An Afternoon in a Bog Pit

We have so much to post about the team, but first we'll talk about the most adventurous day! You can also see more pictures on our KBI Facebook page. The team's focus wasn't evangelism but to get a taste for the evangelistic outreach part of the Institute we wanted them to see some villages and do some presentations. When I was talking with Domingo about which villages we would visit on the two evangelism days he said we should visit the village of Pasión, but that we would need 4WD. No problem I said. Ha!

We made it through big spots like the one above without too much trouble, just unloading to reduce our weight. Until finally we got really stuck...

Right now you are looking at these pictures thinking, "That guy is stupid for trying to drive through that." But I can tell you that it didn't look this bad until 40+ guys had tromped around in it. Nevertheless, we were within sight of the village when we got caught in this mud soup.

I was thankful to have a truckload of people to help me, but even so we couldn't get out. Then, guys from the village started arriving. They even brought a little pickup to try and help me out... nothing was working.

Many women and children came to watch as well, which gave the girls a chance to sing songs and do part of their presentation in the open air.

After two hours, we could hear a big storm rolling in and I was making plans to leave it and come back the next day with my truck (which has a big winch.)

The men from the village wanted to try one more thing so they came back with a tree trunk and some stumps to serve as a rustic lever. They tilted the truck up and put big palm leaves from the trees in the background under the tires.

The log kept slipping off and everybody would hit the ground hard, but after a few tries on each side that had it ready. Then with 40 guys pulling three ropes and 7 guys pushing from the front I was out!

In this picture you can see where the truck was but then another 15 feet in front of me was the same kind of soil. So see... it doesn't look that bad!

Everybody looks the same when you are covered in mud! Because of the storm rolling in and the sun setting we really needed to leave, but a lady who had fixed us a meal came and told me exactly what she thought about us coming all that way to not eat the meal she had fixed for us. So we quickly ate the biggest Kekchi meal I've ever had and headed home.

We made it back out without too much trouble. We are telling this story first because today Shelley and I and the kids are all going back with Domingo and his family to show the movie we weren't able to last week. This time we are going by boat. We need to go back right away to capitalize on the connections that were made during our afternoon in the bog pit!

Family Photos, Gofers, & 1,000 Liter Cisterns

We were very disappointed that we did not get to go to Santa Rita on Saturday. Please pray this will not put us behind next week. A man that lives across the street from our Bible study named Blas road his bike down to the scene of the accident just to watch after he heard us talking about it on Saturday. (That is a very Guatemalan thing to do!) He said that the Public Minister came and arrested the drunk driver.

Mateo is Gerardo’s brother. He told Jimmy that Gerardo was having nightmares. He heard him in the middle of the night yell, “The car... the car...” We were hoping that maybe this event would have made some of our teens stop and think. Mateo still has not accepted Christ. The Bible study Sunday night in New Horizon was on Heaven and Hell. Right before it started I told Mateo that he still needed to accept Christ. I said, “I want to see you in Heaven too.” He always gives an adamant “NO” when we ask him if he is ready. Later during the study he was part of the discussion. He seemed shocked that Hell was forever. Then he asked, “Well what if your name is in the book of life?” Please pray that God will continue to work in his heart. He is 13.

We passed out the family photos in New Horizon today that Jimmy’s mom took while the team was here. That was a lot of fun!

While we were at Anabella’s house, Olivia came running up with a gofer. She had technically found it on Anabella’s property and she wanted to make sure that she did not want it. I love Olivia, she always makes me smile! She was nice and posed the gofer for me! She later took it home to skin it and eat.

While we were at Aquilino’s house he told us that his family went to a special service the Catholic church had on Christmas Eve. (His family comes to our Bible study every week, but we do not tell anyone not to go to the Catholic church. We just teach the truth. This allows us to stay in the village) Anyway, he told us that they said that he was “in the shadow of Jimmy” and that Jimmy has bought him with a cookie. They said that only people who are starving come to our Bible studies. Aquilino said that made his “temperature rise”. He then told them, “The things of God are not talking bad about other people. This (the Catholic church in NH) doesn’t have anything to do with God. Jimmy never says anything bad about you.” And then he left. When they understand the truth, the Lord leads them down the right path for us!

