Angry Meeting # ... I Lost Count

We sent out our prayer letter for February Monday. I shared about our water story. It seems we have lots of water stories these days, but this one was about the institute. I'm posting it here with more details because it is definitely one I want to remember, one I need to remember.

Eventually we want to dig a well on the pastors institute property/farm. $20,000 has been given and set aside for this. Unfortunately for the depth that we need, we only know of one reasonably priced company that can dig this well. We have been on the waiting list for over a year. They have several government jobs currently that pay above going rate ($65,000), hence we are at the bottom of the list. Yes, there are missions organizations that dig wells, but the ones we have contacted either don't have the right equipment or are more expensive than secular companies. As a temporary solution Jimmy met with the village next door (our current church plant) over and over again to eventually get permission and a contract signed to be able to hook up to their well. The contract says that they cannot turnoff our water for any reason other than us not paying our bill. Not that we thought there would be any future problems;)

{The day there was running water at the farm was an exciting day}

  Jimmy has been having problems at the farm with people stealing watermelons and fish... like ALL of the watermelons and ALL of the fish. During the night someone would sneak on the property, crack open watermelons to see if they were ripe, then they would take all the good ones. The students were raising hundreds of white fish and Tilapia in ponds, EVERY SINGLE one was stolen.

{One of the ponds}

The property is 180 acres mainly of virgin jungle. The wood from that jungle is used to build student houses, bookshelves, tables, etc for the farm. We realize people need firewood. Jimmy had told that village (just that next-door village) that anyone who wanted firewood, needed to check in first and they could take as much "firewood" as they could carry. Well, huge trees are being chopped down without permission. Large Mahogany logs are being removed. One guy even drove a truck onto the property.

   On one occasion a student called and said that he had caught someone stealing wood and that when he asked him to leave, he cursed him and refused. Jimmy called the police to have them remove him. He was a teenage brother of one of the girls that comes to our church. Jimmy didn't want him to be taken to the capital and put in jail with gang members, so he didn't end up pressing charges, he just had him escorted home. The police even had the mom sign a piece of paper that said he was not injured during the incident... which funny enough didn't prevent all the made up stories afterwards. 

Just having the teen escorted home ended up upsetting some of the villagers. They do not believe that they are under Guatemalan law so this made them angry. Mob rule is the law in their eyes. They themselves have been having just as many problems with villagers stealing from them, so they called a meeting about it. One of our students happened to be there at the time, he said that he was just paying the water bill for the month. Somehow during this meeting, rather than identify the thieves, they turned the attention on Jimmy for getting the police involved in that specific instance. They held our student and wouldn't let him leave. There were around a thousand angry people in that meeting. They had the student call Jimmy and say that they weren't going to let him go until Jimmy came to the meeting. Well, Jimmy originally had not been invited to the meeting and had warned the students to stay away. Now, certainly Jimmy wasn't going to show up in the middle of a thousand angry villagers who live by mob rule. Jimmy told the student not to stress and that come noon, all the villagers would get hungry and go home. And it happened just like. About 2 hours later everyone got hungry and that ended up trumping their anger, so they let the student go so that they could go home and eat. Before that though, even with many of our church people speaking out against the decision, some of the outspoken angry ones went and turned off the water to the farm. Jimmy kept going and turning it back on, but then someone behind him would turn it right back off.

During that meeting the town instituted a curfew. Anyone on the street after 9PM gets shot, no questions asked. This scared many of our church members. In this culture, when the sun goes down, it's time for church to start, so by the time you have your service and people walk home, it is after 9. People were afraid to walk anywhere after dark, no matter what time. Even finishing earlier, this has hurt our church attendance and our youth group. It is slowly coming back, but honestly, I would be afraid to walk around after dark now too with that in place.

{The farm with the village beginning on the left}

It stayed like this for about a week until Jimmy could get a meeting scheduled with the town leaders. I was really worried about this meeting. I know that this institute is something that God put in Jimmy's heart to do. I know that God has protected this institute in many ways in the past when people tried to go against it. (I shared a specific story in one of our email updates and there are more I wish I could tell, just because it brings God glory.) Still, I was really worried about Jimmy stepping into a mess like that. The student who had been in the other meeting had been getting death threats... he was scared. Jimmy kept telling me about stories in Acts and how God is with him and will do the speaking and that God is the only one who can work in the hearts of the leaders. That is what Jimmy believed God was going to do- work in the hearts of the leaders.

