needles. The fire department in San Benito was selling Christmas trees to raise money. The trees were a little sad looking, but Jimmy made a donation to pick up some branches. Next year I will have to use them to make a wreath.

As part of our night night routine we sing out of the hymnals. For December we sing Christmas carols. As part of our nap time routine we sing just fun Christmas song.

{Singing Jingle Bells out of their Christmas song book. Their new stick horses have bells, so that is why Jimmy has the horse.}

10. Our Advent Calendar: We celebrate the coming Messiah all month! These devos break down the Christmas story and why we needed a Savior.

For more about our advent calendar and the verses we do for each day click here.

Each day before the boys' nap read one of our devos and then talk about the ornament. They are pretty short since the boys are 2, but I still think they get a lot from it.

Sometimes we would do it in the morning before Daddy would leave. We both love this time with them.

{Silas looks like he's really reading his Bible!}

Each day Jonah and Silas take turns getting to hang the ornament on the tree.
High five!

11. Serving Together: Since this has been a transition year and we don't have a work up and running in San Pancho or the other villages around the KBI land we didn't have a normal Christmas outreach like a drama or caroling in the past, but hopefully next year we will. We have been enjoying doing evangelistic outreaches as a family.

12. Yearly Family Photo Ornament:

Soon after we decorate our tree, we take a family Christmas photo to send with our ministry update for December. This year Jonah was really in a photo taking mood.

{Kisses for mommy!}

{"I love my brother!"}

{"Where's Eden?"}

{My sweet boys!}

13. The Food: We swapped out french toast for pancakes with crispy edges since Jimmy said that was a Christmas morning tradition he remembered from his childhood.

{Big yawn from Silas!}

We remembered this year and bought 2 turkeys at Thanksgiving so that we would have one for Christmas. Last year the grocery store in SE didn't restock at all during the month of December. This year we planned ahead and had a delicious Christmas dinner!

We had turkey, stuffing, green beans, and cranberry sauce (I found some in Guate on this last trip). Christmas morning must have worn Silas out because he almost went face first into his stuffing he was so sleepy.

Another Christmas food that we have found here are mixed nuts. I keep them on the table all month and Jimmy cracks a few for us after each meal.

We added 2 new traditions this year:

14: Making Cookies: This was the first time we ever made cookies with the boys. We would give them a ball of dough and they quickly caught on to patting it out, using cookie cutters, and their favorite part - sprinkles!

They really liked it. When I was packing up all of our Christmas stuff in the living room the other day, Silas saw the bag of cookie cutters and immediately took them into the kitchen... since that is where you use them!

I remember making sugar cookies with my grandma and the other grandkids each year. I cherish those memories. I know my boys might grow out of this, but I am going to enjoy it while it lasts!

{Their little works of art!}

15: A Hands on Nativity: When the boys are old enough I want to start making some nativity scenes with them. This year we used a felt one as a manipulative that really helped them learn the Christmas story.

We tried to do it every day. By the end of December they could identify each of the characters as I told them the story.

We had a great month of celebrating the birth of our Savior! We pray that all of you had a wonderful Christmas as well.

Policewomen, Poachers and Prayers

2011-12-30T21:11:00.007-07:00

Friday afternoon at 4pm I (Jimmy) was supposed to meet with the entire town that has been stealing wood from the Institute's property. They have been becoming more and more abusive and this week started showing up with pickup trucks and guns so that they could haul more wood and the guard would not approach. By the time the police would finally arrive, the wood had been hidden. Through all of this, you would think they would have been ashamed or felt guilty, but instead they turned angry at us for trying to stop them. So the mayor came to ask me to a meeting so that the town could tell me why they were going to keep stealing my wood.

Naturally, I wanted the authorities to be there with me. I have been on good terms with the police department through all of this, so I knew they would go with me, but because of the new administrations in the various levels of government that will be taking office over the next couple of days, that was the only support I got. Elías and I went together, followed by a police truck with 8 officers inside. As we were loading up at the station for them to follow me, the officer in charge asked me again what village we were going to. I told her and she told everybody to go back inside and get the machine guns, just in case. That's not something you want to hear.

We arrived early and the mayor got on the loud speaker to tell everybody to hurry up and get to the school. The police officers pulled me aside again and told me that I needed to be very careful about what I said because these people were very hard-headed and very unified. They told me that things could quickly get out of hand and they may not be able to stop it. I told them that I knew things might get out of hand and that's why I had invited them in the first place. She assured me that they were there to back me up, but as we were having this conversation they were turning their truck around so that it pointed to the exit...

While this is going on the mayor is announcing on the loud speaker that "the gringo is here and he must be more important than the president to have all of these body guards and ha ha ha does he think we're going to kill somebody ha ha ha everybody hurry up and get here..." He was intentionally inciting the people against me for about 15 minutes.

Therefore when everybody was there and gathered on the basketball court (in the sun they said where I would have to sweat like them instead of hiding in the shadows where the mayor knew I wanted to be), instead of letting them start the conversation, I started right in telling everybody how thankful I was that they had come. I apologized for taking so long to call this meeting and that I felt because of my delay there had been a lot of confusion and misinterpretation. I then told them that what they had been used to had changed concerning the property, that I was now the legal owner and had full rights to the property, but that I would be the best neighbor they could have. I explained the purpose of the Institute and that it was not for personal gain. I explained the benefits to the community concerning our future improvements to their schools (so that our student's children would have a good place to study) and our collaboration with the water supply and the jobs the various construction projects would create.

Then I explained our need to save the wood on the property for our use, but that I understood their needs as well. Therefore in order to get along we would allow only the people from their village to cut firewood from our land, but only after they reported themselves to our guard so that he could verify they were from the village. If somebody was on the property without permission that would be trespassing and we would call the police. They can take firewood for personal use, but not haul off truckloads to sell. They also have to enter only through our approved entrance and not cut the fence in addition to only cutting firewood during the day.

It seemed they were all in agreement with this. The large trees will not be cut down anymore. If people from the village do try to steal wood, we will cut off the firewood supply from everybody, so in that way they are responsible for policing their own people. I explained our desire for everybody to get along and that if they would forgive me for not having called the meeting sooner then I would forgive them their actions over the last month and we could now all move forward with a better relationship.

After translation and dealing with a few interruptions it took about an hour, but I believe almost everybody was happy and in agreement. The ones not happy will have to answer to the rest of the community and our goal is to not get the police involved any more.

There was a large hoard of people (around 450) during all of this and Elías and I were surrounded on all sides with the police about 50 yards away. The benefit of speaking first kept them from getting all riled up. After all was said and done the mayor became my biggest supporter.

My original plan was to sit in the woods with night vision goggles and a paint ball gun... But as we were sitting there waiting on everybody to arrive and I was steaming thinking about all of these thieves and how blatantly abusive they have been over the past few weeks, Elías whispered to me, "Just think, some day all of these people will be part of the church we start here." It's good to surround yourself with people more spiritual than you so you can keep things in perspective.

Adding to the Church

2011-12-26T12:40:00.014-07:00

After the men cleared the KBI land the other day, Jimmy and Elias went to the village of San José Pinares to show a Gospel film. It is 2 villages down from the KBI land. We are hoping to start a work there since there is none at this time. We had wanted to start one in the village right next to the land, but we are still having lots of problems with the villagers stealing wood and they have made it clear that they hate us. Maybe over time this relationship will improve, but for now it needs lots of prayer.

They had a great turnout that night and one family accepted Christ. One man from that village recently moved there and is a Christian. He asked Jimmy and Elías to please go visit his brother's family in Sayaxché and share with them the Gospel. He said that they have been searching for God. So last Sunday we made the drive out there to hold a little service under their porch.

It was obvious that they the Holy Spirit had been drawing them, they just needed a clear presentation of the Gospel. That afternoon Abelardo and his wife Deysi put their faith in Jesus Christ! If was pretty exciting to get to see.

Afterwards Elías gave them an MP3 player that Louis Powell had sent down loaded with the Kekchi Bible. Jimmy contacted the Kekchi Baptist church there to follow up on them. They won't be part of our church plant from so far away, but they are part of our family now!

The sweet family made us caldo for lunch.

Jonah and Silas chowed down!

My boys are such little flirts, especially Silas... always talking to the girls.

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY:

The other day we heard Jonah and Silas singing together very loudly in the hallway. We looked and they were playing church. Silas had flipped over the tractors to make a podium and was preaching rather passionately with both hands at Jonah who was listening.

Every now and then they would sing a song and then pray. Later Jonah even went to the altar to pray!

Our church services are never in formal settings (usually outside somewhere) and since we got kicked out of Santa Rita we go some place different almost every week. It is so funny to me that they would pick up on all of this. I always make them take their Bibles and tell them we are going to "church", but with all the wrestling they do in our laps during the services I figured they missed all of it... I guess not!

Nesting

2011-12-17T11:13:00.016-07:00

Eden is due in 93 days... yikes! This is what her room looks like right now:

I think she may be living in a pack-n-play in our rental house for a while.

At this point with the boys we unknowingly had 5 more weeks before they would enter the world. Thankfully Eden is right on track though to be a full term baby. Last week we got a great report from my doctor. We got to see a 4D sonogram. He said that she has a beautiful nose! He also commented that this pregnancy could not be going any better, so we are praising the Lord for that!

{Watching her live was a lot more clearer than the printed photo for some reason.}

I have been really enjoying planning Eden's room. I was very uninspired before I knew the sex, but then right after we found out that she is a she I saw these colors:

{Found at Made}

This is the color inspiration for her room. You have to plan things out here since it is a little trickier gathering supplies. Some things I found in Guatemala City, some in Santa Elena, some in our town even, some on the side of the road, and then the rest my mom bubble mailed me. I love the scavenger hunt part of our life.

Jimmy texted me this photo the other day. He bought something from this pile of firewood for about $1.50 that he is making for her room.

I have been learning to do so many new things. This is one of them:

Can you guess what it is?

And this:

These are the one thing that Jimmy has been giving me grief about, granny squares! He thinks they are super ugly! None of the above photos were for bedding, don't worry I know we live in the tropics!

Here is her bedding:

Just the plum color fabric. It will be sheets for her crib. The woven mustardy yellow fabric will be a floor pouf.

This is my old dresser that Jimmy and I have used since we have been married:

I sort of hate it just because it looks so gothic. I have always wanted to fix it up, but just couldn't decide on anything. Since Jimmy and I will have shelves in our new closet I don't think we will need it anymore.

So these are the plans for this old dresser:

It is a great height for a changing table.

