Salvation Testimony Week

The 2 in the middle are 2 of the ladies who became part of our big family this past weekend!

Last week was the one in Personal Evangelism class where everyone has to share their testimony. We were concerned about a couple of the new students just because we had never gotten a clear testimony from them, even though they claimed to be Christians.  

 One of the new ladies who married a student before his second year, stood up when it was her turn and shared what her church told her Salvation was. She then concluded with, “So I know now that I am not a Cristian, but I want to put my faith in Christ.” This gave 2 other new wives who shared similar stories the courage to speak out as well. All 3 put their faith in Christ this past weekend. We are so excited for them! 

One had such a drastic change in her countenance. There is absolute demonic oppression going on in these village where Satan wants to keep them in bondage even in the ones where it appears the Truth has already been there. Those usually become the most difficult to reach. But what they have isn't the Truth, it's an evil counterfeit. Each time God delivers someone from Satan's kingdom it is a powerful testimony of who He is! 

So many people are looking for the Truth. We are very excited ever time it reaches one of them!

We'll Find Out When We Get There...

That's what Gerson told his friend Alfonso on their long trip to the institute to come study last year. Alfonso wanted to know exactly what they would be studying. Gerson's dad, who is a pastor, wanted him to come so Gerson invited Alfonso to come too. That's how he ended up here. 

Night church services are tough because people have to walk so far and thieves break into their houses if they know they left for church, but we really wanted our church family (Iglesia Bautista Ak' Yuam) to have fellowship with each other during the week, something besides just Sunday morning. We have a youth service on Wednesday but we wanted something family oriented. So, this past Thursday was the first house church services. We had 5 families volunteer to host in the 2 villages next to the farm. 5 second year students will rotate to a different house each Thursday to facilitate a service.

Friday during class I asked the students how it went as I knew they had put a lot of work into it. They immediately lit up! (As soon as new "first year" students arrive the now "second year" students gain much more confidence and get a whole lot more talkative, haha!) Alfonso started sharing about his house church experience. One of the men who attended his service had not ever been to our church. He put his faith in Christ that night. The man said, "I have never heard this message before!" 

This is exactly a year after Alfonso himself put his faith in Christ during his first week of classes at the institute. He was right where God wanted him to be! He finished his first year with the highest grades overall. He has also killed more snakes on the property than any other student! (if you don't count the 15 baby pit vipers Gerson killed in one day...)

 I wish you both spoke the same language and he could tell you himself because this is his story and he was super excited! This is the whole purpose of the institute. I am so grateful to God for bringing Alfonso to the institute to hear and then for putting in him the desire to tell others!

New Students at the Institute

My husband gave me a laptop makeover yesterday. I have been battling storage space and a non functioning iPhoto for about 2 years. He emptied all of the photos from my laptop and put them on some hard drives. Then I emptied the 2,000+ photos on my phone to be able to start fresh organizing them all on my laptop that now has over 300 GB of free space. I'm sooo thankful! 

So... what do I catch up on first?! Let's talk about new students! 

First, starting a new school year in January is fiscally nuts. We only usually get about half of our monthly support in December due to work days being off at churches, at our agency, and at banks because of the holidays, and don't get the rest of that regular support until the end of January. So paying for graduation, helping students move, our kids' Christmas, church Christmas outreaches, our kids starting school, and then new student housing and materials on the farm, seems overwhelming at times. And no one believes that the gringo could ever be short on funds... ever.

But, God provides, ALWAYS. 

The number of students "coming" for the new school year is very fluid. This is for me personally one of my biggest struggles in the area of faith. We can work really hard, but only the Holy Spirit can call and compel men to prepare for ministry. During this time of year I find myself thinking, "What are we doing? Is this all for nothing?" There is lots of trust involved in this part.

 Jimmy had spent a lot of time and resources on traveling to do recruitment this year. He had 20 applications. Some even paid their application fee (Q500). Still, of the 10 new students we had, only 4 were in that 20, lol! That's the way it works here. Jimmy will call them on the phone, if there is reception in their village, and they will say "Yes, I am coming", then the next day, "No... I'm not coming." Then they will show up at the farm 2 days later! How are control freaks supposed to plan?!!! 

So here are the 8 men and 2 wives that took the step of faith, moved onto the farm, and started studying this year. 

Rodrigo:

 

Mari: 

They have a beautiful little 3 month old named Jackson. From what I have heard, I think he sleeps as well as Titus at night;) I wish I could convey culturally what it means to move to an unknown place, several hours away from your family, with your first child, who is only 3 months old. I have so much respect for them and this testimony of faith. 