It was a Monday evening. As Jimmy waited at the meeting place people who could barely walk because they were so drunk started showing up. So I guess Monday night is a horrible time to have a meeting, although it wasn't our choosing. On top of that the meeting had been moved so many times, that by the time it actually happened, none of the students were around to go with Jimmy to translate everything into Kekchi. There were villagers spouting off made up stories about Jimmy and the farm. Jimmy felt completely abandoned, in the pitch dark of night, arguing with a bunch of angry drunks in his third language. It looked for a while like it was going to end in the farm's favor, Jimmy had explained everything that had happened and cleared up many false rumors, but then at the last second someone who wasn't even a leader got up and shouted that they "must" turn the water off permanently. Everyone was over it by that time, so that was the conclusion.

Where was God? How can you have a farm and families living on that farm without water? We were so sad. We went to sleep Monday night feeling alone and defeated.

    Then early the next morning an unknown number kept calling Jimmy. Finally Jimmy answered the phone. It was the mayor of the village. He told Jimmy that he was not able to sleep all night long. All of these Bible verses kept coming to his head. (He does not profess to be a Christian nor does he attend any church). “The Bible says that if someone asks for water, you have to give it to him.” He said that he was turning the water back on. He called all the town leaders who were at the store buying the plug for the pipe and told them that too. Amazingly, these guys who a few hours earlier had been slurring their angry hate towards Jimmy, all of a sudden agreed and decided they shouldn't turn off our water. They got in trouble for this, but have stuck to it.  

I want to get this story down to help remind myself that what is in the book of Acts is true. If God has a job for you to do, He will make it happen. He controls the hearts of leaders, even those who do not profess Him. All of this just brings Him glory.

I have more to share later about how we are learning to live by their cultural rules. We are going to implement some new things before we restock the fish ponds for sure! Praying we can all live in peace.   

Power Troubles

So some group decided that they could go around in different poorer neighborhoods in Guatemala and get people all riled up about how much they are paying for power. They give them numbers about how rich people pay less than the poor people for power. (Actually in our specific case we pay 33% MORE per Kw than our low-consumption neighbors)

Different parts of Guatemala do pay different rates. It depends on how close you are to whatever power plant you are using. We are 500km away… at the very end of a long extension cord. We pay more and our power is out very often for long periods of time, but living somewhere rural was our decision, so we pay the rates. Our water and rent is cheaper (when we paid rent). Prices fluctuate inside a country based on your location, like anywhere else in the world.  

The more illiterate a society is, the easier it is to manipulate them. They just have to believe whatever they are told. This group told them that they are being persecuted because they are poor. "Politicians in Guatemala City are paying less than you hard working poor people." They told them that they could pay this group $4 a month and they would attach their house lines directly to the pole, bypassing the meter and giving them unlimited power. So they are stealing all of their power from the electric company, but they are calling it a protest because they are being taken advantage of since they are poor. Whenever the power company comes out and cuts their lines, someone from this group hooks it right back up that same day… so they say. Of course the power company can't keep up.

The power company is reporting that 2 million people are stealing power. Those part of the revolt claim the number to be more like 6 million, almost 50% of the households in Guatemala. Either number is too many for them to arrest or put in prison. (Not that any laws are actually enforced here anyway.) 

This affects those who are paying for their power because a whole lot more households are hooking up to the grid and all those who were hooked up before are using as much power as they want… power that they would never have been able to pay for otherwise. So, if you are at the end of an extension cord, there is hardly any power left because it is way overloaded. Our water pump keeps overheating.

 

It burned up our first pump a couple weeks ago and melted some of our pipes. Our new pump just turns itself off when it gets overheated which is turning out to be every couple minutes when the water is running! There are other things that just won't work because there isn't enough power to run them. (Like the air conditioner unit in our guest bedroom and we have guests with us right now.) On top of that the power company is turning off entire cities and even counties for weeks at a time to punish the people stealing power, but those who are paying for power lose theirs too, so everybody suffers.