Sunday was Ernesto’s last week at our Bible study. He is moving to Coban to go to school. He still had not accepted Christ. He has heard the Gospel over and over again. Please pray that he too will come to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Well we are out of water for the 2nd time in the last month. Our town only turns the water on twice a week normally. Our cistern holds 1,000 liters, so who knows how long it has been since the water had been turned on. Our shower has been leaking, and that helped drain our cistern. So Jimmy started breaking concrete to fix it tonight at 9:45! He finished it in about 2 hours. He poured the last 3, 5 gallon jugs of pure water he could find in our town, into our cistern to take a shower afterwards.

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY:

In the States you might see this:

This is what you see here:

Still In Shock

There was a vehicle in New Horizon for us to rent this week to take to Santa Rita. It would have been nice of them to tell us it was broken before they handed us the keys, but we found out about 10 minutes down the road. Jimmy, Carlos, and Gerardo took turns pushing it back to New Horizon. It would crank every now and then. The last time it quit running the guys stopped to rest a minute and Jimmy turned the flashers on and let the truck cool off a little. I saw a car coming from behind us, it looked like it was flying and it wasn’t getting over to pass us. I yelled at Gerardo to get out of the road. It barely missed us and was within a foot of him. We all turned to watch this crazy driver who had just flown by us. The car didn’t try to slow down, but instead whipped back over into his lane. At that point he lost control of the car. He flew off the road. The car went up vertically on its front end and then slammed back down into a cow pasture 15’ below the road They had family members in a car traveling behind them. They had not been going as fast, so it took them a while to get there. When they saw the other car smoking off the road, they pulled over. They started screaming and running to check on their family members. While this was going on Jimmy was calling for an ambulance. Here a mob can form quickly, even in the middle of nowhere. In less then a couple minutes there were about 150 people gathered around. Mobs are known to lynch people who they decide is responsible. Jimmy and Carlos went over to check on the people in the car and Gerardo and I went to put branches in the road to slow people down. (Soon after the other car pulled of the road someone else flew by and almost hit them.) There had been 4 people in the car and 3 of them were walking around. Jimmy got some of the people in the crowd to pull out the 4th older man that was still in the vehicle, since it was on fire. The man was breathing, but he wasn’t talking and he could barely open his eyes. One of his ears had been split in two. Jimmy prayed with the man’s family. The driver was walking around with blood coming out of his ear. He reeked of alcohol and couldn’t remember what happened. He kept saying things like, “What happened to the car?” ”Who was driving?” We are not sure why 3 sober people would let a drunk man drive them, but that explains why he didn’t slow down and why he changed lanes so abruptly. Jimmy did as much as he could and then we left. We later passed the ambulance on its way there. It took them 45 minutes to get there.

We are so thankful that he didn’t hit Carlos or Gerardo. He could have come a little earlier and we would have been in the middle of the road trying to turn around. God definitely protected us. If something would have happened to Carlos or Gerardo we would not have been able to work in this area anymore.

Please pray for this family. Everyone was alive when we left. The driver must have been the hurt man’s son. The hurt man’s wife immediately went over and took off his watch and cleaned out his pockets so nothing would get stolen at the hospital.

We are still shook up. We keep thinking if we had not have rented the truck we would not have been broken down and this man would not have changed lanes. It is difficult to process everything, especially when you watched it happen. The crowd kept saying a tire must have blown. We are just thankful they were not upset with us. I wish people here could understand how destructive alcohol is and that way they wouldn’t let it into their life. We read in the paper here that Guatemalans have a greater chance of dying in a wreck caused by a drunk driver than dying of old age. We believe it since this is the second accident in 3 weeks just in our lives that has been caused by a drunk driver.

Ready For a Whopper?