Raul:

 Belén:

 Belén came seeking God. She put her faith in Christ at the end of the first week of classes. She gave birth to her son the next day... because we like to have as many life events as possible all at the same time!!! It really was a beautiful time for this family! She is doing very well, a lot better than I ever did after childbirth. Her mother AND her mother-in-law are staying in her house most days helping her. What man wouldn't want to live in that his first couple weeks at a new place?! Raul and Belén seem to have a close bond, I have seen Raul helping Belén around the farm since the birth. It is so sweet!

Here is baby Carlos with his dad:

I spend lots more time with the ladies so I can't speak much about these men, but I am so grateful for Mari and Belén's sweet spirit. They fit in great here. This is a gift! We have been around toxic situations before and I just see them thriving in ministry and setting a loving atmosphere for their churches. One gossiping lady can poison any group, a gracious one, creates a sense of community! 

The others are single men.

 Henry:

 He has started playing the keyboard in church with us!

Byron:

 He plays the drums!

Mauricio:

He is kind of quiet. He gets up super early to go work before classes.

Eric:

Erick did a couple of semesters last year, but he struggled because of his Spanish. Jimmy said it would be best for him to withdraw and go study Spanish a little more and then return. He did. Either he learned more, gained confidence, or is simply working harder, but he is doing so much better!

 Gerson:

 Gerson is a pastor's kid and brought his friend, Alfonso. Alfonso wasn't a Christian. At the end of the second week he put his faith in Christ! Both of these guys are super nice!

Alfonso:

So if you are keeping track, 20% of our students weren't even Christians when they came! What a great first step to being discipled though! If there wasn't a need, and already mature Christians who sat in churches with pastors who knew their Bibles, where they had the opportunity to grow. Why would we be doing this?

Please pray for these students as they prepare for ministry!

"I'm a Christian!"

 We had a baptismal service recently at our church. The boys have been to services like these before, but this time they paid closer attention. More so I think because of their age and also they have become closer to some of the kids at church and 2 of their friends were baptized.

Our boys know and I believe have understood the plan of Salvation for a while. We have been waiting for the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts and reveal it to them personally. Silas was talking with Jimmy about how all the people that were getting baptized were telling everyone that they were Christians now. Silas said, "Yeah, Christians like me." Jimmy replied, "No you're not, you aren't a Christian until you personally decide to ask Jesus to save you." Silas was surprised and kind of disturbed. He said, "What?! but I go to church."

 He kept talking with Jimmy about how he wanted to be a Christian too. In our kids SS class that evening in church, I had my big Salvation cross, where we go through God's plan. Silas paid extra attention and asked if we could talk about that cross in English when we got home. 

That night we talked with him some more and he said that he really wanted to ask Jesus to come into his heart and save him from his sins. He was so urgent. Well he did! Now I believe you become a Christian whenever you put your faith in Jesus' death and resurrection. Could Silas have already been at that point for some time? Absolutely, but I'm glad that he has this specific time where he verbalized that he personally decided that he wanted to be a Christ follower. 

Then all day Monday Silas kept telling Jonah that he needed to ask Jesus to save him! I think it was a Andrew going to tell Peter thing! I loved that. If it is real for you than of course you want your brother in on it too! Well, no one rushes Jonah to do anything. (He is our strong willed child, and I love his passionate personality.) Jonah said that when he was ready he would. 

So that night, during our night night routine, it was Jonah's turn to lead the prayer. He didn't tell anyone he was going to, but he asked Jesus to save him too, out loud, in front of everyone (which isn't like Jonah)! He was so happy when he opened his eyes. 

 I love his little face! We all got SO excited!  

Then we called the grandparents. Silas got on the phone and says, "Hey MaG, I'm a Christian!" Jonah and Silas were both eager to tell their grandparents the news. The funniest part though was when Silas was talking to G. He said, "G, I'm going to heaven... well not now, but one day. And I'll see Zoe!" That was G's dog that recently passed away. 

 

We have spent a lot of time talking about how the Holy Spirit lives inside them, which is really neat now, because I see Him at work in their hearts. They are very present and real about things having to do with God, which helps me understand better the works of the Spirit that usually get described abstractly. I want to stay as sensitive as my boys.  

I am so thankful for our Savior who has given all of us hope. He has given us a present and a future.  and so much to rejoice over together!

A Whole House Full!

We are really excited about our discipleship group. Sometimes it's tough because you know all the things they are struggling with… more than you want to know maybe. Seeing God work in their lives though, makes me pay closer attention to my own. I want that to be a constant thing in my life too - growth. Nothing like a discipleship class or having your own kids that makes you constantly have to be honest about where you are at and where God wants to take you!