Anyway we keep losing power too. It has been over a hundred degrees each day and trying to sleep without a fan is pretty miserable for my children. They are exhausted and their necks and scalps are covered in itchy heat rashes. Trying to run the generator to keep your food from spoiling is expensive anytime, but when it is becoming longterm like this, it is not sustainable. Think about the businesses around here who don't have a generator and wouldn't be able to afford the gas to run it anyway. It is just all sad. Sad for everyone. These people who are stealing power don't realize it, but this is not going to end well for them either.

Who knows when or how this will end. The government wants to nationalize the power grid here, so this might all just be a big political move. Things always work better when the government runs them, right? Jimmy reported our power issues to the power company, but when they come look at it, they will probably see that we are the only ones in our neighborhood that are paying for our power and will cut the whole line. Yippie! 

The Water Saga

When we first purchased the institute farm there were plans to connect to the village next door's well (that the government dug for them.) The mayor at the time tried to charge us a connection fee of $6,300, that he would personally pocket and also half of the overall water bill of their village. Over a year ago one of our supporting churches gave money for us to dig our own well. We have contacted people all over Guatemala, even well digging "ministries", but all want to charge an unfair amount of money except for one company that is actually based in Petén. Yes, there are well digging "ministries" here in Guatemala where people in the States have donated all of their equipment and they charge missionaries and villagers alike obscene amounts of money to turn a profit for themselves. Yikes!

 Anyway, so this one company that is fair is getting all the business, so we are way down on the list. So far we have been waiting for over a year. They currently have several government contracts (and governments overpay) so that is clogging things up.  

So what are we doing for water in the meantime? God provided this huge water tank on loan for free from our missionary friend, Jesse. This is such a blessing to KBI. Before Jimmy was hauling water in a cistern in the back of his pickup from our house. This water tank holds about 5 times more than that cistern.   

On top of the students' needs, lots of water is needed at the farm for all the crops and livestock too. God takes good care of us!

There has been another recent turn of events in this water saga. The town next door… you know, the one that poaches our wood, threatens us with guns, beat our old guard, threatened to squat on our land and take it over (that's how they got the land they are on now, they stole it from the guy we bought our land from) and tried to burn the whole farm down (the new guard put the fire out). I'd say they're pretty friendly neighbors as a whole. They got the mayor of San Pancho to fix up the dirt road that leads to the farm and their village… by threatening to kill him and burn the police station down. That benefitted us. See they're team players! 

{Poachers from our favorite village actively stealing from our farm}

Well several families from there have started attending our church (I posted about that before.) Then we found out that the new elected mayor claims to be a Christian. He is applying to study at the institute. (He obviously is far from being approved, since Jimmy hardly knows anything about him yet, but it's still interesting.) Well this new mayor offered to hook the farm up to their well for free and just pay based on how many houses are connected, but pay twice as much per house. That would be about $4 a month per house instead of $2. This would help subsidize their town's cost, which would be an incentive to keep us connected. The pipes that need to be laid for this to happen could later work for the well once it is dug too if we are ever cut off, so that money wouldn't be wasted. So please pray as Jimmy seeks direction and sorts out this possibility. Everything here has to be as complicated as possible! 

2 Minutes to Lose an iPad, a Passport and a Wedding Ring

I (Jimmy) drove to Guate last week to pick up my in-laws and bring them back to Petén. Coming into town I had a list of things to pickup while in the city. I was going to run errands the morning before they arrived, but I decided to just swing by a couple places before going to the hotel that night. My Walmart stop was about as uneventful as Walmart can be a few days before Christmas and right behind the Walmart was a new Office Depot so I decided to swing by and pick up some laminating sheets for Shelley. Between church, the Institute and our own kids Shelley goes through laminating sheets like crazy.

I am aware that during Christmas time, things are much more dangerous in Guatemala than usual so as I pulled into the Office Depot I looked for a security camera and a parking lot light right in front of the store. I also put my iPad under the seat just so it wasn't sitting out. Beyond that, we have very dark tinted windows, but I didn't want the light to be just right so maybe somebody wouldn't be able to resist a smash and grab.