We usually joke when we rent a vehicle from New Horizon that the one in charge of the vehicles probably just keeps the money and doesn’t pay the town. NH has a lot of community projects since they are socialistic. Unfortunately someone in charge always ends up stealing either all or the majority of the profits before they get to divide it all up. Hmmmm... why don’t they ever get called greedy socialists? The town council told us this week that he was stealing the money, so we needed to pay them directly. This is a common occurrence too. They know someone is stealing, but are too afraid to confront them. I guess the only thing guerrillas are afraid of are each other.

Well when we got to NH yesterday. We had at least a dozen people who wanted to go with us to Santa Rita. We were told that the camioncito (truck) we had reserved was still in Santa Elena being fixed. So we just took those who could fit in our truck with all the chairs and borrowed a couple tables from the school in Santa Rita. PRAYER REQUEST: that we get enough money to get my truck fixed in Guate so that we can use it too. This would avoid all this hassle.

While we were in Santa Rita the truck that was “being fixed in SE” pulled up with a bunch of soccer players from NH and SR in in. They had lied to us because they had given our reservation away. Then we found out that Kimberly’s step-dad had been driving drunk and flipped it. We didn’t get the entire story at that point because we were having our Bible study.

On the way home, Jimmy got a call from one of our friends in NH. She was concerned because a story was going around NH that Jimmy had flipped the camioncito and now Kimberly, Gerardo, and Mateo were in the hospital. Gerardo and Mateo’s mom was panicked. Jimmy told her we had never received the camioncito, but had heard that it had been in an accident.

At this point we were a little concerned to pull into NH. People are lynched here a lot, before they get to explain the entire story. Thankfully we found Gerardo and Mateo’s mom to show her they were still alive since they were with us. Then we told as many people as we could find the true story.

The part about Kimberly was true. She is in the hospital along with 2 other people. We do not think anyone is seriously hurt, but please pray for them. Another crazy part is that the drunk who wrecked the truck came back to NH and borrowed someone else’s car to drive family members to the hospital.

Not sure how the drunk who puts 3 people in the hospital gets off scott free and we, who had nothing to do with the incident, get accused of it. This place can make you go nuts!

We did have 2 great Bible studies. I am so proud of our people that came from NH. Aquilino greeted every person that came and talked to them a long time. He is so friendly. Quincho wrote down everyone’s name for me (some of which this was their 3rd time!) Gerardo gave everyone a cup of cinnamon tea (a very popular drink here which Jimmy made especially for his Bible study). With all of the craziness, these are the ones who make it worth it. Their lives have been changed. They are different people than they were a year ago and their fate obviously has changed. I cannot wait to see what God has for them!

Aquilino from NH, Jimmy, and Eulalio from SR (he was very proud of his bright shirt!)

Glad Today Is Over

Today was the most frustrating day EVER! Between my video camera and half my kids being gone, the day really never had a chance. Not really sure why this drama is so difficult... if something could go wrong it has. For example, this is just a little thing in the sea of ridiculous things to choose from, we only could find a blond baby doll in the market to be baby Jesus. Jimmy decided to permanent marker his hair black (I was just going to wrap the doll in white fabric and no one would have know the difference, but we have already covered that today.) After all the kids touch it wondering why the doll is sooooo funny looking, now our baby Jesus’ face is completely black... so much for racial accuracy. There are also black fingerprints on everything that was touched after the baby’s hair.

On a positive note... as effort to put today behind us... here is a clip of our video. It is Romans 5:8. The adults like seeing themselves on camera too!

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: We were behind this truck the other day in the city. There are no mirrors on this truck. All 3 are gone.

And Then There Were 3

Only 3 days left with Jimmy’s parents. TIme has flown by. Jimmy is preaching tomorrow at Abundant Life Baptist Church, so please pray for him. This will be the first time that his parents get to hear him preach in Spanish.

I finished this short video to make room on my computer for all the new video with Jimmy’s parents, it is clips from driving in Guatemala... it is very different.

Big praise... we took the dogs to the vet today. Fije’s tumor has not returned. She was so happy to go home with us and not have to stay at that scary place. Please pray that God will continue to keep her healthy. Thanks!