Another person in our discipleship class (2nd time this has happened Yay!), brought someone who needed Christ to church. The guard at the institute (who trusted Christ last year) called Jimmy one Sunday morning and said that there was a man in the village next door who really wanted to put his faith in Christ. The guard had been talking with him over the course of a couple weeks. (Very cool!) He wanted to know if he could bring him to our discipleship class. Well sure!

After class Jimmy went and visited the man's house. Jimmy wanted to council with him and see if he had any questions. The Holy Spirit had obviously been working in his heart. He wanted to put his faith in Christ and the only thing that was holding him back was that he wanted to make sure that everyone in his family wanted to as well. He didn't want to leave anyone behind. That is very Kekchi, to discuss something like this with your family for hours/days/weeks and then make the decision together. Well he and his wife, 3 daughters and 2 sons were ready to take that step of faith, putting their confidence in Christ for their eternity and beginning their new lives as children of God.

 

They are just the sweetest thing ever! They are smiling in the photo above because Jimmy told them to in Kekchi and they thought it was funny! The mother doesn't speak Spanish (which is pretty common in Kekchi villages), so P (one of the institute students) went with Jimmy to translate. A, the oldest daughter does speak Spanish and I just love her!

 

Domingo (white shirt) happened to be passing through town that night and came to our church service! He is a national missionary we work with very often to help plant churches in unreached villages. He is the president of the institute too. Jimmy presented the family to our church and then Domingo and several of the men prayed over them.

The village this family is from has no church. They ride the truck that brings the students to ours. That truck is packed usually, so very soon we will be sharing news of a new church plant for that village! So thankful for our God and how He does work in our lives! 

CULTURAL ITEM OF THE DAY:

A couple Sundays back we found this when we arrived for our discipleship class that morning.

 That is our church building on the left. The whole street was blocked off and there were about a dozen large speakers behind that stack of tables. In Guatemala you take whatever number of speakers would suffice and then multiply that number by 10 and that's how many speakers you need.

 The neighbors across the street are very nice. Jimmy went to ask them what hours their party would be, just so we could make other plans for our evening service. The man said that the party would start at 1:00 and last for about 2 hours. He said, "We don't want to hinder anything the Lord is doing, so we will be done before your church service starts."

I know we are the crazy ones here. Have we learned nothing after 8 years. Did we really believe that a street party in Guatemala would last for 2 hours... seriously I am embarrassed.

Well when we got there at 6:00 that evening to set up for church, it wasn't even close to wrapping up. I'm surprised we couldn't hear the party from our house.

 

 It was pouring rain. Inside our building you couldn't hear what the person was shouting next to you. You don't know loud music until you come to Guatemala! Their party tent was tied to our gate. The party could not have been any closer. Well... we couldn't do anything but laugh.

 

We had to cancel church, there was no other place we could go to in the rain. But they did give us all cake as we were leaving. I love the sense of community here!

More Ministries of Our Church

We are starting to advertise our church's new ministry to teens and young adults (15-25). It is called Grupo VIPs. Please pray with us over this new ministry. It kicks off May 9th and will be held every Friday night.  

We are praying this meets a need in our church and in our town. We have many in this age group that have come and put their faith in God, but really are lacking the Christian friendships they need for encouragement and accountability. Also, in our town there is nothing for this age group but trouble. Please pray with us! 

For the last two months we have started a discipleship class that meets on Sunday mornings. 

 

Jimmy found some really good curriculum and printed off all the sections and bound them individually so that each of us could have a workbook. I love this time! It is really hard to get people talking sometimes. Everyone is afraid of answering a question wrong or being embarrassed. This setting is perfect to get people talking. It has cleared up some confusion and people have asked some really good questions. The material covers everything from who Jesus is and who we are in Christ to basic doctrines and how to share your faith with others. 

Please pray for this discipleship class. This will be where the leaders and teachers of our church come from. Please pray that all those who are Christians will commit to this class. I feel like it as already been under a lot of attack. Two weeks in a row we had people injured or admitted to the hospital right as class was about to take place. Of course some of the people who want to come are being pressured not to attend by those who serve Satan. 

Jimmy and Juan try to follow up with anyone who misses to keep everyone on track. 

 

Right after our lesson on Salvation, one of our teens led a new 12 your old at our church to Christ. That 12 year old started coming because we met him at the basketball courts in our town during one of Jimmy's games. He is one of about a dozen other guys who come together just for our children's ministry. 

