Family Traditions #30: Thanksgiving 2015

Jimmy found 4 pumpkins at the grocery store in Santa Elena a couple weeks before Thanksgiving. The chances of them having them and then us being there before someone else picked them up (all the restaurants shop there too) is so small that we were celebrating big time when he came home with these. Pumpkin pie is a super big deal for Jimmy and Silas. Sweet potato casserole is an integral part of our Thanksgiving foods too but no place had them this year. Jimmy went on a wild goose chase and ended up in a Kekchi village close to the farm waiting on a woman willing to sell them to dig them up out of her yard. So basically Jimmy saved Thanksgiving!

 

We usually host a large Thanksgiving at our house with some missionaries that live within an hour or so of us. Well that wasn't happening this year. It ended up that some of our sweetest friends here, Bonnie and Jim, invited us over for Thanksgiving Dinner. They are a big part of our life and always an encouragement to us! Bonnie is a wonderful cook (she's from the south!)

I didn't take pictures that day really, but found some on my phone that the kids had taken. Ms Bonnie had everything decorated so pretty!

 

 

After dinner Jim and Bonnie said that they wanted to show us something. They live on a large mission base right now and took us to another building. They had built the kiddos a Packers theme corn hole! They are just beautiful and you know me, I love handmade things! So much time went into these!

 

The boys didn't understand right away. They thought we were just playing a really fun game while we were there, then when they found out we were taking them home with us, they were thrilled! 

 We have a family fun day every Saturday and are big time game players. These corn holes have already gotten a lot of playing time and of course you have to wear a Packer shirt to play!

{Eden's victory dance}

Here are some pictures Bonnie took!

Bonnie and Jim made our day extra special. We are very blessed to call them friends!

Here is our thankful wall we created during the month of November. We have so much to be thankful for! 

{I have 4 photos of this wall and all are photobombed by a different member of my family who thinks they are hilarious.}

Busy Season

So this has been a pretty busy season in our life, somewhere right behind the first couple months with preemie twins. 

 We celebrated several milestones this month, like 10 years of marriage and 8 years in Guatemala. We had lots of visitors and our church and youth group is growing, along with projects at the institute! The best news though is those two precious twins put their faith in Jesus this month! (Post coming soon.)

 We made new missionary friends this past month or so too. It is really great for missionary kids to get to be around other missionary kids once in a while!  

{Celebrating July 4th}

 We also had interns with us for 3 weeks, 

followed by an awesome youth team... the next day, haha! 

 

Then after that team flew out we had a sweet family fly in that will be staying with us for about a week and a half. 

{Working on hymnals}

We are really blessed to have so many people wanting to make an investment into the work here in Guatemala!

So there are lost of stories and victories to share. And since my power just came back on, also lots of laundry to do! 

There have been some sad moments too. We said goodbye to my beautiful Labrador, Fijese, who has been with us since we got here. An irreplaceable, gift from God. Jimmy already picked us out another puppy, guard dog in the making... I think he was sad too. I really want to dislike her, but she's ok, no Fije, but ok.

{Skyping with Kiki and Papa right after she was delivered.}

 ITEM OF THE DAY: 

Another milestone - 

Our garage door that has been broken for the past 14 months finally got fixed! I can't open it myself when the opener is broken, so it is a big deal for me and the kiddos getting around. Jimmy called the welder several times a week for the last year... that's just how things work somtimes. He is a really good welder!

New Friends!

We met Nick several months ago, back before furlough. He was living in Chisec at the time, which is in the department below Petén. He met Norma there. They were married in June and decided to start their lives together here in San Pancho. Nick celebrated his one year anniversary in Guatemala 2 weeks ago. It is good to have more mature Christians in our church. Norma is Kekchi, but it is more of a "city Kekchi" culture that she is from, which we really don't know much about. Nick has been picking up Spanish on his own since he moved to Guatemala, but hasn't ever been to a language school or anything. Right now he preaches one Thursday a month at our church. He graduated from John Piper's school before coming to Guatemala. His passion is street preaching. Norma will be working as the secretary for the institute which is great since she speaks Kekchi and Spanish fluently.  

{Eden loves Norma!}

Nick and Norma rent the other side of the building where Juan lives, so they are duplex buddies! I am enjoying getting to know Norma! It is really nice having a Christian Guatemalan friend here. Nick and Norma haven't made a specific time commitment for how long they plan on being in Petén, but they are committed to following God's will for their lives. They are still getting settled obviously. Surviving here can sometimes be a full time job, haha! They have both been through a lot of life changes lately (like marriage, moving, a new ministry) and all the while navigating a new culture and fixing up a Guatemalan rental (which is it's own animal BELIEVE me!) 

So that's who those people are that show up in our pictures from time to time. Who knows where this will go. Maybe they will be here till they are old and gray. Please pray for Nick and Norma as they serve the Lord in Petén! 

Jimmy did already get them to put a chicken tractor in their front yard. The man likes chicken tractors!

Family Traditions #15: Thanksgiving 2012

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

We celebrate Thanksgiving all month long! This is my favorite holiday because it hasn't been cluttered up as much as the others. Now that the boys are old enough for conversations it makes it even more meaningful. We talk about what we value most and the One who has blessed us with it all. I really cherish this time that we have to shape our children's view of God.

