Remebering the Day You Died

Ever since the angry water meetings, the people who attend the church at the farm have really been treated poorly in their village. All kinds of lies are being spread about them for being members. Some stopped coming, but others started coming more faithfully. Nearly all who come now have been saved and baptized. In our past Bible studies or services the curious people outnumbered the Christians. Now the majority are people who have defined themselves as Christians. Everyone knows it. They aren't trying something for a while, they are Christ Followers!

 

Our church family wanted to remember Good Friday in a way that would bring Glory to God and give us a chance to really reflect on what Christ did for us. We moved our midweek service to Friday. We put a huge cross in the front of the church and Rigo made a crown of thorns to hang from it. Jimmy announced that we were all going to follow Christ's example of serving others and also remember with this activity the beautiful visual it gives of how the King of Glory humbled himself and washed us of our filthy sins.

 Everyone kind of giggled at first, me included. This was something new for all of us! Jimmy had 6 basins of soapy water with wash clothes and towels and we all went down the row, one by one washing each others feet.

 It was as beautiful as Christ intended when He encouraged it.

 

No one was joking around, not even then kids, but they all had a big smile on their face!

{Eden washing Sandra's feet!}

{Sandra washing E's}

 It brought us all together as a church family.

 

And it was a beautiful reminder of Christ's love for us. 

Afterwards Henry (not the student Henry) read a passage about the Last Supper.

 

And then all who had been saved and baptized celebrated the Lord's Supper. 

 Rigo preach a message about Christ's suffering and all He went through for us.

 We all lit candles and turned off the lights while we listened. You could hear the reaction to how beautiful the room was when we turned the lights off.

 Kekchi kids are really good with candles. They grow up knowing how to use them and respect them. Little gringitos, not so much. I turned around about the time one of my boys was lighting his brother's hair on fire. Even if I don't give them candles, someone else does. Thankfully he wasn't harmed, he just has a nice burnt patch of hair about the size of the palm of my hand. I have no idea how my kids survive... maybe their grandmas' prayers.

 It was a wonderful service and a shared memory with our church family, remembering and thanking Christ for dying to give us new life!

Thank you to Newspring Church in Wichita, KS who gave us money to pour the floor in this room. This service would have been a muddy mess just a few weeks ago! 

The Founding of Our Church

Our mission in San Pancho is growing. We have a great core group who over the past year have been saved and baptized. We wanted those believers to be able to start participating more in the ministries of our church. Most of our people like to be involved, but it was time to clearly define for all who the true believers were, the ones who since they were Christians can participate in certain privileges that come with being a member of a church. While we Do want to include the unbelievers who attend in as much as possible, we do not want someone who isn't a Christian for example sharing a testimony up in the front of the church, being part of our worship team, or leading a ministry. It was time to draw a line in the sand. 

It is a tradition here for churches to have a special day once a year to celebrate the Bible. We thought that would be a great time to found our church. We would be talking about doctrine and defining once again clearly the distinctives of our church, what we believe and why based on the Bible. We are trying to help everyone memorize the books of the Bible to be able to find verses more easily, so we are saying the books together each week during the services. 

I was planning a visual for my SS classroom and I guess accidentally thought out loud, because Jimmy asked if we could put it on the wall in the main part of our church. You can see it on the wall below, it is pretty big! There are so many basics that you learn in SS when you are a kid that make studying your Bible so much easier. Those are the things we will be focusing on over the next couple of months. The missing pieces that the rest of us take for granted. 

We had a great turnout for our Day of the Bible! Before Jimmy preached he had Nick read a poem about how God is revealed in each book of the Bible. Afterwards we sang Oh How He Loves Us. It was a pretty special moment. 

Here's the kids' time:

We studied the Bible too and made tape measures talking about that the Bible is what we measure everything against. Norma helped me with the craft time!

 The itty bitty kids' coloring table:

 I guess this is the really itty bitty kids' floor... where they eat the crayons!:

After the service all of the people who had been saved and baptized and who wanted to join the church came up and signed a record of our founding.

 There was so much joy!

I am so thankful for all of these people! Four other people who have already put their faith in Christ came and told Jimmy that they wanted to be baptized! 

I think this is great. They are ready to be identified as Christ followers! This is what we wanted, for those who are Christians to boldly want to identify themselves as such and look forward to serving in the church. 

Then it was time for those tamales!

Eden wanted to help too... 

help herself to a tamale!

This was when she saw Jimmy with the camera. She stood up and said, "Cheese!"

Rebeca opened up the leaves for her and she ate the entire thing!

Here's Silas and Hugo enjoying their tamales. 

 Happy Birthday San Pancho Baptist Church! (September 8, 2013)

Special Services on Sunday

Sunday morning the team came over to our home for a cook-out and a service in English. It is wonderful to be able to fellowship with the team in our home. They all fit into our great room and with the breeze coming in through our big windows it was really comfortable. I am very thankful for our new home!

{You can see Kelsie with Eden in this photo! Eden loves her!}

That evening we had a wonderful service at our church in San Pancho as well!

The team sang several songs in English and then we all learned one of them in Spanish! It was "One Thing Remains." 

There were several people standing outside and listening through the windows. We had 3 more families that wanted to come from SR, but didn't fit on the microbus... pretty good problem to have! We are going to start sending a school bus.

Then the team shared some testimonies. 

I think at least five of the guys shared their salvation testimony and why they wanted to come on this trip. About 50% of the people there that night weren't Christians. I think it is WONDERFUL that they got to here how other people came to know the Lord and how He is at work in their lives. 