These are the plans for her chandelier:

I hope everything turns out like I picture it in my head! We will see... I have a couple of other projects brewing, I just can't stop. My nesting is on overdrive and I have been sewing like a crazy addict. Clothes for Eden is a whole other post! There will be lots more Been Green posts in the near future. The first one will have to be the beautiful efficient sewing space that Jimmy set up for me for my 30 birthday. I never have posted that. It makes every nap time and free 5 minutes count!

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY:

"What does a camel do?"

Bring Your Own Machete Day!

2011-12-15T07:53:00.032-07:00

{Our family on the KBI land}

Two churches sent men to help on Tuesday to start clearing the institute land. The village of Se' Tul (where the radio station is located) sent 8 men and the village where the school's director, Manuel, is from sent 7 men. Domingo, Jimmy and Elías joined also, each with their machetes (Jimmy also brought a bow saw...what a gringo...).

Since Manuel and his wife will be living there permanently we wanted him to choose which plot of land he wanted. The small rectangle next to the main road will be the row of classrooms, the large square will hold 4 students houses each and then each little square will hold a student house as well. The rest of the land will be used for farming projects. Manuel chose the bottom square on the right. That is where the men started clearing first.

{This is what it looked like at the beginning of the day.}

After paying for the meals and the bus trip for all of the men, the price ended being about the same as just hiring 18 men from the village to clear the land for us, but it was very important that these men come and volunteer their time. It is vital that the Kekchi churches here see this Bible Institute as theirs and not as belonging to the white guy. It is true that our supporters gave the money to purchase the land and to buy materials, but in every way that the Kekchi are able to participate, we need to give them that chance. Not only did we get more work done by volunteers committed to the vision, the churches that sent their men now have sweat capital invested in the Institute and will hopefully continue to take responsibility for the project. In 50 years, after we are gone, these churches will still be here and hopefully continuing on with the vision of training Kekchi pastors. The foundation for that vision started today with these men. By the end of the day they had cleared over 35,000 square feet of jungle where we will eventually have roads and the directors' house.

{Taking a break and sharpening machetes. Domingo is in the striped shirt. He is the president of the board of directors}

They chopped down trees with machetes. Not much caution was taken. Several times men would move at the last second just barely avoiding death by falling tree. The other men would laugh. It must be a cultural thing, but we though it was pretty scary.

{Progress by lunch time}

Jimmy arranged for a family in the village that neighbors the land to fix meals for the men. Beans and eggs for breakfast, chicken caldo for lunch and beans and rice for supper.

{Lunch time}

We didn't find out until later that the father of this family was the ringleader for a group of villagers who last month had decided to cross the fence line, cut down our trees, build houses and squat on the land until the government eventually gave it to them. Basically it was a plan to steal our land. In case you think this sounds unlikely to work, the village they live in now used to be part of the land before we bought it that they moved onto and stole. After that the previous owner put a fence around all of his property, but not until after they had stolen 25 acres from him. This is a common tactic among some of the Kekchi. It causes a lot of problems here and is just too much money most of the time to try and get them off once they inhabit it.

{Ladies preparing the food}

You read before that we fired the previous guard, well now we are looking for a new one. He is supposed to start today. Tuesday, Jimmy drove around the property again and found several areas people are still entering the property and stealing wood.

{Barbed wire tied together to be able to re-enter easily}

Not just branches for firewood, but huge 6 and 8 foot diameter trees they are cutting down. To haul it off, they have to cut our barbed wire fence and remove the fence posts to drive their trucks in.

{This was the second time within a 10 minute interval that Jimmy had to close this fence. It is really blatant}

Wednesday, Elías and Domingo were at the land with a chain saw cutting up the rest of the trees that had been felled and setting them aside for firewood. One of the villagers came by and told them to give him one of the stumps. Domingo said no, that they were going to be using it. He said, "Oh, you're not going to give it to me. Ok." Then he walked over, picked up the stump and took it home.

So yesterday Jimmy and Elías went to the police department in San Pancho to ask about driving by a few times a day, just as a deterrent to wood thieves. Here, to get the police to investigate something for you, you have to pay for their gasoline. If you have them do too much, eventually they will ask you to buy them new tires. I don't know for sure, but I would imagine if they shoot somebody for you you would also have to reimburse them for their bullets... but whatever. They were not too interested in helping us but said if we catch somebody in the act of stealing wood, to call them and they would try and get there in time (8 minutes from their police station).

Please pray that the new guard will be at least a deterrent. Soon there will be students living on the property along with lots of projects going on, therefore many more things to steal. This is a problem that has to be addressed before it gets even worse. We were hoping to start a work in this village right away, but they pretty much hate us right now since we are taking over their free wood farm. We were invited into the village on the other side of them and have already held an outreach that I will share about later.

The KBI land is full of all kinds of goodies. We are trying to preserve as many of the trees as possible.

The sap from this tree obviously has been harvested a few times already. It is called Copal (or Pom in Kekchi). It is worth about $2 a pound. It is used as incense for Mayan witchcraft ceremonies and by the Catholic church in place of frankincense.

As our family was walking through it the other day Jimmy was finding all kinds of air plants, vines and other goodies to replant on our forever house land. I love walking through and seeing all of the beautiful things that God made just growing wild.

There are even lots of monkeys on the land. That large black blob hanging on to the tree in the middle of this photo is one of them. There will be plenty of virgin jungle left for them to reside in.

Becca, the boys, and I all stopped by Tuesday to see the progress. It was a muddy mess, so we stopped at the hardware store for Becca to buy rain boots. I don't think there is a man in Petén that doesn't own a black pair of these. Becca bought white which is what all the dairy farmers wear. So we enjoyed giving her a hard time about that!

So here is the progress from the first land clearing day:

{Before}

{After}

{Before}

{After}

Luis & Mayumi's Wedding

2011-12-12T14:45:00.001-07:00

We were invited to be a part of the civil ceremony Saturday night for our friends, Luis and Mayumi. (In Guatemala you have to be married by a lawyer.) It was a real honor for us since their friendship means so much to us. Luis owns a tour bus company. Jimmy originally met Luis when he hired him to transport our first team back in '07 and they have been friends ever since.

Mayumi and Luis have two beautiful little girls, Daivery and Fernanda. They have made it a point for us to be involved in their childrens' lives. They decided that in order to be good examples to their girls, they themselves needed to get married. I'm thankful that they love their children that much. Mayumi is a wonderful mother and has a very sensitive heart for the things of God. Luis has helped us so many times since we have moved to Petén. We are very thankful for all that he has done for us over the years. Obviously our constant prayer is that one day Luis would put his own faith in Jesus Christ. He knows that we desire that since Jimmy and he have had many conversations about it, so I think it is ok to share that here.

Since our part in the ceremony involved us actually sitting up front next to the Bride and Groom during the ceremony it really was not possible to take 2 'always on the move' 2 year old boys with us. Becca was so kind to take care of Jonah and Silas for us. They absolutely love her!

{Ever since they got blocks for their first birthday they have been certain that you must wear hard hats while playing with them!}

It was held at Luis' mom's restaurant. This was the entrance.

Everything was beautiful!

This was the table where we sat for the ceremony. The lawyer and the county clerk sat under the arch and Luis and Mayumi sat facing them. I sat next to Mayumi and Jimmy sat next to Luis. They were read the law and then they exchanged rings and signed the big county book. Afterwards we all signed too.

{This photo was taken before the ceremony}

{Luis' mom about to hug him!}

{Luis smiles a lot more in real life than in pictures!}

After the ceremony they served a delicious meal of roasted chicken, rice and some salad, that I am going to try and get the recipe for.

We had a wonderful time and really love Luis, Mayumi, and their beautiful family. Please join us in praying for their family.

Where To Live?...

2011-12-10T07:21:00.014-07:00

Becca brought down the new point and click camera that Jimmy ordered for me. I really like it so far, but I still need to read about it to use it properly. It takes HD video too, so lots more videos of my boys!

We did a couple of errands while Becca was in the city with us. She was able to see some of what is available there which will be helpful to her when she is packing to move here.

One of the things we accomplished while we were there was narrowing down our housing options for when we live there for the last month of the pregnancy. We thought the professional options might be better than the private ones, so those were the ones we were looking at this trip.

Well... they were not exactly what we had in mind. They didn't completely match the photos online, but that might be based on what was available to show us at the time. We only looked at two, since we are very specific about location due to safety.

The first one was nice enough, but the kitchen was a real eye opener for me. I really do not want my family eating out for a month, for financial reasons AND for health reasons. We have limited space on what we can bring with us, so I really don't want to pack up all of my kitchen and strap it to the roof of our truck for the ride to the capital. There was really nothing in this furnished kitchen. It was a lot more rough than this picture shows.

The rest of the apartment looked very nice.

The real deal breaker though was the best part of the apartment...

All of the bedrooms were upstairs and this was the staircase! It is fabulous! But not ideal or even possible with 2 two year olds... or a 9 month pregnant mommy.

The next placed looked more hopeful from the outside and lobby.

The bathroom was cute and had a tub for the boys!

But this was the deal breaker...

A dorm room kitchen! None of the units have ovens.

So on our next trip In January we hope to look at a couple privately owned options and find something with a real kitchen and even a washing machine. Please pray we can find something that will work for our family. The private ones are cheaper and they actually look nicer online, but we will see...

Becca is Here!

2011-12-09T22:11:00.003-07:00

{Silas & his camera smile}

We are so thankful that Becca has come for a 2 week visit! The boys were so excited to see her when they woke up from their nap yesterday in the hotel room! We were in the capital for a doctor's appointment and were able to bring her back to Petén with us. Besides spending her time off of work and school with us, she let us have over half of her luggage weight and my mom sent all kinds of goodies for us, Eden and the boys. This will be a fun 2 weeks!

We Bought Land For KBI

2011-12-04T17:47:00.000-07:00

Since July we have been looking for a suitable property to purchase for our Kekchi Pastor's Bible Institute. We had a checklist of things we wanted:

1. Around 150 acres- this is suitable for our planned agricultural projects in which we will train the men and provide an income source for the Institute and an income source the men can take with them once they move to a remote village.

2. Easy access- as a different teacher will be arriving each day it needed to be on a major road so that they can arrive on public transportation.

3. Access to water

4. Access to electricity

5. Close to a populated area so that the children of our students would have access to school.

6. Within 10 minutes of our new house.

Finding 150 acres for sale was an easy feat, but after looking at 10 different properties, not one of them had even two of the above list. Finally, in September I was shown a piece of property owned by the former Mayor of our town. He just won a spot in Congress recently and did not see a long term use for his land. It is 180 acres, 8 minutes from our house, on a main dirt road we have travelled many times to get back to many unreached Kekchi villages.

It is right next to a Kekchi village (no churches but several witches) that has a well, maintained by the county, to which we will have access to. There is also an elementary school and high school in that village the children from the Institute will be able to attend.