Unfortunately I saw another mouse scurry by in my kitchen tonight, so Jimmy and his mom stuffed all the holes they could find that might lead to outside with steel wool.

We ate supper with Juan and Andrés tonight. We had fun! These guys have been so faithful. They are starting at the seminary in 2 weeks. I know God has big plans for them.

5 Months

We have been in Guatemala for 5 months without being sick and then some North Americans have to bring us the flu. We did not get any shots to protect us from the germs in the States!

Please pray for Jimmy, he is really sick and we are hoping that it is just the flu. I went to buy some 7up for him this morning. I wasn’t sure what they called it here so I asked for “seven up” and then for “siete up”... neither one worked. The customer next to me asked for “seven up” and they handed one to him. Then I realized that it is “seven up” with a Guatemalan accent!

Yesterday we were able to go to Guate to pick up all the goodies Jimmy’s family sent down and the Greek books for the seminary. Thank you to everyone who helped us get our stuff. Thank you also to everyone who sent us Christmas cards. We enjoyed reading them. Jimmy got me a fondue pot for Christmas (we picked that up too). We are going to have some type of beef fondue for supper tonight (ok, maybe just me... poor Jimmy).

We did not want to pay for a hotel in Guate, so we drove home last night. It is always a praise when you make it anywhere safely in Guatemala. Jimmy said that he is sick because of my driving last night! It is pretty scary driving around mountains at night with hardly any shoulders, or guard rails. One out of every 3 or 4 cars only has one headlight, so they use their brights even when they are driving towards you. I was praying the whole time.

Someone for Saturday

Ok we need someone to pick Saturdays to pray for us! This morning I caught the tip of my toenail on a lip under the desk and partially ripped it off, it is all nice and purple now (I will spare ya’ll the picture)! For some reason I only packed sandals that pull on my toe, so Jimmy said he would drive me to Paiz to buy some cheep shoes that would hold me over until we get our container. When we got to the store, Jimmy turned right to pull in the parking space (with his blinker on) and he saw in the mirror that there was a motorbike coming up to pass on the right. Jimmy stopped, but the guy plowed into the front passenger wheel and then into another parked car. God really protected us and no one was hurt. Here, no matter what, if there is an American involved, it is his fault. Jimmy was so calm. I am so proud of him. Here it is better sometimes, if you’re an American, just to give the guys involved money. If you don’t, you get your vehicle taken away and carted off to jail while you wait to have the police work everything out. It did not hurt the guy’s bike at all, but he started pulling stuff off of it and saying it was broken. He already had the kick-stand tied up with a piece of wire to keep it from falling down while he was riding it. He was just trying to make some money. After awhile he started limping and saying he was hurt after he already told us he was ok. Jimmy ended up scolding him well and paid less than half of what he wanted, but we got to go our way. It wasn’t really that much, it was just the principle of the thing. So yes we are very thankful for your prayers! The Boggs were out of town. When they got home we told them the whole story. They said that they were glad that we got to experience this on our own. They gave us advice for next time and were just a real encouragement to us.

Driving in Guatemala!

Jimmy took this picture. It is where part of the road was washed out during Hurricane Stan last October. Well, I drove for the first time in Guatemala yesterday. When I pulled out of the drive I asked Jimmy what the speed limit was, he just looked at me and then we both started laughing. It was different. You have to be defensive and aggressive at the same time. People pass 3 or more vehicles at one time here while going around the side of a mountain on a two lane road. I definitely learned that there are as many lanes as you want there to be! There are not many stoplights or stop signs, so everyone has the right-of-way. The police do not pull you over here, they just flag you down to search your vehicle sometimes. My first trip was from Solola to Quetzal, so it was about an hour & a half drive. As soon as we got out of Solola, Jimmy said, “Oh, I meant to get gas!” Then my gas light came on and there are not any gas stations until right outside of Quetzal. Gas stations and bathrooms are precious in our new little world. We made it though. When we finally found a gas station we just sat there waiting for the guy to come pump our gas. The truck behind us in line started honking and then we realized that it was the one pump that was self-serve. (Dumb Gringos!)