I bought my stuff and came back outside and drove off. As I got to the other side of the highway, I realized something was off. Music wasn't playing when I got in like when I left. It said the passenger door wasn't completely close and when I reached to close it I realized none of my cables were there. Then I lifted my hoodie off the seat and saw there was no bag either. Frantically looking under the seat hoping they missed it, I realized my iPad was gone too. I drove back to the store and turned on the lost my iphone feature hoping maybe it was a parking lot guard that stole it and the iPad was close, but whoever had taken it had already turned it off (it still hasn't been turned on).

As I inspected the car I saw they had stuck something into the passenger lock and unlocked that door leaving a hole where your key would enter.

After waiting for about an hour for the security company to do something I was able to watch the security footage. A fancy four door black pickup truck pulled into the parking lot next to my SUV and exactly 2 minutes later drove off. Here's the video footage of them pulling out of the parking space.

Exactly three weeks ago Office Depot Guatemala stopped paying for guards in the parking lot at night. The guards go home at 7pm. The security company was happy to take my report though so that maybe Office Depot will renew their contract.

The guard for the parking lot next door had just walked away and came back just in time to see the truck drive away.

Another SUV was broken into the night before in the exact same parking spot.

While I was standing waiting for the security company I went to fiddle with my ring like I often do and it wasn't there. I remembered that I had taken it off because I had spent the last several days working on Shelley's parents' room and my fingers had swelled, so I had removed my wedding ring. Not wanting to lose it, I placed it on a keychain and put it in the front zipper pocket of my backpack... the same bag they took. This was the one irreplaceable item since Shelley had it engraved right before our wedding 9.5 years ago.

 Also, Shelley's passport was in the bag, with the receipt to pick up her new one (since this one was expiring soon). It has all of her immigration stamps, so that's several days of paperwork to file all the applicable reports and immigration office wait time... Besides taking the iPad, they also ripped out all the cables in the dash.

I am very thankful I had all my cash in my pocket instead of leaving it in my bag. Also, my passport and Guatemalan checkbook were in my driver's side door and those were untouched. More than anything else I'm thankful that Shelley and the kids weren't in the vehicle waiting for me like they usually are especially now that we know locked doors don't stop people like this that know what they are doing.

Our Life Is Bananas... B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

It is looking like Eden may be here soon. I am 35w4d, and as of 2am tonight I will have had the steroids in me to help her lungs develop for 24 hours, so that is good news. I am on a couple of meds to help my uterus calm down, but I think if she comes now she will be just fine. The doctor said it looks like she is measuring at 37 weeks now anyway, so we will probably get to take her home with us! My doctor is absolutely wonderful, so that brings a lot of comfort as well. He was looking at her the other day and asked me, "Is your family as big as your husband?" I laughed out loud! He thinks she will be very tall.

{My boys in the waiting room eating pretzels}

Jonah and Silas go to every appointment with us so that Jimmy can be there too since we don't know anyone in Guate to watch them. Jimmy doesn't get to participate much, but I like him seeing the baby with me on the monitor. He is a good sport about it since it is a lot of work on his part to keep the boys entertained with snacks (and sometimes maybe a little bit of candy). My doctor thinks our boys are angels, haha! We have friends coming tonight, so today was our last appointment with them in tow.

The place we have been staying for the last 19 days decided to up the price by over $600 a month. We just found that out this morning. There have been lots of other issues as well... tons! It is a beautiful, completely non-functional facade of a place. None of the issues were worth moving over, until the price change though.

The apartment complex's maid stole something the very first day. I didn't want a maid anyway, so that was fine, but we asked her to come by and change the trash while we were here in the morning each day... 2 weeks went by and no maid. (And we are the only ones staying in this place.) Since I have been having contractions and we have guests coming tonight AND there is no vent on the dryer so there is soggy lent all over the floors in this place that need to be mopped every day, I asked if she could come by today to do that while I had another doctor's appointment this morning. Our "free" daily maid service that we haven't been using turned into a $5 charge for her to come today. So I said fooy on that, I'm leaving the breakfast dishes for her too to get more of my "free for only $5 service" worth while I was at my appointment. Well $5 later there was still dirty breakfast dishes in my sink when I got home. It won't be hard to say goodbye to this place! Their rates and services manual is sitting on our coffee table. That was how I thought it was actually going to be. Naive optimistic me!