{Village on left of this road and KBI land is on right}

We have started the purchasing process, and while it is technically ours to begin development, we won't have the official deed for another 2 weeks. A side benefit to this land is the presence of many large trees on the property that can and will be used in the construction of the student housing.

Last week I went with an engineer and his surveying team to mark off our plan for the roads, student housing areas and school building, basically the whole populated area. The county has pledged to gravel our roads once we clear the trees out of the way and to run the water lines for us. Having close ties to the major political figure who owned the land has brought many benefits.

Because the land is larger than we had intended to purchase, the price was also higher. We will be using 40 acres for the development of several projects, the largest one being Teak trees. There is a program here in Petén whereby an outside group pays you for a 5 year term to plant Teak and maintain the trees. They in turn pay you a yearly lease on your property. Through this project, our first year's payment will be enough to pay off the remaining balance of the land.

Now that the land is marked off I will be working with the existing Kekchi churches here who have pledged to help us clear the land. There will be lots of machetes, chain saws, bon fires and turkey soup in my immediate future. A new church we visited on our last furlough recently gave us half of the money needed for the school building, so very soon we will be breaking ground on that project as well. After the school building is completed there will be many more expenses as we begin building houses and chicken coops and digging Tilapia ponds.

Thank you for praying for this project and please continue to do so. We are just so encouraged by how quickly this is all coming to pass. God is just bringing things about, like money to buy the property and funds for the construction. We really can really see God's hand on all of this. Thank you to everyone who has been contributing through funds and prayers!

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: The previous owner of the property was paying a guard to keep up the fence post, chop the grass along the main road, and keep people from trespassing and stealing wood. Since none of those jobs were being accomplished I had plans to fire him. While I was there with the surveyors I saw some older kids come from under the barbed wire and leave our land. It just so happened that the guard called me right as that happened and asked me if I was going to keep him on as the guard. I explained to him what I had just seen and asked why there were trespassers on our land if he was guarding it. He immediately responded like it was an obvious answer, "They don't have outhouses so people from the village poop in your woods." Oh great. Good job. I can't believe I missed that. He no longer works for us.

Jimmy Asked Me On a Date!

2011-12-01T09:41:00.002-07:00

Since the boys have been born, if Grandparents were not visiting, one of us has been with them. I think it is great, we all have a really strong bond after the first 2 years. Well Jimmy had the idea of asking Benj's sister, Kendra, (the couple that came over for Thanksgiving) if she would babysit the boys. She is studying to be a nurse and the boys really love her.

Jimmy worked everything out and last Saturday he asked me on a date! We had dinner at Las Puertas. It feels like I'm missing an appendage when I'm without the boys, but we really enjoyed our time together. It was like when we were dating. We both were a little nervous and dressed up for our date. It was so much fun!

Afterwards we went to our favorite hardware store to pick out Jimmy's Christmas present. Then... Jimmy did something I couldn't believe. He took me to my fabric store, the only fabric store I will shop at in Petén. I didn't even ask, he just told me we were going. It is the most wonderful place. I went to a fabric store when I was back in the States and it hurt to even read the prices. Fabric here is so much cheaper and wider. This particular store is full of polite workers too, who show you books of example fabrics and cut your fabric choices for you right away.

I got a photo for proof he was there! This store has recently moved and the only way I knew to get to it was a creepy path through all the taxis and buses. I usually get harassed as I walk through there and I really just dread that route. Well Jimmy helped me find another path at a different entrance. I wish you all could visit the market one time. Corn mazes in KS have nothing on the indoor market in Santa Elena. I really should drop crumbs as I walk through there to make sure I can get out! I am so directionally challenged.

Jimmy was taking me to pick out one of Jonah and Silas' Christmas presents. Jimmy is building them "big boy beds" and I am making their bedding. Their comforters are going to be striped. Silas' will be red and blue striped and Jonah's red and gray. They really like having their own stuff... similar things, but things that they can differentiate whose is whose.

On the drive we saw some guys with baskets on the side of the road. I have been trying to find these for months. All the beautiful handmade practical household items get taken to villages to sell rather than to the market or artisan shops. We just got lucky because these guys were waiting on a micro to take them back into the jungle. We got 3 large baskets for dirty laundry to place in the bedrooms and some smaller baskets for my pantry (The boys had already stollen some in this picture. The small ones are perfect for their little barn animals.) They are made in Coban. I just really appreciate the artistry many people have in this country.

They are about a tenth of the price as something similar would be in the States anyway, but Jimmy was bartering with them of course. He added everything up in his head, gave himself a bulk discount and then made the offer to they guys. They were thrilled to sell some stuff before they even got to their destination, so they said "yes!" I could tell they were still trying to add up all the actual prices in their head to make sure they were making money after they said yes, so we waited. Finally one of them got out their cellphone and added up all the stuff. Then he confidently smiled and said "yes" again. That made me feel better. We were all happy.

We had a great time together, just moseying around town and talking. We will probably try to do this every couple months. The boys had a blast with Kendra. We are so thankful for her. I felt very comfortable leaving the boys in her care. I was a little worried about THEIR behavior though. I wasn't sure if they would take advantage of someone who didn't know all of their boundaries. She said they were sweet and offered to babysit again without us asking, so hopefully that means they weren't too naughty!

A Pregnant Lady's Love Language

2011-11-30T06:27:00.000-07:00

Jimmy makes s'mores for me nearly every night over the open flame of our gas stove! My other latest craving is ham and mashed potatoes. I makes those for him about twice a week now.

Our little Eden is 24 weeks!

Our New Church Planting Team!

2011-11-29T06:54:00.001-07:00

We met Elias when Domingo introduced him to us suggesting that we hire him as our Kekchi tutor. We did, almost 6 months ago. We have since become good friends with his family. Elias speaks Kekchi and Spanish. He has pastored before in several churches that were struggling. He helps them get back on their feet and then hands it off to a permanent pastor. The majority of the time he is an elementary school teacher. That is how he provides for his family. He was living in Dolores which is about 40 minutes from our house. Once we started telling him about wanting to start a Kekchi work in San Pancho, our soon to be new home town, he became very interested in helping. In a matter of months, he got a transfer with the ministry of education for the following school year (begins in Jan '12) to San Pancho and made plans to move his family.

The plan was that we would be living in San Pancho first, but he beat us! He already found a house. Jimmy helped him look. They looked together for a house that would be in a good location and large enough to start having meetings on the patio.

This house is perfect! They moved in about 2 weeks ago. Elias likes to tease me that he made it to San Pancho before I did! It really isn't that funny to me;)

This is what our visitation looks like! It is the outskirts of San Pancho... where most of the Kekchi people live. It is where we live too... the nice quiet part (where we will live... one day). The first family we visited was a contact we had made from New Horizon. They have family members there. They were very friendly, but unfortunately they will be moving to another town in a couple weeks. I was disappointed, but I know it is very slow at first when you start from scratch. Well, a couple days later, the wife visited Elias and Ana in their home. She told them about other family members and friends she had all around San Pancho and how she wanted them to go and find them to get them to visit this new church. What a great contact after all!

We do not have a start date yet. We are still looking around trying to find and meet all the Kekchi people scattered around. Please pray for our team!

We also want to work together in a town on the other side of Santa Rita in La Libertad that has called into the Kekchi radio station asking for someone to come to their area to start a church. It has both Kekchi and Spanish speaking people. We were supposed to have our first outreach in that village yesterday, but there was a manifestation by the micro (bus) drivers and all the roads were blocked.

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: Out of our 3 dogs, Lucha is the best with the boys. Fije avoids them as much as possible, Atzi is a spaz and knocks them over all the time, but Lucha is very gentle and just lets them pet her. Lately we have been letting her come into the hallway so the boys can be around just her. For some reason they just started noticing her nub... you know the funny looking chopped off Boxer tail. They think it is hilarious. They point and giggle when she wags it while they pet her.

Lucha doesn't mind. She loves the attention!

Family Traditions #8: Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-27T06:45:00.001-07:00

"Family traditions give identity and belonging to each member." - James Dobson

1. A Month of Thanksgiving: I think Thanksgiving just might be our favorite holiday. We celebrate it all month long! I love how it is a chance to look back and be reminded of God's faithfulness. I used to think Christmas overshadowed Thanksgiving, but now I think it gets lost in the midst of Halloween decorations and Black Friday advertisements. Here it is a lot easier to tune those things out.

{Real fall leafs are better, but in Petén these will do}

November is a chance to really get a heart of worship before we celebrate Christ's birth in December. So no decorating or Christmas music until after we celebrate Thanksgiving!

This is my same corn husk wreath from last year. I decided to embrace the effects of humidity. It curls the husks nicely. I just rotate it clockwise a little each morning to keep it even all the way around. Wish that worked for my hair.

2. Memory Candle: For the month of November we start off each morning with our memory candle on the breakfast table.

It smells like pumpkin and thankfulness! I shared about our candle here and how it reminds us of a very special Thanksgiving and God's faithfulness to us at that time. Over breakfast we reminisce over the year and share the things we are thankful for. Lots of times during stages in life you get to the end of a story, but never go back to look at how God work all through it. This gives us a chance to reflect and do that. It really grounds us in our faith and helps us renew our perspective for the next 12 months.

3. Growing Our Own Pumpkins: This was the first year Jimmy planted some on our land at our forever house. This is where we will be planting them in the future. Unfortunately when we got our grass plugs we asked the company not to mess with our pumpkins, but they thought they could move the vines. Well that killed our pumpkins.

{This was our pumpkin mound before the incident.}

Next year hopefully we will have a nice neat garden that no one will mess with! Thankfully we found 3 small imported pie pumpkins in Petén mid October. Then when we were in Guate we picked up a large one before they ran out. Yay! We have had 4 pies and have enough frozen pumpkin left to make 6 more!

4. The Food: We toasted pumpkin seeds again this year each time we pureed a pumpkin. The secret is sauteing them in butter, garlic, and salt before you bake them.

Our traditional Thanksgiving Day food like most is turkey, cornbread stuffing, sweet potato casserole, rolls, and pumpkin pie. I wanted to add a cranberry something but still was unsuccessful at finding anything available. A friend of ours who owns a restaurant here made the most incredible cranberry sauce for us one year, but they won't tell me the recipe...

Evidently a tradition that Petén has is running out of sweet potatoes right before Thanksgiving. The same thing happened to me last year and I was able to scrounge up a bunch of tiny ones to make do. This year we ended up paying a taxi driver to drive around to all the markets he knew of around this area to find some... and he did. They were the largest sweet potatoes I have ever seen. Jimmy had to cut them for me.