{The one on the far left led the one on the far right to Christ}

Please pray that the rest of them will come to know the Lord too. I feel like there is a huge opportunity in our town with the children, youth and young adults who are searching for truth. Please pray for our church and that we will be wise with our time and resources in order to be used most effectively by the Lord.

Fabio...I mean, Santurnino

If you've been to Santa Rita you would recognize the name Fabio as a little old man with a limp and a bad eye. If you spend any time there you would hear him tell his stories about bullet wounds, machete scars and the several times vehicles and cars have hit him and left him for dead. Today I got the whole story chronologically because Fabio is a Christian and wants to be Baptized!

Born in 1935 in Petén he married young and he and his new wife opened up a little store in their town. He also had a little land to farm and put some animals on it. However, he wasn't a very nice man and had a big drinking problem (his wife called him her poisonous thorn). That was the way he lived until he was around 25. He had a few kids by this point and one night decided he was going to go on vacation to visit his family by himself. He was heading out and one of his boys told him he had better take his little, old, dull machete with him to beat off dogs just in case. He hadn't gotten too far down the road when he was surrounded by young men with large machetes. Then commenced a fight where he killed one, seriously injured another before he blocked a machete blow with his shoulder instead of it hitting the back of his neck and was left immobilized in one arm. He was covered in blood by this point but then a flashlight was coming down the path and the other guys left.

It happened that it was one of his friends who got him to the hospital in San Benito. He was there for 23 days with IVs before he was allowed to go home. Shortly after he arrived another man with his same first and last name also was brought to the hospital but died overnight. His village heard that Santurino (his legal name) had been killed and he said his wife was relieved! After leaving the hospital he found that his wife had already been cheating on him before he was attacked, and she took his death as an opportunity for the other guy to move in to her house. So when he was released and got home, nobody was happy that he wasn't dead after all!

He wanted to kill them both but decided they weren't worth it so he told his wife she could just have the store and the animals and the house and he would move on. He moved in with his parents and having hit rock bottom he visited a new church in town and accepted Christ. He was studying his Bible earnestly, but then found out that somebody had given his name to the military and they were looking to kill him. He ran and took his kids with him as he joined the guerrilla movement in Guatemala, but after a few months of his kids being hungry and being eaten by mosquitoes in the jungle, he took them back and left them in the village.

During the war he had nothing but problems, but God spared his life many times. A few years into the war, he was with his guerrilla unit riding in a big truck, but instead of being in the back he was hanging on the outside. The truck went off the road and crashed. He woke up and saw another man looking down at him. The man told him that they were the only two that survived, the other 20 people were dead. A few minutes later that man started screaming that he was peeing blood and he soon died as well leaving Fabio as the only survivor. In various battles he was shot three different times.

During this time he desired to learn more about God, but he was not permitted to have a Bible as the guerrillas were and still are very anti-God. After the war he moved with his unit into the newly formed community of Santa Rita. Even though the war was over, they still would not permit anybody to learn of God and outlawed churches. During the next 12 years he would be hit by a car and a motorcycle while riding his bike in the dark, both times left for dead in the ditch.

This last time he felt the hit but didn't know what happened to him. All of a sudden he was walking alone on a path and he didn't know where he was going but he just kept walking. On the path he came across two men dressed in white and they asked him where he was going.

"Down this path", he said.

"You can't go down this path yet," they told him. "You still have work to do."

He turned around and started going back the other way and that is when he woke up on the ditch, covered in blood with a broken arm, a useless eye and blood pouring out of one ear.

A week after this happened he came to our Bible Study in Santa Rita where he had already been attending for a couple years. He had already told me that he was so happy he could finally learn about God again, after waiting for almost 50 years to continue what he had started. In this meeting he told me he felt God was leading him to give us half of his lot so that we could build a church building on it.

Up to this point we were borrowing a house in Santa Rita where the outside area was already filled to capacity and the lady wanted her house back. Once she took possession we would have had no place to hold our meetings.

{Ready for our Easter Drama}

A few weeks ago Fabio told me he didn't want to be called Fabio anymore. That was his guerrilla name and he doesn't want to be known by that any more, so we are to call him by his given name of Santurnino. He also said that he wants to be baptized. That was something he really wanted to do before the war and now, over 50 years later he finally in October will be able to take that step of obedience.