{This was the inside of their "pink" dryer the first day. They said they tried to clean it, so it wouldn't come off on my clothes, no worries. Well after a dozen or so of my laundry loads later, their dryer is clean! I had a dryer-phobia before this anyway, I miss my clothesline!}

Sooo, tomorrow, on Jimmy's birthday, while I am trying not to go into labor, and after our poor guests (whose bus has been broken down for several hours on the side of the road today) get here in the middle of the night, we are moving to a new place, that is significantly nicer and cheaper. We actually liked the new place better before choosing our current one, but the owner lives outside of the country and we couldn't get a hold of him until this morning. So we are really thankful for this newly available option.

It is owned by a gringo. That might cut back on some culture shock issues. Yes, when I don't live in my house that we have repaired and rigged I still... 6 years later... experience culture shock. I'm used to things here and probably prefer them now, just not INSIDE my home. The new place has a real kitchen too (and a clothesline!) No more cooking on a hot pad and toaster oven hooked up to a 20 amp breaker and tripping over extension cords!!! That will be really nice while I am in my "large (lbs)" state.

Another HUGE praise is that we got all of the money from the debit card cloning incident put back into our account. I am not sure how, since they used our pin number and were withdrawing cash so it wouldn't involve a merchant, but it is there, even the ATM fees. We are so thankful, especially since we will be using that to pay our hospital bills in a couple days. Thank you to everyone who prayed about this! God continually works everything out for us!

If you would pray for our friends that are currently on the side of the road somewhere between Belize and Guatemala City we and I am sure even more they would appreciate it! I will share more about this wonderful couple later.

Tomorrow Jimmy will be 29... haha! I can't wait for him to be 30. He has made so much fun of his viajita the last 2 years, he deserves to be 30 already. So I am off to make a German chocolate birthday cake, cooking it one layer at a time in my completely awesome toaster oven!

COOL ITEM OF THE DAY: It is only fair that I include in this post one of the many wonderful things about this country...

Pregnant Lady parking spaces!!! I have been taking advantage of these!

Nobody Cares About a Gringo Losing Money

I am spending a lot of cash right now. I am paying all of our workers at our house construction and at the Institute construction, buying materials from local hardware stores, buying gas- all in cash. There are very few places here that take credit cards, and the ones that do charge high fees to use their machines. Also, the ATMs only let me take out $270 per card per day. I don't go to town every day, so the days I do I have to use 3 different cards to keep up with our cash needs.

I never go more than a week without checking our bank account online. I know that fraud is a big deal here, but with the travel of this past week it did take me exactly one week between logging in. Today I was browsing through our expenses of the last week and saw an ATM debit for $474. That caught my attention because there are no ATMs in Guatemala that will let you take out that much in one day. I immediately called the bank and while on the phone went back over the past week. There were multiple transactions every day at ATM names I didn't recognize.

The bank informed me that those were just my ATM transactions in ENGLAND! I've never been, but the bank was giving me the runaround because as an ATM transaction, somebody had to have my PIN. My card and my PIN. You can do a quick Google search to see all of the articles about ATM card cloning in Guatemala. There were a total of 20 withdrawals between $32.04 and $448.36 each for a total that equals our upcoming medical expenses.

There have been two different reports of how card information is stolen here. One is that a cloner machine is attached to where you swipe your card and made to look like it belongs. Every ATM (even from the same companies) looks like a different model. Some are new and shiny and some are old with broken buttons. It's impossible for a regular person to know what is supposed to be on the machine and what is out of place. When you swipe your card, the attachment records your card information. Nearby would also be placed a camera to record your finger movements to get your pin number. The ATMs here are in private rooms behind a closed door, so it is impossible for somebody to just be watching you.

Somebody else wrote an article about hackers or even bank employees going into the bank systems and getting that information directly from there. I'm not sure which was used in this case.

