A Special Guest and $300,000 Worth of Cocaine

We have a 19 year old intern/friend that is staying with us for 5 weeks. He feels like the Lord is calling him to missions. 5 weeks sounds like a long time for everyone (haha), but Samuel is really thoughtful when it comes to our family and he is a hard worker when it comes to our ministry. He is Pastor Andy's son. We are so thankful for Pastor Andy and his family. They have been a big part of our ministry and are always personally encouraging to us. 

Our boys were so excited about Samuel coming… and it has been everything they were hoping it would be! 

Poor Samuel is their gringo piñata! He knows how to dish it right back though, he has 6 siblings.

Of course Petén had to welcome him! One of the first evening he was here was spent without power!

We had s'mores that night. Lesson learned: don't give children s'mores in the dark because when the power comes back on, your couch will be covered in surprises! 

 The first 3 days Samuel was here he worked on clearing a field and burning it off, for a project I'll share about later. He also plays the piano extremely well. One of the strings broke on my guitar Sunday night and he jumped right up and finished the worship service on the keyboard! 

Here is another testimony of God's care and protection! Samuel was supposed to stay in the hotel across the street from us (there is a house in between, so it is really across a small field and a street from us). Several months ago, Pastor Andy's church sent us money specifically designated for our house. They didn't know what we were going to spend it on, but we used part of it to finish our guest room. It is on the side of our house that isn't finished, so it still needed a floor, stucco, bars on the windows and doors. Since it's finished now, Samuel stays in our home instead of that hotel. (SO much easier for everyone!) Well, Monday I was driving home from the institute and there were about 5 police cars kind of barricading that hotel. There have been lots of wild parties there on a nightly basis with shots being fired. The news around the neighborhood is that the police decided to do a sting there Sunday night and arrested everyone in the hotel. There are only about 7 or so rooms, so it's not like you could stay there and not be in the middle of whatever was going on. I didn't see anything in our national newspaper, but I did find this article that said they confiscated a pickup with over $300,000 worth of cocaine inside, but didn't know who it belonged to… and I wouldn't have expected it to end any other way. 

Welcome to Petén!

Visitors

For the past 2 weekends in a row we have had visitors! This last Sunday Pastor Tim and our friend and  missions trip regular, Dan, came to see how things were coming along with the institute. They both are always encouraging to us. Their church as well as them personally are a very large part of our work here. We are thankful for all that they do!

 I asked Jimmy if he remembered to take pictures while he was traveling around with them.  He laughed and said, "Yeah..." This was the best photo and it isn't even of them looking at the fish pond, they're looking at Domingo's turkeys! 

They spent a lot of time talking about the administration side of all the projects and throwing around different ideas on how to improve the current projects and which ones to start working on next. It was all very helpful in this planning stage. 

The Sunday before last we had a single missionary from Chisec come for a visit. His name is Nick and he has been in the country for about 4 months. 

It was great to get to know him a little bit. We seem to be pretty like minded. He and Jimmy talked of different ministry opportunities here in Petén. He is still looking for where and what God has for him in Guatemala. He is coming again this saturday to celebrate Thanksgiving! Maybe our paths will cross several more times in the future. 

Roosters, Grammar, & Yummy Food

Our new place is beautiful! It has just as many non-functional issues as the other, but I think it is better since it is cheaper, there is a lot more room for all of us, and tons of spots for my boys to run around in.

{Silas & Jonah our first morning there, on the porch outside of our rooms.}

The house comes with a pet rooster! Jonah and Silas noticed him right away!

We have a couple staying with us right now. The Yoders, James and Marietta, called us up several months ago and offered to come down for a couple weeks when we had time to tutor us in Kekchi. Why? Because they love Kekchi people. They were missionaries in Belize for many years and actually lived in a Kekchi village. James has been down here before to teach a KBI module. The Kekchi pastors still go on and on about how good Brother James' Kekchi is and how it is pure Kekchi and even better than theirs since he doesn't mix in any Spanish words.

Their offer to come help us learn this language is a wonderful gift! We were very excited to hear about their willingness to do this. We feel like there have been so many setbacks, especially trying to find accurate grammar books and dictionaries that use the new alphabet. The more books we find and people we ask questions, the more different answers we get. I feel like we are constantly learning and then relearning things that were written down incorrectly.

Yesterday we all went to the country's headquarters for indigenous languages. They are supposed to have all of the textbooks that are used in the schools. It was kind of disorganized.

We had to rummage through piles of books in all the Mayan languages to find Kekchi textbooks. We bought 2 of everything they had that included the Spanish in it.

{Some of the books we found}

Once we got home we were pretty disappointed. It looks like they must have started with a Spanish textbook and then had that one translated to all the Mayan languages to use as a grammar book for those languages whether the languages were similar or not. Lots of words don't exist I guess in all of the languages or the thoughts weren't clear to the ones translating, because the books are kind of a mess. The sentences don't even make sense. The charts are off. I feel bad for the Kekchi children who are using these textbooks to learn how to write their own tongue. They have a beautiful language, but these books might make them doubt that.

So our plan now is to continue with James over skype and Tutor #4 in person, writing down as much as we can get and organizing it in a usable fashion. Please pray for us, we need this language to move on with our Kekchi work.

Beyond the language, the Yoders know so much about Kekchi culture. We are constantly learning valuable things from them just in casual conversation. Jimmy has already made several adjustments to the seminary just from discussions with James. Beyond language and culture, we really enjoy their friendship. We come from such different backgrounds, but there is just such good fellowship there. They have had so many experiences, and we get to reap wisdom from all of them.

They are great with our boys. Jonah and Silas are fascinated with James' iPad, so he won them over quick!

Marietta is a great cook, so I have really enjoyed being around her in the kitchen. I am writing down all kinds of new recipes.

We are having the best time with them!

Marietta took pregnancy photos for us yesterday, so I will try and post them soon. Eden is staying put for now. Jimmy went out and bought newborn diapers today and a pack n play, so I'd say we are officially ready... as ready as you can be! I probably should pack a hospital bag I guess.

Bring Your Own Machete Day!

{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

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.

Becca is Here!

{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!

Medical Clinic in Mojarra 28

*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!

Tutor #4 (orange shirt), our Kekchi tutor, came with us and translated from Kekchi to Spanish for Andy. We really like working with Tutor #4!

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!