Santurnino once told me, several years ago, "Life is a rancid sore, but we have hope in Christ." I can't imagine the pain and suffering he has been through. It would have been merciful for God to have let him die in those painful situations, but I can't help but wonder if in God's plan for Santa Rita, he needed Fabio to survive so that he could have a church built in that village. I don't know the mind of God in this situation, but it sure looks like Santurnino suffered so much so that the people of Santa Rita would be saved. That puts, Oscar, Maria, Blanca, Claudia, Jesús, Armando, and all the others in Santa Rita who have also accepted Christ on Fabio's account simply because he desired a relationship with God and was sensitive to His working in his life.

It's the stories like this one that as a missionary give me encouragement when I am feeling down and make whatever sacrifices I think I'm making seem really insignificant.

The Team's Trip to Livingston

The last day that the team was here they voted to go to a Kekchi village rather than a tourist trip to the Mayan ruins of Tikal. Jimmy took them on a boat ride on the Rio Dulce to the Island of Livingston. The boys and I didn't go due to some sickness, so that's why I only have 3 photos, haha! Due to Livingston's history, it has more of a Jamaican feel than a Guatemalan, so it is an interesting place to visit. 

Fish soup is usually what's served there. The teens were experiencing a little bit of anxiety looking forward to it, but they did just fine! Adam wanted it to be known that he ate TWO whole bowls! All that's left are the bones!

Unexpectedly the mission they were visiting had a service planned. Since the last time Jimmy was there they have acquired a temporary pastor, so they were excited about that. 

 The team sang some songs and shared some testimonies. Due to having gringos there, some visitors came just out of curiosity. One of those visitors was a man who put his faith in Christ during the service! 

We are thankful that the team elected for the village visit over Tikal! The church is trying to raise money to enlarge their building, so the teens gave all the money they brought for the zip lines towards the metal to extend the church's roof. Each person's zip line money just happened to be equal to one sheet of metal.

It was hard saying goodbye to this team, especially for my kiddos!

Eden loved Kelsie!

 And Jonah and Silas really enjoyed their suppers with Josh!

 After the kids said goodbye we were leaving the island of Flores and Jimmy had an idea. We had been driving by a little Fair each night and the boys kept telling us that they wanted to ride the worm! It was already past their bedtime, but we figured they needed a little bit of family time so we decided to go to the Fair! 

Once they saw all the rides, they picked the helicopters over the worm. 

The man working that ride told me to go get in a helicopter on the opposite side from Jimmy... yikes. I think I would have looked at that little ride and done that anyway so we wouldn't tip.

Eden knew what time it was and the spinning around and around almost put her to sleep. She was all snuggly!

After that the boys rode this one next. Jonah picked the motorcycle and Silas the fast car!

 Our last ride for the night was the bumper cars. We all had fun on that one. Jonah and Silas thought that it was hilarious to run into each other!

 CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY:

Jimmy was hauling some wood for the team through the jungle on the institute farm and ended up with Chen Chen again. He has had it before, but thankfully this time it was only on his left arm and leg and not on his face! It is a chemical burn that lasts for weeks. It is terribly painful, but it is kind of a badge of honor among Kekchi men, so he's proud of it!

Brothers and Sisters in Christ!

Moving can be overwhelming. We were really looking forward to getting it behind us so that we could just be in San Pancho focusing on the church and the institute. Ministry here doesn't get us down, it is the day to day life things that take your time away from ministry that can wear you down. Well the Thursday night when we were in the middle of all that chaos was the night that our kids choir was scheduled to sing. They sing about once every 5 weeks or so and Jimmy ties in their songs to his sermons and we are all together for a joint service. Unfortunately NH has not been able to come the last couple Thursdays because the guy we were hiring from there (not a member of our church) to bring them arrived a couple weeks ago drunk. We haven't been able to find another option for that price, so we just pay for a micro to go get them on Sundays at twice what we were paying.

{Vilma & Maybelin}

 So the kids there that night were just from San Pancho and SR. 

It was a great message, very clear about the plan of Salvation. 

{A Sermon Illustration}

Jimmy gave an invitation. Maybelin (9) and Hugo (14) said that they were ready to put their faith in Christ! After church we talked with both of them for a while and they both prayed and asked Christ to be their personal Savior. It was beautiful to hear their testimonies in their prayers. 

{Hugo}

{Maybelin}

Please pray for them both. Neither of them attend with their parents, they come on their own... maybe that makes me feel more attached to them. They are both from San Pancho and have been attending faithfully since our church plant began. This made me so happy because I love them both so much! (Shhhh... they're kind of my favorites.)

Someone suggested on here to hang some panels to help with our sound problems. We didn't want to invest in this rental, so we thought that was a great idea. We purchased some cheap styrofoam panels and plugged them up there. It makes a huge difference!