I had enough pureed sweet potato for a 9x13 pan and that much extra to freeze.

Silas loves watching me use the food processor. He waits and mimics the noise each time I turn it on.

Jimmy made a delicious turkey again this year. We decided that we need to have turkey more than once a year! After all, Jimmy brings down Miracle Whip just for leftover turkey sandwiches.

We invited Holly and Benj over for Thanksgiving Dinner. They live in the same town as us AND are not planning on leaving Guatemala soon... haha! We really enjoy spending time with them. Having them over made the day extra special. They have a son a year older than the boys, a daughter who is within days of Jonah and Silas, and she is pregnant. I hope our kids will be lifelong friends!

My goal this year was a feast without stress and it really was. With Jimmy making the turkey (which he has down to a science) and me doing all my cooking the day before, we really had a relaxing day with family and friends. And we are still enjoying leftovers!

5. Our Thankful Wall: I cannot believe a year later and we still are not in our forever house and writing the things we are thankful for on our chalkboard wall. We used the same substitute as last year. The boys loved the magnetic letters. I don't let them play with them normally because I am afraid the magnets might fall off and they'll swallow one. Well... one magnet off the back of a letter is still missing. I guess that is better than two.

{So I guess you can see the first name we chose for our little girl}

We have so many things that we are thankful for. More than anything I am thankful for the family that God has blessed me with. I love all the moments we share together.

We hope that all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving season as well!

Back to Esfuerzo 2

2011-11-22T09:59:00.015-07:00

Pastor/Doctor Andy called a few months ago and wanted to plan his next trip to Petén. A baptismal service was already planned in Esfuerzo 2 (we visited this village in July for the first outreach there) so Andy decided he could also hold a short clinic on that day. It is so hard to get to that you want to accomplish as much as possible with each trip.

We we went back with the evangelistic team from the States at the end of July, the village had sent horses to carry our stuff, but on the way back made us all ride the horses out. It is a tough 1 hour hike up and down very muddy hills, so the horses are a good idea...if you have a saddle big enough for larger than average Gringo behind. Last time I rode about 15 minutes and decided it was more comfortable to walk instead. I told Shelley that next time I was going to buy my own saddle.

I almost did, but then decided against it at the last minute because Domingo was supposed to be arranging for larger horses from a different town for me and Andy with larger saddles. We arrived to find the pack saddle I was still sore from 3 months later and one regular sized saddle, with no extra large horses. I decided to let Andy ride as he has been having some foot problems for over a year now. The joke was on him because neither of our feet could fit in the stirrups anyways, so he was at the mercy of the bouncing horse ride.

The church from El Pato sent their band with their sound system, who carried their stuff themselves. I still maintain that I was carrying just as much extra weight as them, but mine was around my middle...

Everybody else was spending the night there, so they had no specific time table. We were heading home that afternoon though and knew we didn't want to make that hike (horses or otherwise) in the dark, so we got right to work under the new roof we purchased for this mission. Elías had agreed to come with us too to help Andy translate.

The ladies waited patiently for their turn as Andy saw around 35 adults and 50 children in just a couple hours.

Pastor Carlos also came, as his church is considering supporting Esfuerzo 2 as one of their missions. He plays the concertina and is very good at it.

Two men were baptized this day. So far since the beginning of July, 13 families have accepted Christ in this village. The book that's open in the picture below is a Kekchi hymnal. During the baptisms Domingo was leading everybody on the bank in song.

When we reached the river I joked and asked if there were any crocodiles around. One of the men said seriously that there could be and we should all keep a look out!

For the ride out of the village, from somewhere they had found a second riding saddle and sent me, Andy and Elías out on horseback. Please keep praying for this village and for Domingo who visits every two weeks to hold services.

Forever House #8

2011-11-18T16:00:00.001-07:00

...our journey to rent free living, all the entertainment minus the headaches.

We were supposed to be in this house before the boys' birthday (mid October), but so is life. Then it was before Christmas. Now I hope it is before our little girl gets here in March. A couple days ago we found out that some very dear friends decided to give us $2,000 to help finish our house sooner. Wow! People give sacrificially to our ministry all the time and it is always a blessing because they believe in what God has given us to do here. When someone gives you something personally it is a little bit different, really it is overwhelming. We are just so thankful and really touched that someone would want to do that. This will help us be able to hire more workers to finish our home sooner!

It is so exciting to have our own yard! Jimmy has been moving a lot of our potted plants over to our land and planting them in the ground. The most important plants to me were my Jom trees. I planted them from seeds back around Thanksgiving '08 when our first baby was due. They are sort of my memory trees. It may sound silly, but they are very sentimental to me. I had 4, but 2 didn't survive in pots. 2 were moved to our land which I thought was fitting, since we now have 2 little ones to meet in Heaven. This is what the larger one looked like about 2 days after the move:

Almost all of its leaves had fallen off. I was very worried. But this is what it looks like now:

It survived, along with the other one! Our coffee plant from Huehue that we have had since January '07 made it too!

I didn't realize we had so many potted plants. Our yard doesn't look bare anymore.

Jimmy scattered them all over our yard. I wanted it to look natural, like a tidy jungle!

We also had a man down the street offer us some plants he dug up out of the jungle. This is what the average Guatemalan does. Only upper class folks and silly gringos actually buy stuff from a nursery! (We do it all the time.) We hope to replant some things from the KBI land soon too.

We ordered St Augustine grass plugs several months ago. It was supposed to be done before the boys' birthday so that they could play on their new swing set without traipsing through mud... but that's not how things work around here.

This is what it looked like after they finished planting the little plugs:

This is what it looked like 2 weeks later:

It is filling in quickly. This is one job that came in significantly lower than its original estimate, so that was nice! It has been planted along the sides of our house and the backyard. We are waiting until more of the construction is completed before we do the front yard.

All of the razor wire has been completed along the top of our wall. Remember there is broken glass cemented along the top of the wall as well. We have been broken into more than once, so we hope this will be a deterrent.

Jimmy spent a lot of time cementing down a travertine path from our storage room in the back (which will eventually be a wood shop) to our back porch. We will have a couple of these paths around our yard.

One of our construction workers was helping him mix concrete. Jimmy got him started filling in between the stones and along the edges. Jimmy was using boards so that it would look neat.

Jimmy left and the worker decided to just slap on the concrete to get the job done faster. He covered up a lot of the stones and quit using boards along the side. We came back the next day and it looked horrible!!!! It made me sick to look at, since Jimmy had spent to much time on it. I didn't take a photo because I was disgusted. You can see part of it in the bottom corner of the second grass photo above. So frustrating when you have to be there 24/7 to make sure people are taking pride in their work. So now the worker has to go back and break up the sides and use a wire brush to uncover the stones he concreted over. Jimmy decided to give him one more chance. I don't want anyone trying to provide for their family to lose their job, but I don't like paying them to fix the job they didn't do right the first time. We have other workers who do take pride in their work. Wish they were all like that.

Another update of our creepy hallway that leads to our master bedroom!

Here is an "oops" we found. Our architect changed the the width of the outside door that goes to our carport... the door where we will be carrying armfuls of things like groceries through. We didn't realize it on the plans and then we walked passed it the other day. It is .75 meters, which is a little less than 2.5 feet. The column is already there, but we are going to have to fix this somehow. Not a big deal, but a time eater.

This is our master bedroom. That door leads to our bathroom. This is the side of the house that will get the roof first. We have two roof lines and this is the smaller one. It is a little taller now than this picture... "almost ready for the roof"! (I hear that every day.)

This is the back of our house. The large windows are our master bedroom. One will look out onto the porch and the other to our backyard. I hope we won't have to run our window unit as often at night since we will have large windows we can open.

These are our roofing panels, just chilling on our back porch... waiting... and waiting, hoping to one day be installed.

One thing we will not be waiting before we can move in is power. We have it! This is the main breaker for or entire house. We put in another request for 220 so hopefully that means we will eventually have our own transformer. We have a lot of brown outs right now at our rental house and have to turn off everything to use our shower head water heater. We don't want to have the same types of problems. (My ivy is doing so good!)

We were dreading the end of November coming and honestly were planing on moving into the side of our house that will have a roof first since our lease agreement was up. I know the owners of our rental are ready to move into their home... I can completely relate to that! We had been looking around San Pancho trying to find a temporary rental. The thought of moving a couple months before you have to move again is just yucky, but there were no other options. The owner came over Tuesday evening. She hadn't seen the inside of her house in over 2 years. I really thought she was going to tell us this was it, we had to be out. But... it turns out that her husband was in an accident and out of work. (This is very sad and I truly wish it was not the case. He will heal, no permanent injuries, but still sad.) Right now she needs money more than her house back. Jimmy offered her a little bit more rent money and we can stay for 3 more months!! This was a specific answer to prayer.

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY:

A bird flew into our house right before the owner got there, so the whole time we are talking about being able to stay longer there is this bird flying around our heads. It would follow us from room to room. At one point he got stuck in between the light and the ceiling and started to panic. He ended up being inside our house for about 3 hours. We weren't sure how to get him out. I was afraid a broom would hurt him.

He was a very active little guy. He would sort of dive bomb Jimmy and the boys. Jonah and Silas would duck and giggle. It was great entertainment. Finally we turned off all the lights and Jimmy held a lantern on the porch. He flew towards the light and left. It was fun while it lasted. He was really a beautiful bird.

Medical Clinic in Mojarra 28

2011-11-12T11:39:00.010-07:00

*Please excuse the cell phone photos. My point and click camera bit the dust a couple days ago. I must have worked it too hard!

I shared about how we got the invitation to come into this village here. Andrés, a leader in the village, invited us because he noticed a change in his friend from the village of San Miguel who had become a Christian. This was our first outreach in this white field, a community that has no Gospel witness.

The clinic was held in the school.

The children are learning Spanish and English! You can see the phonetic spelling of the English words written below them. That is what my Kekchi notes look like!
There are 25 families in the village and Doctor Andy was able to see about 120 people that day, so I'd say that was about everyone!

Elias (orange shirt), our Kekchi tutor, came with us and translated from Kekchi to Spanish for Andy. We really like working with Elias!

We are so thankful that Pastor/Doctor Andy was willing to come down and do this clinic. They are always helpful in building relationships with these villages... plus we like the fellowship too!

Please continue to pray for the village of Mojarra 28. Pray that people will come to know the Lord and that soon a mission will be started. Thanks!

Forever House #7: My Kitchen... I Can't Decide.

2011-11-10T08:57:00.007-07:00

I will be posting photos soon of our construction progress, but for now I'm stuck. Is there any other room more important than the kitchen? I have to make a decision in the next 3 weeks.

