Día de la Madre

In Guatemala Mother's Day was yesterday. This year I wanted the kids in Santa Rita to make something for their mothers that they could really enjoy. I don't get to rummage around the market very often anymore, so I sent Jimmy with a list of craft supplies to find. He was so sweet and found every single thing!

Last week we made flower clips out of felt. The kids got to choose the colors they thought their mom would like. Then we put them on cards with a verse from Proverbs 31 on it.

I thought they did a pretty good job... even the boys! Here are 2 new Kekchi brothers that have been coming.

I saw a mom with one in her hair this week!

Resurrection Sunday

Jimmy did a post about Easter here. Basically it is similar to Spring Break in the States. Petén is like a foreign country to the rest of Guatemala, so we have lots of in-country tourists. There is more drinking going on than normal, so my goal Monday through Friday is to go as few places as possible which should increase my chances of NOT getting killed by a drunk driver here.

When we lived in Xela, there were lots of decorations and beautiful sawdust carpets to go see. Here everything looks the same as any other week, just more crowded. By Saturday and Sunday things are back to normal, the tourists have returned home ready to start another work week or head back to school. Resurrection Sunday is not celebrated here. It is omitted completely.

Since we no longer hold services in New Horizon on Sundays, we were planning on listening to a service from our home church Sunday morning. Saturday night our friend Stephen called and invited us to his church. He is a the pastor of the Mennonite church here in our town.

There is a small Mennonite population here in our town. They are always very kind to us. We know about 3 different families. We don't spend a lot of time with them but we borrow things from each other or help out when something is needed. Stephen and his wife Brenda always go out of their way to make us feel comfortable and accepted. It was interesting to see how other people worship. They had a choir group visiting from a college in the States, so we actually got to hear a couple songs in English! It was a nice way to celebrate Resurrection Sunday!

Yesterday we had a Resurrection party in Santa Rita with the kids! We made edible "empty" tombs!
I was so proud of my kids as we talked about the significance of this special day. They have learned so much during our time with them!

Jimmy's adult Bible study went great last night too! I cannot wait until the boys are old enough for me to start going with him again!

Poor Martha

I do not have any photos from the Adult Bible study since I am not attending with the boys for a while, but it went well. They are so passionate about the study. It is not a casual thing for them. They ALL bring their Bibles and participate.

Please pray for a couple that had been attending before we left. We do not know the entire story, but their son and another child that they had been taking care of were in an automobile accident. It happened the first of January while we were gone. They were slung from the back of someone's pickup that was driving drunk... who by the way did not end up going to jail. Both died. Please pray for this family. Please pray that the Lord will comfort them and that we can reach out to them as well. We are still not sure if it was an older son or the younger one, so I do not know if they attended my Bible study or not. I do not feel comfortable posting pictures of this family, just because I think this is extremely private.

As a follow up of the post about last week's craft I thought I would talk about this week's. It was very involved... even more involved when Jimmy and I have a 4 month old (really 2 month old) strapped to us trying to help everyone. Our lesson was on Mary and Martha. They were to construct a house where you could look inside and see Mary, Martha, and Jesus. This photo angle did not lend itself to You seeing them, but they are in there!

Well the kids did a fabulous job! Jimmy successfully commandeered this entire table of rambunctious boys all by himself!

By the way, I think Martha gets a bad rap. The point to this story is a beautiful one, our relationship with God is the most important thing. Service to Him comes as a byproduct of our relationship with Him, not as a replacement for one. Yes, on this day, Martha's priorities were off. But, it looks to me that she was the one that invited Jesus to their house in the first place. Plus after their brother died, Martha was the one that knew it still wasn't too late (John 11:21,22), because she had faith... more evidence of a relationship. With the amount of spiritual talk in comparison to the amount of action taken I think this is more of a "Mary poser" world than a "Martha" one. I appreciate Martha's passion!

Silas was a little ham this week! He loves all the attention. Jonah does too, but he seems to be more affected by the heat. Silas prefers warmer temps.

Who Needs Bread and Butter

Like different parts of the States vary in culture, different areas of Guatemala do as well. We have lived in the second largest city, we visit the capital often, we live in a very small town now and we minister in even smaller villages. Each place is different. We feel pretty comfortable in all of them, and try to adjust accordingly. Still, we are constantly learning new things and entertaining others I'm sure in the mean time!

This was a "I should have known better" moment... I have a lot of those. Hind sight is 20/20!

Well for the Kid's Bible study today we learned about the Narrow Door and the Wide Door. I think the teaching objective was accomplished, but the craft was definitely a Craft Fail!

Every once in a while I do an edible craft. They are usually a little more expensive than the average craft, and Jimmy is all about budgets... which I love, so I spread them out. This makes them more memorable anyway.

So with 2 adults and 35+ kids I got craft time down to a science. The first week in a village is chaos, but each week gets better as they learn new skills and what is expected.

I really thought this was going to be one of the easiest crafts ever... naive of me I know, but it's a wonderful world to live in! All they had to do was take a whole graham cracker for the wide door, part of a graham cracker for the narrow door, ice them, and put a Skittle on them for a doorknob. Then they were to take them home and share the story with someone in their family before they were allowed to eat them.

Have you guessed the problem yet? It took me a while.

I went to the first table, showed them my example crackers and all the neon colored icings to choose from and they just stared at me blankly. Usually they barely let me get through the explanation before they start jumping in. So I explained it again. I thought their little mouths would be watering with excitement, but still, I got nothing! Finally I scooped out a chunk of icing with a plastic knife and placed it in one of their hands. They hesitantly started to move it in the direction of the cracker. Then Jimmy and I started going around one by one basically icing about every other cracker for them. I just didn't get it. Then Jimmy figured it out. He said, "They don't know how to butter bread." They don't eat bread, they eat corn tortillas. In fact in this community they don't eat anything that requires spreading something with a knife... the poor kids being subjected to the crazy gringa's ideas!

You know every single kid left with two iced doors!

Well... except this one!

Please pray for the Adult Bible study tomorrow. It is the first one since we moved it to Tuesdays and Jimmy will be all by himself. Thanks!

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: Honestly I could do an entire post on dumb things I've done in the last 24 hours, but I'll just pick one... more. Last night I kept commenting to Jimmy that it felt warmer than normal in our house. (We have to close the doors at 6PM because of the mosquitos.) He said, "No, this was just a hot day." About midnight while I was in the kitchen painting my visuals for todays lesson, I realized that I had left the oven on since supper. I was actually paying to heat my house.