I am not sure why, but this card wouldn't work at my normal, trusted ATM. The other two worked great, but for this one for the past month I have had to go around the corner to a new ATM (from a different company) that had just opened. Because this card was cloned and the other two weren't, I know exactly which machine has the problem. After calling my US bank and finding out all of the information I needed to fax them (with no assurance that I will get my money back yet), I called the Guatemalan Police to report it. I told the dispatcher, "My card was cloned at an ATM in Petén" to which she replied, "Ok, we'll send somebody to check it out." Me- "Uh...you don't know which ATM it was at." Dispatcher- "Oh yeah, which ATM? ok we'll send somebody." Yeah Right.

So then I called INGUAT/ASISTUR- the Guatemalan agency that is supposed to help tourists and prevent crime against them. I could not get the guy to understand. He wanted me to ask the bank manager for a key so they could retrieve my card from the ATM. After finally understanding he told me to go to the nearest police station and file a report. I've done that before with other situations. It is a futile activity where you get the only copy of the report to take home with you without any police officer other than the clerk at the desk ever hearing about your problem.

Then I called the Embassy. They took my name, location of the ATM and told me they would pass the information along to their "security people" so they could "figure something out." Whatever that means.

I finally called a friend of mine who called the chief of police of Santa Elena, Petén who sent people over to shut down the ATM until the bank can fix it.

Oh well. I would like to fly to London and punch somebody in the face, but now I can't afford it... We'll update once we hear back from the bank about what we do next.

Policewomen, Poachers and Prayers

Friday afternoon at 4pm I (Jimmy) was supposed to meet with the entire town that has been stealing wood from the Institute's property. They have been becoming more and more abusive and this week started showing up with pickup trucks and guns so that they could haul more wood and the guard would not approach. By the time the police would finally arrive, the wood had been hidden. Through all of this, you would think they would have been ashamed or felt guilty, but instead they turned angry at us for trying to stop them. So the mayor came to ask me to a meeting so that the town could tell me why they were going to keep stealing my wood.

Naturally, I wanted the authorities to be there with me. I have been on good terms with the police department through all of this, so I knew they would go with me, but because of the new administrations in the various levels of government that will be taking office over the next couple of days, that was the only support I got. Elías and I went together, followed by a police truck with 8 officers inside. As we were loading up at the station for them to follow me, the officer in charge asked me again what village we were going to. I told her and she told everybody to go back inside and get the machine guns, just in case. That's not something you want to hear.

We arrived early and the mayor got on the loud speaker to tell everybody to hurry up and get to the school. The police officers pulled me aside again and told me that I needed to be very careful about what I said because these people were very hard-headed and very unified. They told me that things could quickly get out of hand and they may not be able to stop it. I told them that I knew things might get out of hand and that's why I had invited them in the first place. She assured me that they were there to back me up, but as we were having this conversation they were turning their truck around so that it pointed to the exit...

While this is going on the mayor is announcing on the loud speaker that "the gringo is here and he must be more important than the president to have all of these body guards and ha ha ha does he think we're going to kill somebody ha ha ha everybody hurry up and get here..." He was intentionally inciting the people against me for about 15 minutes.

Therefore when everybody was there and gathered on the basketball court (in the sun they said where I would have to sweat like them instead of hiding in the shadows where the mayor knew I wanted to be), instead of letting them start the conversation, I started right in telling everybody how thankful I was that they had come. I apologized for taking so long to call this meeting and that I felt because of my delay there had been a lot of confusion and misinterpretation. I then told them that what they had been used to had changed concerning the property, that I was now the legal owner and had full rights to the property, but that I would be the best neighbor they could have. I explained the purpose of the Institute and that it was not for personal gain. I explained the benefits to the community concerning our future improvements to their schools (so that our student's children would have a good place to study) and our collaboration with the water supply and the jobs the various construction projects would create.

Then I explained our need to save the wood on the property for our use, but that I understood their needs as well. Therefore in order to get along we would allow only the people from their village to cut firewood from our land, but only after they reported themselves to our guard so that he could verify they were from the village. If somebody was on the property without permission that would be trespassing and we would call the police. They can take firewood for personal use, but not haul off truckloads to sell. They also have to enter only through our approved entrance and not cut the fence in addition to only cutting firewood during the day.

It seemed they were all in agreement with this. The large trees will not be cut down anymore. If people from the village do try to steal wood, we will cut off the firewood supply from everybody, so in that way they are responsible for policing their own people. I explained our desire for everybody to get along and that if they would forgive me for not having called the meeting sooner then I would forgive them their actions over the last month and we could now all move forward with a better relationship.