I love the look of modern rustic spaces with a mix of wood, concrete, and metal. My kitchen is going to have bottom cabinets that will be all drawers. In place of upper cabinetry I opted for a wall of windows. I love natural light and a breeze, who doesn't! So what I can't decide about is a concrete surround. Both will have a separate counter on top. While I love the look of concrete counters, for many reasons they have already been ruled out.

Concrete Surround: The pluses are it will be there forever. Bugs won't eat it. It is a little cheaper. It has an added rustic charm to it.

{found here}

All Wood: I won't be losing drawer space to concrete. It looks clean. Only one person will be working on it, so it might get done sooner and be more precise.

{via Coastal Living}

{found here}

Try to picture this one without all the clutter. It has all drawers and you can see the grain!

So what do you think? Any ideas or opinions? I would love to hear them.

What Happened to My Friend?

2011-11-07T09:00:00.011-07:00

We have mentioned Manuel and his village, San Miguel Alto Uno, many times.

This is Manuel getting baptized in September. He is a leader in his community. He came to know the Lord and since then has surrendered to preach. He has a friend in another village, who also happens to be a leader in his community. His name is Andrés and he is from the unreached Kekchi village of Mojarra Veintiocho. He went to visit his friend Manuel recently.

{The cross around Andrés' neck is a MP3 player that Louis Powell brought down that contains the entire Bible in Kekchi!}

He was surprised to find out that his old friend was now a Christian. He asked him what happened. Manuel said, "Some missionaries named Domingo and Jimmy came to my village and told me about Christ." Andres was very interested in the change in his friend and asked him to send Domingo and Jimmy to his village so that he could learn about Christ too!

Well, Domingo and Jimmy went last week to Mojarra 28. They prayed with Andrés and his family and asked if we could host a medical clinic there. Pastor/Doctor Andy is here this week! He will be in this village tomorrow morning. Please pray that this outreach will open doors to this unreached community. Please pray that very soon Andrés will come to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Giving Birth in Guatemala?!

2011-11-02T15:24:00.017-06:00

We really have to give birth here because it is too expensive to go back to the States. Unless you are part of a large mission agency with a group plan there is really no good insurance out there for missionaries that we have found. With the boys, our international insurance just happened to come up for renewal a couple days before they were born and they said that since we were Stateside on that specific date they could drop us... fabulous. Not sure how we were supposed to give birth in the States without actually physically being there, but it is all part of their shady plan anyway. Since then we looked for insurance just inside Guatemala, but they don't want to cover us either. Thankfully good care here is affordable for us, so that is a blessing.

We still weren't going to give birth here (in the capital, 7 hours from our home) unless we thought it was the very best thing for our baby. Everything looks good and we are on track for a natural (with drugs!), on time birth, but we still wanted to make sure she would have the best care if she ended up being a "Surprise I am entering the world at 32 weeks" baby like Jonah! (Yes, I hold him completely responsible... Silas was snug as a bug in a rug in my tummy and had no intentions of leaving soon.)

My OB/GYN is wonderful, so there were no worries there.

This photo was taken at our appointment today. He spends so much time with us. Baby Dinsmore looks beautiful. She weighs 13oz and I have gained 10 lbs... that doesn't sound right lol! You give me 2 weeks without baby nausea and I more than make up for 3 months of not eating!

She is still a girl! He was looking at her for a long time quietly. I can never tell, but then he said it is definitely a girl! I can feel her move so much more than the boys, but he said that's because there is more space in there this time. She is measuring perfectly.

We saw her face... she looks so sweet. The arrow is pointing at her mouth. You can see her nose and eyes.

Up to this point the hospital my doctor works at had been highly recommended to us and we had read a lot about it as well, but we had never been inside it since we aren't allowed in with the boys. I prayed and asked God to work it out for us to be able to take a tour together. Well, He did!

The Boggs just happened to be here in the capital at the same time. We stay in the same hotel they use and they were very kind and watched the boys for us this morning so that we could take a tour of the maternity ward.

We had several questions that would have been deal breakers, but they passed, haha! I couldn't take photos inside but they have a virtual tour on their website that is exactly what we saw.

It only works through the Spanish part of the site. I'm posting this because I thought our parents might want to see it, so click Maternidad on this page. There are also photos of the rooms at the bottom of this page.

*I wanted to make sure they have a good neonatal care unit and they do. It is right across from where my room would be, so that's good.

*Jimmy can be in the room with me when I'm giving birth. If I need a C-section they said that he is NOT allowed in the operating room. This concerns me greatly, but my doctor will be there and I trust him. We still might push this point with him a little and see if there is any wiggle room.

*We are opting for the middle priced room, it has air conditioning and a fridge with plenty of room.

*After the baby is born they keep it monitored for up to 2 hours to make sure it is maintaining its own body temperature and then after that the baby can stay with you until you are discharged.

*The baby is only permitted to wear sterilized hospital clothes after it is born.

*Only we are allowed to be in the room when the baby is with us. Visitors will have to see the baby through a glass in the nursery. Visitors can come to my room if the baby is not in there.

*Normal birth you get 3 days, 2 nights. Cesarean birth you get 4 days, 3 nights.

On our next trip to the capital we will be finding an apartment to rent for the last month of my pregnancy. We are not excited about this at all, but know it is necessary. Please pray that God will lead us to the best place. I am looking forward to all the activities we can do with the boys, like the zoo and other fun places we have plans to visit. Maybe we will be able to connect with a few missionaries that live here as well. Trying to be positive...

CUTE ITEM OF THE DAY: It's a little chilly here in Guatemala City. The boys get to wear their hoodies which they love! A hat attached to your clothes... does it get any better than that?!? They won't take them off.

A Little Technology in the Jungle Goes a Long Way

2011-10-29T07:01:00.007-06:00

Louis Powell has now been down twice to visit us. We first met him when he tagged along with the group from LifeWord radio ministry last March.

It was then we began planning several more ways to reach Kekchi people, specifically centering on more Bible training for those unable to get training. Louis has designed the T-Box for just this purpose. It is a small speaker box that accepts a micro-SD chip and/or a USB drive. It also is equipped with a radio tuner and it's speaker is loud enough for at least 25 people to hear easily. In November I (Jimmy) will be giving the 22 boxes Louis brought down to the national missionaries here in Petén. They will placing these boxes in villages with men who desire to be pastors but cannot come to our training. We are putting together a Kekchi mp3 library with teaching on various subjects. Every month I will be giving the new month's USB to the national missionaries who will in turn switch them out with the old ones in each village. Each month we will have a new theme and the men can listen to the training in a correspondence course format. You can see a picture of one below (on the left).

However the box above is not only proving training in just one house, it is running a radio station! Louis also brought along this trip a radio transmitter and antennae. Every village we work in is a result of the radio station in the southwest corner of Petén, therefore every village already has a radio presence. Except that last December we helped Mateo Botzok start a church in the city of Poptún, where the big radio station doesn't reach. We began paying for him to be on a local, spanish radio station for one hour each week in Kekchi, and with this his work began to grow quickly.

When Louis mentioned to me about his small radio station I immediately thought of Pastor Mateo and the work in Poptún. Mateo previously worked an even larger Kekchi Baptist radio station for 5 years in another department. With his prior knowledge and good radio voice, we knew that this could be very successful.

On the 18th I took the gear to Mateo's house and we began setting it up for a trial run. 3 hours later we were broadcasting the book of Matthew in Kekchi on 100.1 FM.

{Please excuse the cellphone photos}

Mateo supports his family by working as a carpenter. As such, he had all the tools needed to set up a makeshift tower.

Again, this is just a temporary set up until we build a more fixed tower, but it worked well for testing.

You can see here that it is not very high above his house. After getting it stable and setting up the T-Box to play we began looking for a frequency that was not being used by somebody else. Then we started driving to see how far it would reach. As we drove we would pass Kekchi house after Kekchi house that is currently not involved in the work, but now has the Gospel available to them. With just this short tower we had a range of 2km. At full height we should reach 3 miles or 5km. Beyond that range will be difficult to convince people to walk to church anyways.

The purpose of this is to strengthen the church there. First we will be able to give the current members more Bible training each week. Mateo plans to run the radio for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening. Secondly this will be a great outreach to the Kekchi families that don't know about the church yet. It gives us something to put on flyers and pass out door to door and there is no other form of Kekchi language entertainment besides this radio station. We have a good monopoly in that regard.

Besides having our programs, he also has Kekchi music and the entire Kekchi New Testament already on the T-Box. Pray for Pastor Mateo Botzok as he works with this in addition to his growing church and his carpentry business.

Sunday after church we all gathered inside Mateo's house for prayer to ask God to use this new station.

{Mateo's son, Gamaliel, setting up the radio transmitter}

{Praying for the station}

Family Traditions #7: Happy 2nd Birthday Jonah & Silas!

2011-10-26T08:14:00.002-06:00

"Family traditions give identity and belonging to each member." - James Dobson

Nothing holds Jonah & Silas' attention like books. Because of my baby nausea I spent a lot of the last 3 months snuggled with them on the rug in their room reading books. They listen until I stop. They love flipping through their board books on their own too. I would say books are their favorite toy right now. So I thought we should choose one of their favorite books as a semi-theme for their birthday party. I chose Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell.

This year since our forever house isn't finished and all the families we wanted to invite wouldn't fit in our rental house, we decided to hold the party at the Burger King in Santa Elena. Jonah and Silas giggle with delight when we pull into the parking lot there because they like the jungle gym so much, so we figured they would approve.

We hadn't been there since before we left for furlough. Jonah and Silas have gotten so much bigger and braver. They don't need any help at all getting around this thing. All of us did make sure they didn't fall off though!

Happy 2nd Birthday Jonah and Silas! Your second year of life flew by. You have to slow down from this point on. If you weren't so much fun at this age I would be upset with you for already being 2.

{This is Silas' cheesy camera smile. I pulled Jonah's thumb out of his mouth, so that is why he looks startled.}

This is where Jimmy asked Domingo to say a special prayer, thanking God for our 2 healthy boys who bless our lives every day!

Game Time!

We had a couple games to go along with some of the animals in the book. This is a snake game. You had to make the longest snake with bubbles.

{Silas}

Silas & Jonah love bubbles!

{Jonah}

This one they had to yank the lion's tail.

I should have played this game at home with the boys a couple times to make sure they understood it because...

Silas & Jonah did NOT appreciate getting their "tails" yanked. We all thought it was funny!

Here the kids had to feed the elephant peanuts. Jimmy freehanded this elephant for me!
Silas would pick up the ones that missed and put them in the elephant's trunk.

{Jonah feeding the elephant}

Cake Time!

They actually knew how to blow out their candles since we make them blow on their food when it's hot.

Piñata Time!