I am praying that God would use these testimonies in the hearts of our church people. 

Adam played Amazing Grace on his trumpet. It was beautiful! I think it was a really special night for the families that came! Pastor Rob preached after that. I didn't get any photos since I was in with the kids, but the message he chose was perfect timing for some of the issues are church is facing right now! 

The 3 ladies on the team helped me in the kids time. We had fun too, learning about how Jesus fed the 5,000 with the boy's lunch. 

We are so thankful for Crossroads Baptist Church and for their support of our work in Petén! They have been a big encouragement to us this week!

Brothers and Sisters in Christ!

Moving can be overwhelming. We were really looking forward to getting it behind us so that we could just be in San Pancho focusing on the church and the institute. Ministry here doesn't get us down, it is the day to day life things that take your time away from ministry that can wear you down. Well the Thursday night when we were in the middle of all that chaos was the night that our kids choir was scheduled to sing. They sing about once every 5 weeks or so and Jimmy ties in their songs to his sermons and we are all together for a joint service. Unfortunately NH has not been able to come the last couple Thursdays because the guy we were hiring from there (not a member of our church) to bring them arrived a couple weeks ago drunk. We haven't been able to find another option for that price, so we just pay for a micro to go get them on Sundays at twice what we were paying.

{Vilma & Maybelin}

 So the kids there that night were just from San Pancho and SR. 

It was a great message, very clear about the plan of Salvation. 

{A Sermon Illustration}

Jimmy gave an invitation. Maybelin (9) and Hugo (14) said that they were ready to put their faith in Christ! After church we talked with both of them for a while and they both prayed and asked Christ to be their personal Savior. It was beautiful to hear their testimonies in their prayers. 

{Hugo}

{Maybelin}

Please pray for them both. Neither of them attend with their parents, they come on their own... maybe that makes me feel more attached to them. They are both from San Pancho and have been attending faithfully since our church plant began. This made me so happy because I love them both so much! (Shhhh... they're kind of my favorites.)

Someone suggested on here to hang some panels to help with our sound problems. We didn't want to invest in this rental, so we thought that was a great idea. We purchased some cheap styrofoam panels and plugged them up there. It makes a huge difference!

Growing in Many Ways!

It has been as low as 58 degrees in the last week. Since moving to Petén 6 years ago I do not remember a time when it was ever this cold. We dug out a couple long sleeve shirts from our furlough bin. It is kind of nice, although we were not too prepared for it. My boys have been sporting socks and crocs! Silas LOVES wearing a hoodie! Jonah would rather freeze than wear socks or put on a jacket (just like his Papa)... we've had a couples battles. We along with the rest of Petén have been really sick. I think Jimmy and Silas had the worst of it. Eden had pink eye to go with hers. Jimmy even turned on a space heater one night that we used in Guatemala City... a space heater in Petén! It is really strange. 

Our church is doing great! We have been praying for a new place to rent. Please pray with us! The sound is just awful. It is very difficult to hear in the kids time with the service going on next-door. I have tried it on the patio and in one of the little rooms. You just can't hear a thing. The metal roof with walls that don't go all the way to the ceiling is the problem. Rats destroy a lot of things during the week too. I would really like to find something with sealed rooms, but there isn't much available in a small town like this. 

Domingo encouraged Jimmy to get more people involved in leading the service. Here is a group that led the singing this past Sunday night! Noé is there too, in the middle, you just can't see him in this shot. 

Mateo led the Bible reading. I was really impressed with how well he read. If he had been allowed to stay in school by his parents, I think he would have gone really far. He still will, just might be a little harder for him. No one here likes to read out loud. This is a big deal!

That is Mando in the plaid shirt leading the offering. Jimmy was handing money to Silas to put in the plate, so that's why he's in the photo. 

Jimmy's message this past Sunday night was about how to have a successful life. You have to grow in Christ and you can't grow without reading God's Word for yourself. Rosalino came up after church and bought a Bible! Yay! He has been attending faithfully since we were in Santa Rita and very openly says that he has not put his faith in Christ yet. We had given him a Bible several years ago, but I guess he misplaced it or Petén happened (rats and humidity). Anyway he spent $3 on another one which is a good sign he's still searching. Please pray for him! He's in his 30's. 

{Our little thermometer for our goal of sending Lico to Huehue}

Our church is giving money to send Lico on a missions trip! He is going to Huehuetenango in February. Jimmy will go with him. They will meet up with Larry Boggs, Pastor Tim and Dan Darby to help Pastor Luis Batz build a church building for the mission they have started out of their church in the village of Capellania. It is the village where we took our first ever missions team and held a medical clinic outreach back in May 2007. Pastor Luis and his church in Huehue are such great examples of a healthy reproducing church! Jimmy, Lico and our church are very excited about getting to participate. 

I send my kids home every week with devotional sheets to work on daily and weekly memory verses. I had 23 kids who participated and earned points towards a reward party. That's 23 kids who hid God's Word in their hearts and many read their Bible's every day. It's a good start! This was their rewards party. They bought toppings and candy with their points. I would have photos from the party, but I was yelling over Jimmy's preaching, while serving ice cream, keeping an eye on 2 naughty twins, and holding E! Haha!

INTERESTING ITEM OF THE DAY:

2 points to who can guess what this is?!

Two deluxe toilet seats! They have a nice decorative graphic on them too... fancy. They were for sale on the side of the road in our town.