After translation and dealing with a few interruptions it took about an hour, but I believe almost everybody was happy and in agreement. The ones not happy will have to answer to the rest of the community and our goal is to not get the police involved any more.

There was a large hoard of people (around 450) during all of this and Elías and I were surrounded on all sides with the police about 50 yards away. The benefit of speaking first kept them from getting all riled up. After all was said and done the mayor became my biggest supporter.

My original plan was to sit in the woods with night vision goggles and a paint ball gun... But as we were sitting there waiting on everybody to arrive and I was steaming thinking about all of these thieves and how blatantly abusive they have been over the past few weeks, Elías whispered to me, "Just think, some day all of these people will be part of the church we start here." It's good to surround yourself with people more spiritual than you so you can keep things in perspective.

What's Going On

So here is some of what has been going on... in New Horizon at least.

Missionary How To: Get Kicked Out Of a Village.

Missionary How To: Make It Unsafe To Return To a Village.

Pastor Andy and his wife are here now. We enjoyed lunch with them today and then several hours of just talking. It was really nice and a perfect time for it!

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!)

A Clear Presentation in Kekchi!

Yesterday Domingo and José went with us to New Horizon and we showed another evangelistic movie in Kekchi last night. Afterwards they were able to share their testimonies and the plan of salvation with everyone in Kekchi. Please pray for all those that came. There were several there that have not accepted Christ yet that were able to hear the Gospel clearly in their heart language.

Please also pray for another request we have. We are pretty sure that Jimmy’s passport got stolen the day that my truck broke down. It was in the truck while it was being towed and we haven’t seen it since. Jimmy cleaned everything out of it before the mechanics started working on it, so somewhere in between is when it happened. We kept thinking that it would turn up, but that was the last day we saw it. It is not a big deal, but we only have a 2 hour window to get a temporary one when we fly to the capital Monday. Please pray that we will not have any problems before then when we would need it and also that we will be able to get a temp one pretty quick on Monday. The embassy said it only takes an hour, but nothing in this country only takes an hour. Thanks!

Odds & Ends

Tuesday, Lucha was barking in our backyard. Our dogs never bark unless there is a problem. Jimmy looked out the window and there was a man on top of our wall getting down. We did not recognize him, so I do not think he lives next door. Our house is surrounded by fields otherwise, so we really do not know why he would be up there. Lucha is a good guard dog. Please pray that God keeps us safe. This has made us be even more careful.

Yesterday Jimmy made virgin Piña Coladas... they were yummy. I made some no bakes and some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I could not find any brown sugar, but they taste good anyway. Jimmy took some no bakes for his class this morning. It is hard to find a lot of things here, but we have figured out how to make all kinds of new things since we have been here. If anybody has some great recipes for meals that do not require anything prepackaged we would love to try them. We can buy beef anyway it would come in the States and we can buy boneless chicken breast. Turkey is very expensive. Other than that we cannot find any other meat that we feel safe eating yet. If you have any good recipes please email them to us.

Jimmy always fusses at me when I let Lucha on the couch or bed. I went upstairs during my class to ask Jimmy what something was in English... Lucha was sitting on the bed with him. There is a double standard here!

You probably heard that Bush was in Guatemala on Monday. There is a large population here of liberal hippie gringos, they are the ones that were protesting. On top of that, the only news Guatemalans hear about the US is through CNN International and that is just propaganda. It is really sad. Linda says things that she hears about the States all the time, and they are just not true. It seems as though Mexico is causing all types of problems for which the US gets blamed.

Please continue to pray for my spanish. I am learning subjunctive right now and then afterwards I will have 2 and a half months of just practicing. I would really like to translate for the medical team that is coming in the middle of May. I study three hours with Linda every day covering new material and only speaking in spanish. I try to practice with Jimmy for several hours too (only using spanish). Please pray that I will be diligent. When you’re in the middle of everything it is hard to see progress especially when there is so much new material everyday. I was encouraged when my parents were here because I realized that there was a big difference in my spanish from when Jimmy’s parents were here a month earlier.