{The piñata was a dog}

Silas did not like that dog the whole time we had him in our house. He kept barking at it and yelling "bad dog".

{Jonah wacking the piñata}

Jonah and Silas thought they only got one wack and then they would pass the stick to someone else. I thought it was really sweet that they shared without me asking them to. When we only have one of something at home they know they get one "turn" and then they hand it to their brother... it is working!

Picking up the candy!

{Samuel with his bag of candy!}

Everyone got bubbles, a balloon, and a bag of candy from the piñata.

This is Delmi. She works at BK and helped out so much. BK was about $20 to rent for 2 hours and they decorated the entire play area with balloons and had anything on hand we would ever need for a party. They had Delmi there helping just us the whole time too.

It is a very Kekchi thing to have entire families come to birthday parties. I really like that. I like our entire family knowing their entire family. They are very family oriented. (Not everyone we invited was Kekchi.) We are very thankful for all of these families that God has brought into our lives.

These were our guests:

Mateo, the pastor in Poptún, his wife Teresa, and kids, Gamaliel, Santiago, & Lourdes.

Lico, our close friend who is now building our house, Elda, Paola, & Luis... plus baby #3, Elda is expecting!

Luis, the vet that saved Lucha's life, Sandra (who I could talk to all day), & Javi.

Domingo, the national missionary we work with, Candelaria, Zoila, Samuel, & baby Candi.

Candi is the little baby whose birth story I shared here. They ended up making my name her middle name. I thought that was sweet. So I sort of have a tocaya.

Elias, our Kekchi tutor and who we are going to start a Kekchi church with in San Pancho. His poor wife had Dengue, so she and the kids stayed home.

Luis, Mayumi, and their girls were invited too, but there was a bad storm and they live all the way over at the border of Belize.

The day after their party was their real birthday. We took them to Pizza Hut in Santa Elena for lunch. Jonah and Silas love pizza (Silas doesn't like Burger King food, he thinks it's fake food... Mama couldn't be prouder!)

We were sure to skype with both sets of grandparents so that they could tell them Happy Birthday in person!

We don't always skype upside down!

This is what their Grandparents got them for their birthday:

Papa & Kiki got them this water play area. We opened it a couple weeks early since it was so hot here. They have enjoyed it several times already.

It never gets old. They play until they eventually splash all the water out of it.

A toy perfect for Petén.

G-Dawg and Grandma got them their own wheel barrows and tools.

This is perfect for their new sandbox (mentioned below). What little boy doesn't love dirt!

After watching Lico and his workers build our house, they feel like big boys now with their own tools!

It's a good thing the sand is 2 feet deep.

Now on to our Family Traditions! These are the ones we started last year for the boys' first birthday.

1. Pavers with their footprints: These will be part of our forever house. I'm still not sure where I want to put them, in the front or the back yard. The back yard is sort of our family fun spot, so they might go there.

{Lico built the molds and prepared the concrete for us. He is the one holding Silas}

2. Face smashed in cake: Oops... this does not work well with fondant. Not sure if we will keep this one or not.

3. Individual Cakes: Check! This was my first time trying fondant. I like working with it much better than icing... especially here where everything melts.

Jonah likes lions, so that is the animal out of Dear Zoo I chose for him and his color is green, so he got a green cage around his cake. Ever since the boys were old enough to favor certain colors we color coded a lot of their stuff, like sippy cups. Jonah knows he is green and Silas knows he is blue.

Silas has loved elephants ever since his Papa showed him how to put his arm in front of his face and raise it like and elephant's trunk. So that's the animal out of the book he got and then of course a blue cage.

4. & 5. Family Birthday Banner and Birthday Wreath: The balloons on the wreath didn't melt together in our storage room, I was surprised. Hopefully it will last from now on for us to use on all of our birthdays.

6. Handmade Gifts: Like I mentioned last year, growing up, My mom made so many things for me and it made me feel extra special. Maybe for the time invested or the design so specific to me, I don't know, but I always cherished those things. Besides that, handmade things inspire creativity and a desire to learn to do something new, both traits I want my boys to have.

While in Guatemala City, we came across a bright yellow slide in one of the hardware stores. That was it, Jimmy decided he was building the boys a swing set.

He downloaded some free plans online and then ordered some treated lumber.

{The finished swing set. It even has a swing for the baby!}

The boys didn't see it until their birthday since it is at our forever house. Unfortunately it was pouring down rain, so the first time they saw it they got to play on it for a total of about 4 minutes.

They were so thrilled when they saw it. They loved their little bench in the fort area.

They were less than thrilled with us when we told them we had to leave because of the rain.

We went back another day... a dryer one.

They both play on the whole thing, but it is clear that Jonah's favorite part is the fort and slide and Silas' favorite part is the sandbox.

7. Birthday Breakfast: This is a new one we added this year. Everyone gets to pick their favorite breakfast for the morning of their birthday. Jonah and Silas love blueberry muffins, so that's what they got! They like muffins so much it is one of the few words they actually use regularly.

Profitable

2011-10-24T09:19:00.008-06:00

Guess what pastor Mateo preached out of yesterday? The book of Revelation! His mission is going to go through the entire book together. Do you see the book on the corner of the table? That is the textbook from the latest KBI module! That is the whole point, for the pastors to take what they learn back to their churches. This was very encouraging to see and hear!

Yesterday wasn't a super sweaty day, so I snapped a baby bump photo after church. We are 19 weeks today and I can feel her kick now!

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY:

Who needs a pickup when you have a tuk tuk. He almost took out a dog that was on the side of the road minding his own business. Most people don't transport wood on a main road since it is often poached. This guy's must be legal, so good for him. He's resourceful and honest!

Prophecy & Revelation

2011-10-20T22:52:00.008-06:00

Those are the 2 subjects that the Kekchi pastors have been asking for a while now to be included in one of our KBI (Kekchi Bible Institute) training modules.

Last week Louis Powell, who had been here before with the radio team last March, returned with his pastor, Allen Tilley, to teach our October module.

Louis taught on prophecy and

Pastor Allen taught through the Book of Revelation.

Over 40 pastors were in attendance. Unfortunately we found out that when it was announced over the radio they said that only pastors could come when we were making it available to the men who are in charge of new missions too. We have a solution to this problem thanks to Louis that we will post about soon. It is very exciting!

The pastors who were in attendance went on and on about how helpful this module was. They all received a bound copy of the notes to take home with them for further study. Jimmy had about 4 days to translate all of that material before the module and those were the days we were traveling to Sololá. He even got Jay (whose interning in FL now) and I to help some. Just the Revelation notes were 54 single spaced pages worth of translation; I'm not sure how he got it done.

We are so thankful that Louis and Pastor Allen were willing to come down here and offer such quality teaching to these pastors, especially on topics they have been specifically requesting. Their trip was short, but we enjoyed the time we had with them.

The Rainy Season

2011-10-17T16:34:00.005-06:00

Rain is a welcome relief to the heat. During rainy season though you will have some dry spells. Those dry spells are hotter to me than any day during the dry season. When our house cools off due to rain and then heats back up again for a dry spell, only to cool back off a couple days later, our ceiling starts falling in chunks rather than the normal sprinkle we usually have.

This is just one day's worth of ceiling drop. I use the inside and top of our dryer as our linen closet, so that is why there are sheets on there.

During our first rainy season in this house we realized that the concrete roof was unlevel, so water would pool on our roof. We also found out that it was not sealed, so the water just seeped through to our ceiling. Jimmy immediately sealed the roof, but there was still water in the concrete. We figured it would eventually dry out and that the paint from our ceiling would eventually stop falling. Well it didn't. Our bedroom and office aren't that bad, but the rest of the rooms are horrible still. We sealed the ceiling in the boys' room and then repainted it before they were born.

We weren't supposed to be in this house very long and amidst all the other repairs it constantly needed we put all the other rooms off. The sealant is some pretty nasty stuff and drips everywhere, so you have to remove everything from the room to do it. We kept thinking it would eventually dry out with all the heat, but it never did. It just gets worse.

This is what we just noticed in our laundry room:

It is not just the paint flaking off, there is actually black stuff growing up there now and it is falling on to our stuff. This room is where we store all of our food, hang dry our laundry, store the boys' bath tub and outdoor toys, and also is our clothes closet. I am really afraid of it. It is so dangerous. We have to get out of this house ASAP! Now it looks like our forever house won't even be done by Thanksgiving. Boo!

Our Trip To Sololá

2011-10-16T12:30:00.023-06:00

This past week when we drove to Guatemala City for my doctor's appointment we decided to drive the extra 2 hours to Sololá to spend some time with the Boggs. They have been missionaries to Guatemala for over 30 years and our missionary mentors. We may share the same country, but since we are 9+ hours apart we don't see each other very often.

{Claire}

You can see my baby bump a little in this photo. I am also holding a freezer pop. I have been having a craving for those for the past month. I haven't seen them here before, but on this trip I noticed some at Pricemart... and proceeded to go a little nuts. I was still loading up boxes as Jimmy was pushing the cart away. I bought over 200 of them and they are supposed to be split in half, so in this heat, they might last us the whole month!

{Jonah with his first freezer pop}

Jonah and Silas love them! We share with Daddy too. Since I've been pregnant Jimmy actually asks now before he eats my food... he's not stupid!

We always have fun fellowshipping with the Boggs. They both have a great sense of humor.

The boys really liked playing Claire's piano. I think it reminded them of their Papa's piano. They knew that they were supposed to have music in front of them to look at.

On this trip we got to meet a new family that has come to work with the Boggs, the Blocks.

They just arrived 6 weeks ago. They currently are in language school and will be working with the Boggs' orphanage. UNICEF unfortunately put a stop to international adoptions so any child that comes to the children's home will be raised there until someone sees the light and this law gets changed. We really enjoyed our time with them and hope they can come visit us one day soon! Their youngest, Haven, is the boys' age.

We also got to meet Keely (next to Larry) who helps with everyone's homeschooling and the children's home kids with their homework. She knows sign language. If the Boggs read this, NO we did not invite her to Petén, but if she decides on her on to come work in Becca's deaf school, we wouldn't mind a bit!

{Some of the Blocks' children}

{Our walk back to our truck after lunch}

On Sunday Jimmy preached at the new church at Eagle's Nest.

Nehemias is the pastor (on the left). He visited us a couple months ago when Amy and Colonel were here and helped out with that week of outreach. He seems like a great fit for this new work. We enjoyed seeing him in his element!

Poor Jonah and Silas didn't want to miss a thing on this trip, so they didn't nap much. They were so tired by Sunday that Silas was running a low grade fever.

They stayed with the Boggs while we went to go pack up our stuff and this is where we found Silas when we got back!