The boys remind me now to light our memory candle every morning. We have so many good conversations at the breakfast table! I think anything that matters so far, they have learned there, ha! 

We talked about the Pilgrim's first Thanksgiving in 1621 and then the first official one in 1623. I think they both have valuable lessons we ought to remember. I made them props to go with the story. (Here is a great kid's version one that we read with them a couple times.) 

{Jonah wanted to be the pilgrim}

{This is me wondering why in the world I would give Silas a long sharp stick!!!}

They told me they wanted to make there OWN props! So they did!

 They painted the Mayflower!

... ok well we didn't get past the ocean and clouds since they do have the attention span of normal 3 year olds, but they had a lot of fun with that!!!

 We have been working on numbers lately, so we played a numbers game with the candy corn Daddy brought back from the States!

 They snuck several pieces during our game!

This year we did this over a couple of days, but next year I think it will be better to start Nov 1st and have each one of us list one thing we want to thank God for each day. Here is our list:

Our thankful wall will be on a chalkboard wall between the archway and my pantry, 

so picture this poster board there!

We made cookies for Daddy out of Fall shapes. Anytime we make cookies the boys always say they are "for Daddy!'

These boys are expert cookie makers!

I think Silas likes shaking out the flour as much as the sprinkles!

Look at that perfect pumpkin! Jonah is very meticulous about pealing the dough off around the cookie cutter. (There's a piece of dough stuck to his mouth... love it!)

Jimmy grew our pumpkins again this year! I shared before that our masons at our forever house decided to weed our pumpkin patch which killed our pumpkins, but my mom and Rob Hall both sent down more seeds, and they grew just in time for Thanksgiving! We had 4 pies already and there's more puree in the freezer!

{Pretty sugar pie sweet pumpkin}

 Silas is a little pumpkin pie eating monster (a la cookie monster) like his daddy!

 Jonah likes pie too, but Silas will fight his Daddy for the last piece!

We didn't get a family photo this year on Thanksgiving Day, but I did snap one real quick of Jimmy and me before we left that morning!

We are so blessed to have so many great people to share Thanksgiving with this year. Thursday we were invited over to Jim and Bonnie's. We have only shared a meal with them once before at Pizza Hut. They live in San Benito and are the directors here for the ministry, Go To Nations. Bonnie had a beautiful table set that I forgot to snap of photo of. Everything was just lovely. We had a wonderful time spending the day with them! 

I have to share a tradition that Bonnie and Jim have. They had printed place cards for all of us and on the back Jim chose a verse for each one of us... Jonah, Silas, and E too. We read them aloud at the table. Mine was III John 4 -

"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."

The perfect verse for me, motherly wise and ministry wise!

Sara and Jessie are new in the country. They will be here for at least 2 years, so we are looking forward to getting to know them better too!

Chris is the children's outreach director, he left before I took the photo. He was so sweet to play football with Jonah and Silas that day. They loved it!

On Saturday, Keturah invited all the English speakers in Petén over for a Thanksgiving meal!

We love spending time with Arlen and Keturah. They are moving to Orlando in March, so this was bittersweet. 

{The guys under the almond trees}

We had a great time of fellowship with everyone! We were laughing because the guys were talking about ministry and the ladies were talking about babies. There were 2 babies there, Anita is a midwife, and Sara is pregnant, so we had babies on the brain. 

{Chatting on the porch!}

{My kids with Jeffrey, Stephen and Brenda's oldest}

 Keturah made hats for all the kids. This time Silas picked the indian hat and Silas the pilgrim! My kids had as much fun that day as we did! Here is the evidence on our ride home:

 Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!

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. 

Juan is Moving to Petén!

Juan is going to be here in a month! We first met him in language school in Xela. He attended the same church we did, was involved in ministry with us, and attended Jimmy's class at the Seminary there. It's hard to believe it's been over 5 years since we were there! Last year he came with several other guys from Xela on a mission trip to Petén led by some of our friends from KS. It was then he felt God calling him to come and work with the Kekchi people. 

{July 2011}

In addition to his degree from the Baptist Seminary in Xela, he is also a computer technician, computer teacher, and a motorcycle mechanic. All of these are practical skills that he can share with the men in the seminary here. With these skills we are praying that God brings him a part-time job to supplement his monthly missions support. He is currently raising his support from the churches in the mountains. 

{Juan's prayer Card}

While he was here 2 weeks ago helping us with the OH team, we were able to help him put together a presentation and a prayer card. Please pray for him as he is presenting his call in churches. Deputation can be tough. He is hoping to be here by mid-August. He will first get started learning Kekchi while he helps us in the new church plant in San Pancho. 

{July 2012}

His heart is really drawn to the villages that have missions, but no pastors, and a large part of his ministry will be teaching in the seminary to train new pastors, and then personally preaching in those villages on the weekends to encourage the new works as they wait for our graduates. 

It is almost as much of a change for him as it was for us! He has to learn a new language, a new culture, a new climate... and it is an 18 hour travel day from his home to Petén by bus. Please pray for him as he raises support and then as he acclimates to the different world that is Petén. Pray that we will be encouraging to him and that we will work well together. We are excited that our team is growing!