In Sololá they have some unique carpentry shops. They make ornate furniture that is a little on the rustic side, but very beautiful and inexpensive. (I'd rather buy shoe polish stained handmade furniture off the side of the road than particle board generic big box stores' furniture any day!) As we were passing all of them on our way out of town I was reminding Jimmy that we were 9+ hours away from home, so he really should stop and let me look. He was sweet and I got a 5 minute stop! I made it worth my while though.

This huge dark frame is for the mirror over the vanity in our new master bath. In the shop it didn't look that big, but now I don't know if our master bath is as big as this frame! If not it will be a beautiful floor mirror.

It was wrapped in plastic bags and tied to the top of our truck for our ride home in the rain, so I thought it held up pretty good. We will have to touch it up a little and add a coat of poly.

I also found 2 Jonah and Silas size chairs! If the weave ever wears out I thought I could redo them with some cool rope.

The boys were thrilled. Silas thinks it is his reading chair!

We even found a present for Jay at this stop! In the artisans' markets they always have things typical of southern Guatemala, but Petén is very different from the rest of the country. Instead of bright school buses, which we do not have in Petén, I found cattle trucks!

Petén is full of those. I got one for Jay's missionary display table and one for ours. Now we just need some plastic cows and to paint on some manure dripping out the back to make it realistic!

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: So the boys conquered forks a while back, but I have been reluctant to give them free reign with spoons because of the mess. With my baby nausea I cannot stand to smell whatever they ate on them the rest of the day and for some reason spoons just make them want to rub the food all over themselves. This was Silas after a little bit of pudding:

He's 99.9% Sure...

2011-10-07T11:18:00.004-06:00

{16w4d}

that our new little baby Dinsmore is a girl! Haha... we were shocked! And thrilled! The majority of you guys guessed boy too. The only thing I regret is that my doctor was standing in between us when he made the announcement, so I didn't get to see the the look on Jimmy's face! He tried to recreate it for me in the taxi, but it was cheesy. He has been calling the poor girl Titus for the past 2 months, so I think he was the most surprised.

We are a nervous giddy. What do you do with a girl?! We have no girl stuff... and it's wintertime in the States, but not in Petén! Good luck finding summery girl clothes. My mom and I will have to sew up some sundresses so she isn't stuck in the boys' old white onesies the first couple months of her life. The funny part was before Dr. Najarro declared her a girl he said, "This is a BIG baby!" Thank you to all of our friends and family who have been praying for our pregnancy. She looked perfect and healthy! Jonah was the only one of us that guessed right.

What Do You Think We Are Having?!

2011-10-04T16:28:00.011-06:00

This Friday is our doctor's appointment to find out what we are having. I thought it would be fun to see what people guess. Jimmy and I are voting too! All of us think it's a boy except for Jonah. (I don't think it works from a reader, you have to actually go on our blog to vote.)

How To Get Involved in Training Pastors

2011-10-03T21:34:00.005-06:00

Jimmy has found a piece of land for the Kekchi pastors’ institute (KBI). It is 215 acres that already has water, power, and is right on a main road which will be best for all the pastors and students who will be traveling by public transportation. An extra bonus is that it is 5 minutes from our forever house. It is also close to a Kekchi village with a good school that the kids from the students’ families can walk too. This property is the only one of its kind that meets all of our criteria for a reasonable price. We are very thankful that God led us to this land.

Please pray that God will continue to guide us as we are in the purchasing process. It is a slow process. Along with finding land we also have filed the paperwork to register KBI as a legal non-profit entity in Guatemala.

This is a video that Jimmy's pastor asked him to make for his home church. It sums up a little about KBI and the need for it here.

Once the land purchase is finalized, the Kekchi pastors will begin clearing the land. They will also be working on the student housing. The next step for us will be to start construction on the classrooms. We would love to have some work teams come down from some of our supporting churches. If you are interested please contact us by email and we will send you an information sheet. If your church or SS class would like to help out with the supplies for these classrooms we would love for you to adopt this project. Each block is 50 cents and a bag of concrete is $10. It will be 6 rooms in all. We need a total of 3611 blocks and 250 bags of cement for the project. If you would like more information please email us.

Please pray for KBI, Jimmy, and the rest of the board of directors, that God will continue to give them wisdom with each step of completing this task.

The Story of San Miguel Alto Uno

2011-09-29T21:24:00.001-06:00

Last week we went back to the village of San Miguel Alto Uno. They invited us for a baptismal service and for the dedication of their church building.

First a little history...

*This was one of the first Kekchi villages we ever went to. Our first visit was in July 2008. We showed a film.

*Pastor/Doctor Andy was there too and held a medical clinic.

*We returned again and showed a 2nd movie.

*The youth team from Daytona held an outreach there.

*Jimmy returned by himself and showed a 3rd movie.

*The last team we had held an outreach there.

*A year and a half ago one family accepted Christ.

*A year after that Manuel and his family accepted Christ. He wants to study to be the pastor.

*Besides outreaches we have helped out with Bibles, hymnals and the sheet metal for the roof of their new church. (They built the rest of the building themselves!)

It is so wonderful to see things finally taking off now. When we got there the mission's leaders were having a meeting.

Silas spotted Domingo from across the room and went right over to him. They are buds!

Lots of the kids who were playing outside came in to see Jonah and Silas.

Jimmy signed the church charter as one of the founders.

It hadn't rained in a while which made it one of the hottest days we have experienced in Petén.

Jonah and Silas were a sweaty mess, but they still had fun!

We got to go see the building since by the time the service would start it would be dark.

They were painting the sign: Jericho Baptist Mission. Once it becomes self-supporting they will change that sign to church.

Another established church from 5 hours away sort of adopted them as their mission the month before. They brought a truck full of people to celebrate the building's dedication. They were going to spend the night and attend another celebration service the next day. All the women from the mission were preparing all the meals for the next two days.

There were two pots full of tamales wrapped in banana leaves. There are more banana leaves thrown on top to trap the steam and then wood to hold it all in there.

You want to know what was for lunch the next day?... Well these people are looking at it.

We saw a man pull up with a bull in the back of his truck. I knew his fate as soon as I saw him. Now I believe God made that bull for these people to eat, but I didn't want to watch it happen... especially with a machete. That is why this photo is taken from far away!

I thought I was spared the gruesome details and then the next day I was flipping through my iPhoto of pics of the boys playing when all of a sudden what pops on my screen?... a bull being gutted!!! James walked all the way down there, took up close photos with his fancy camera, and then dumped them on my computer. My life without knowing how they slaughter a bull in a village... yeah, I will never get that back.

After lunch we all headed to the river for a baptismal service!

The members of the mission would sing in between each baptism. The whole atmosphere was really beautiful!

14 people were baptized that day!

Domingo prayed with each person before he baptized them.

Manuel got baptized too!

After dinner they had a special service to dedicate their building.

There was a time a prayer before we entered. They asked Jimmy to cut the ribbon.

Each visiting pastor there received a piece of the ribbon.

Then they held a celebratory service thanking the Lord inside their new building!

Please pray for Jericho Baptist Mission as they continue to grow and reach the rest of their village.

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: Jimmy returned Sunday afternoon for another service. (I think he just wanted to try the bull.) This village is a few hours out in the middle of nowhere. On his way home some cattle ranchers decided to tear up the dirt road in order to divert some water to another pasture and build a small bridge. Unfortunately they made the road impassable before all the supplies had arrived to build the bridge. The workers had stopped and were asking all those waiting to pass for money to help finish the bridge! Jimmy called and said that he might not be home until the next day. So we prayed that God would make a way for him to get home sooner. A few minutes later a Mennonite friend showed up on the other side of the big trench wanting to go in the opposite direction. They ended up trading vehicles and Jimmy made it home in time for lunch. We know maybe 5 people in all of Petén that own vehicles and even fewer that we would trust with ours. We get to see God work like this all the time! He takes such good care of us.

{This is a photo of that spot from the day before. We thought it was deep then!}

Happy Birthday Ana!

2011-09-24T20:00:00.003-06:00

Yesterday we were invited to our Kekchi tutor's wife's birthday party. We love Kekchi birthday celebrations. It is really beautiful because they get all of their friends together and thank God publicly for all that God has done in their life. Then we all pray that they will continue to follow God and that He will continue to bless their life. They acknowledge God in everything. He is the center of their lives now that they are Christians just like all of their spiritual beliefs before when they didn't know the Truth.

It is hard to know what to get people for presents in a different culture... even harder when there aren't any nice stores around here to find quality things.

I ended up choosing a burgundy table cloth and I found a glass dish that we put some flowers in. I hope she liked it. They don't usually open presents in front of people.

Ana, Elias' wife, made us all a wonderful meal of tamales and tostadas. We sat outside on the porch while the tamales were cooking. As soon as she served the meal it started pouring down rain. I didn't realize this when I lived in an air conditioned house in the States, but there is nothing that clears out a smell and freshens up a house like hard rain with all the windows open. I couldn't smell anything and was able to enjoy the meal! Hopefully I only have one more week of morning sickness.

We had a wonderful time! We met a new Christian Spanish speaking couple. Honestly we are mostly around lost people or new Christians, except for the Kekchi nationals we work with. It was nice to be able to fellowship with Christians that we could communicate easily with. I hope we can get to know this family better. They have a little boy Jonah and Silas' age. I was so proud of my boys. There were a couple of other children there and we had brought some little toys. Jonah and Silas kept handing their toys to the other kids to play with. They had a blast and came home filthy thanks to the rain and mud... but very much worth it!

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: One of Elias' neighbors who works at the school where he teaches, turned him in to the head of the school as a narco. He said that Elias comes home at 11PM several nights a week, gets dropped off by someone in a dark truck, and then he goes straight into his house. Poor Elias, he is out late for our Kekchi class. For the first month and a half of our classes, his vehicle was in the shop and Jimmy had to give him a ride home in his black pickup! He was able to defend himself and keep his job. It seems like the nicest people have the worst things said about them.

Forever House #7

2011-09-18T20:21:00.000-06:00

...our journey to rent free living, all the entertainment minus the headaches.

I think my two favorite things about our forever house will be no rats and the plumbing. I will post about the no rats thing later and all that we are doing to insure that. For now the first part of the plumbing is finished!

I think my boys build better structures out of their mega blocks than our current rental home was built. The people who built this thing had no idea what they were doing. Everything was done wrong and unfortunately you pay for it every day. I really feel sorry for the owners. I think they are going to be very disappointed when they move in.

The plumbing is probably the worse part of it. It something that is harder to fix. For example our toilet still flushes into our shower. That shouldn't be possible. The drain isn't the lowest point either, so before you shower you get to sweep all the water out and then clean it. We have come to the conclusion that an avocado must have fallen into the vent pipe from the septic tank. Also there are no air traps on anything, so our kitchen sink, and shower reek. Being pregnant I can smell it now more than ever. I hold my nose most of the time walking through my house and pray for rain. Both doors open when it rains is the only thing that seems to freshen things up.

The sewer lines are installed... by a plumber. One who knew what he was doing! These will be in our floors. Jimmy is going this week to check everything one last time before the floors are poured. This photo is of our kids' bathroom. It is a jack and jill style one behind our 2 kids' rooms. The boys will probably always share a room, but we might have girls one day! This is the bathroom that will have a bathtub for the boys... yay!

The masons have been focusing on the other side of the house, so its walls are lower. We hope to finish one side with the roof and floor so that Jimmy can start working on shelves in our pantry and the carpenters can put the drawers in our kitchen before the skeleton of our entire house is finished. We hope to be starting on the roof for that side in 2 weeks!

This is the gravel that will fill in the floors before the concrete is poured.

The sad part is the gravel is where our okra plants used to be. I miss them! We have a gardener coming with a tractor to level our our land before we do more landscaping. He was suppose to come 2 weeks ago. That's the way things work here. We really like him though when he shows up.

This is our finished leach field! Soon it will be covered with green grass for our boys to run and play on. You know the grass is always greener... over the leach field!

As far as landscaping Jimmy has planted a couple things. He put 3 palms in the back corner of the yard for us to hang hammocks on to sit and watch the boys play! They were just replanted, so they will perk up soon.

He also planted a couple of palms in the front yard. You can see the taller walls in this picture and it was taken about 2 weeks ago. Our yard is a mess right now.

Unfortunately we decided to cut down several trees that were along our front wall. We were thinking we would save them. When we first bought the property they were covered in light pink flowers. For the majority of the year, they just look like naked scrawny trees.

Old picture, but you can see some of the trees
They are used as fence posts to tree off properties here. You can just stick a branch in the ground and they grow really fast. I hate cutting down trees, but they were ugly. We have twice as many plants and trees that will go in their place.

Without the trees blocking the sun our ivy is finally starting to grow!

The conduit is in place for our wiring.

Here is an update on our creepy hallway. As the walls get taller, it gets creepier!
Since the floors aren't filled in yet, it is hard to get photos of the taller side of the house. You have to climb up and down makeshift wooden ladders to get in and out of rooms right now. This is one room I got to though. It is the little mudroom off of our carport entry. It will have a little half bath in it for guests. Before we even mentioned it to the plumber he suggested that we should put a drain in the floor for friends who are not used to using a flushable toilet. We have learned that from experience. We had our entire office flood and had to throw away our rug. That is the whole point for this bathroom.

A salesman stopped by our land the other day (which happens a lot since there is construction going on) and asked if he could leave some stucco samples. We wanted to have white stucco, but were concerned that once you mix the white chalk into the sand it would make it weaker and wouldn't be even throughout all the batches. Well this stuff comes already white in premixed bags, so the ratio is always the same. Each part of the wall won't look different depending on who mixed that batch of stucco. The one in the photo above is a textured finish that we have chosen for the outside of our house.

The one on the far left in the photo above is chalkboard smooth and for now this will be the walls inside our house. I think the textured would look beautiful inside, but I might appreciate the smooth walls more over time. Now when we run into our walls it can really scratch you up. The nice part is we don't have to paint right away or ever if we decide we like the simplicity of the white walls. If they get chipped a little they are white underneath. Also if we need to patch a hole, the consistency will be the same since it is already premixed. We were thrilled about this product.

CUTE ITEM OF THE DAY: On one of our trips to our forever house Silas saw a pile of wet concrete and a shovel and knew exactly what to do! He went to work mixing it. He must have been watching Lico and the other workers all the other times we have been there. Lico thought it was great!

Another Peek At Our Baby

2011-09-13T17:03:00.002-06:00

We made another trip to Guate last week for another appointment. It is a long winding 7.5 hour trip, but the boys are very sweet. They love their VeggieTale sing-a-longs and we pack all kinds of fun snacks. There aren't any good places to stop and eat, so we always have PB&J sandwiches for lunch.

By the time we get to the hotel, it's dark and we are all ready for something more substantial to eat. Jimmy drops us off at the hotel. Two sleepy boys suddenly become wide awake when presented with a new hotel room to play in. They love the radio and I unplug the phone for them to talk on. They are very serious about their phone calls. They raid all the little complimentary toiletries too. Jimmy takes a taxi to either Chili's or Applebee's which is close to our hotel and brings us back something warm and yummy and we have a picnic on the bed!

Our second appointment went great. Our little baby looks beautiful! You can see their eyes in the image below.

11w2d

He/She had their hands in front of their face for awhile, so we had to wait to get this view. 11 weeks is very early, too early really, to find out the sex, but Dr. Najarro volunteered that he thinks it's another boy. I took that as we still don't know yet, but Jimmy has declared it a boy. I'm happy either way, but Jimmy would be happy about not having to buy any more baby stuff since we have so many boy things. We don't know anything about little girls, so that territory is a little scary too.

I posted part of our ultrasound for the grandparents. At the end was when he was telling us he thought it was a boy... but it still could be a girl! I love how that in Guatemala you get to see your baby at every visit and your doctor is the one giving you the ultrasound and talks you all the way through it. I missed that when we went to the States to have the twins. I didn't realize how spoiled I was!

I am in my 13th week now and am still nauseous all day. Please pray that it leaves soon. Jimmy has been on double duty the last 8 weeks taking care of all 3 of us. I feel bad for him and want things to get back to normal soon.

We almost always go to Pricemart which is similar to a Sam's in the States. They have 2 seater carts there which the boys get a kick out of... hugs!

We found out that Silas is a big fan of Chili's chips and salsa... like his mommy! He thinks everything needs to be dipped in something before you eat it, so that makes sense.

We usually make one stop going and coming to stretch the boys' legs. This time we bought some cold drinks. Jonah was determined to carry them himself!

On the way home we also passed a military check point where they had just made a big Zeta bust on the side of the road. You can read about it here in the paper. They found lots of grenades, ammunition, anti aircraft weapons and other lovelies.

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: When we eat at restaurants now Jimmy usually leaves a larger tip than when it was just the 2 of us. These boys can be sort of messy, not ridiculous, but it looks like 2 little boys ate at our table. At this point we had not even gotten food yet. We were just trying to keep crayons and straw papers off the floor when we notice the waiter had already put up a caution sign warning people about our table!

Alleluias Rose From the Banks

2011-09-11T12:03:00.016-06:00

If you don't know Lico's story, it is here. Since New Horizon would not allow baptisms or for us to be called a church, not to mention kicking us out, we weren't sure how Lico would ever be baptized. He has been meeting with Jimmy every Saturday for months now for their discipleship class.

He has a strong desire for his new relationship with God to grow. We mentioned that when we got back from furlough we found out that he and his family had been walking 45 minutes to a church in the next town down from New Horizon. There aren't many churches around here with the truth, but we really liked this one. A couple weeks ago the pastor of that church contacted us and said that Lico wanted to be baptized and wanted Jimmy to be the one to do it. So he invited us to attend the baptismal service this past Sunday.

{Jimmy & Lico with his pastor}

So early Sunday morning we met them for a worship service on the banks of a river. We had been out late the night before in a Kekchi village, so our boys were exhausted!

This is the group who had put their faith in Christ and were desiring to take this first step of obedience.

Jimmy prayed with Lico first before he baptized him.

Here is a video too if you want to watch. I was standing on the edge of a 3 foot drop off into the river, holding one boy, trying to keep the other one from falling in the river, and taking photos and video. Everyone was asking me for photos. And we're keeping it real because half way through Jonah starts to cry. Poor little missionary boys, we had worn them out.

This is Lico with his wife Elda, daughter Paula, and son Luis.

Please pray for Lico as he continues to grow in Christ and lead his family. We are so thankful for this opportunity. God opened a path for obedience. He made a way! We are so thankful for this day and everything it means to Lico and our family! It was Jimmy's first baptism in Guatemala and it just so happened to be our first convert from over 3 years ago.

An Irresistible Invitation

2011-09-06T14:01:00.026-06:00

Radio Berea received a call from a new village the other day. By new I mean it is only 3 months old. 140 Kekchi families found some land to rent and started the village of La Bendición. A handful of them are Christians, and since there are no churches or works of any kind in this village yet, they called the Baptist radio station and asked them to send someone to start one! Who would turn that down?! Last week we and Domingo went for the very first outreach.

The village was pretty easy to find, but then we had to find who had invited us. This little girl jumped into the back of Domingo's pickup and led the way.

She ended up staying for the film!

This is the home where we showed the film, "Hope".

Before we did though, another family invited us for lunch.

Silas LOVES corn tortillas dipped in Kekchi caldo. He will eat 3 or 4 of them. The Kekchi people think it's a hoot to see a little gringo scarfing down their food.

He's our little Chapin. Jonah looks at us like we're crazy when we hand him a corn tortilla. He'd rather chase the chickens roaming inside the house than eat.

I have always been a little worried about how Jonah would do in these settings when we go to new places because he is shy.

Our boys get a lot of attention, and Jonah doesn't really like people looking at him.

Silly Mommy, he found a new friend right away.

They played up and down this bench while Daddy was setting up the film.

People from all over the village started showing up!

We ended up having a great turnout!

There were no more seats inside, so people listened from outside.

It was really hot. You can probably see that in my little boys' red faces. Since there weren't any seats left and I was nauseous thanks to our new little Dinsmore, I took the boys down to the quaint pavilion we had parked by.

It had stumps to sit on and was full of dirt to play in!

We had 2 gardening shovels in the car, so that entertained the boys for the next hour!

I felt bad for leaving and then a couple minutes later Jimmy and Domingo showed up to wait in the shade with us too... ha!

Please pray for the village of La Bendición. Please pray as we work with Domingo to try and start a church there. Pray that it will reach out to the other people in this new village who have not yet heard about Jesus Christ.

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: To get to the village we had to cross the ferry in Sayaxché. Sadly I had to witness one of my biggest fears... the ferry had sunk. Thankfully no one was hurt... and we weren't on it! If we are traveling with a team we usually make them get out of the car when we are crossing, just to be safe. If it's just us, we roll the windows down and talk about which boy each is responsible for grabbing. It would be horrible to lose a vehicle this way.

Our friends the Whites are currently living in Sayaxché, you should check out their post here for much better photos and the whole story. Thankfully they had brought in a smaller ferry from somewhere else for everyone to use while they were working on getting the big ferry and a tanker truck out of the river.

What Is Baby Dinsmore?
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