Moving Again

We found a rental house in El Chal! Stephen found it for us and we looked at it today. It is the first we have seen where the walls go all the way to the ceiling! The rent is $73 a month plus electricity and water. This was the first offer Jimmy made and the owner did not even argue. We are going to be fixing it up a little so that is why we got it at that price. We will be able to save money while we build... now we just need to find some land to buy. Our lease here is up at the end of May, so that is probably when we will move. It is going to be a little different!

It is fenced in which is great for our dogs and vehicles. All the windows have bars, so it is very secure. All the outside doors are metal. We will probably put barb wire up so that kids will not climb over.

The living room

The view from the front door.

This is the kitchen/dining room & Stephen.

Bedroom with the indoor bathroom.

There is another bathroom outside for some reason.

This is the bathroom. We will be back to a water heater attached to the shower head. We will buy a cistern and a pump to use there and then move it to our new house when it is finished.

There are 3 other bedrooms, so hopefully all of our ministry supplies will fit.

There are no inside doors, so we will have to find and instal some if we want any.

We are very thankful for Stephen’s help with this. God just keeps leading us to the right people. We can start fixing it up a little at the beginning of May.

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!

At the Other End of a Dirt Road

Yesterday Domingo and José, two of the Kekchi missionaries, took us to one of the villages they found with no church. It is 2 hours off the main road on this dirt road. The name of the village is Secacau (say-caw-cawoo). Please pray for this village. There are no Christians in it yet.

First I have to say that Domingo and José truly love these people. While so many people on this earth are consumed with physical gain, these two men have chosen to forsake the little bit that they have for the eternity of complete strangers. It is one thing to be a missionary from the States full of Christians and churches who faithfully support and pray for you, it is a completely different world to be a missionary from Guatemala.

These men spend their life on dirt roads locating villages like these. There are plenty of them, but they are hidden in the jungle. Sometimes they just drive for hours on back roads looking for villages. The Kekchi have started a Christian radio station out of Sayaxché and sometimes people will call in and ask for someone to come to their village. Once they find them, they make contact and spend months just building a relationship so that they can then be given permission to start a work in their village.

This is where we held the medical clinic.

We got there and they weren’t too sure about us at first.

We passed out numbers.

Dr. Andy set up under a tree. The Kekchi missionaries had found a Christian nurse that was willing to come with us and translate from Kekchi to Spanish for Dr. Andy.

Jimmy & I were just there basically for crowd control... which is a little tough when we don’t speak Kekchi and they don’t speak Spanish.

The kids had fun playing frisbee with Jimmy!

Gabriel was in charge of the pharmacy. He is from Gaute. He and his future wife, Sheila, have surrendered to move to Petén as missionaries after they get married in June. We are very excited about that!

Sebastian is a friend of Andy’s who is trained to pull teeth. He and his wife were able to help a lot of people yesterday. We heard of one person who had 5 teeth pulled! These people are very brave. Afterwards they are always holding their bleeding gums and trying to say thank you.

How would you like to go to the dentist with an audience?!

It started raining, so Dr. Andy had to move indoors. It got pretty dark since there was no electricity. The kids were sitting on top of the walls watching.

This lady has twins. I had a really good picture of her balancing one in a sheet wrapped around her head and hanging down her back while she nursed the other one... it was very impressive but the photo was removed by my editor!

The little black tarp down this path was the outhouse that most of us had the pleasure of visiting... the hardest part was balancing in the mud!

This was one of the poorest places we have seen. Most of the men and boys have boots to work in the fields, but most of the ladies and girls did not have any shoes.

This is Jimmy talking to some of the men in the village, some of them spoke Spanish a little. Afterwards they all came to thank everyone for coming. The ladies prepared fish for us before we left.

It was the whole fish! I had to take a picture of it to see it because we were eating in the dark. It had a delicious flavor!

These are the ladies that prepared it for us!

{Making corn tortillas}

The 2 missionaries, Domingo and José are in the blue shirts. They are a lot of fun!

They were watching us eat to make sure we liked it!

Domingo is in the center with some of the people from the village. Jimmy, Gabriel, Dr. Andy, & his son are standing in the back. This last picture is with Sebastian and his wife.

Dr. Andy was able to see everyone from the village in one day which worked out good since he is very busy while he is here. Unfortunately we had nowhere to show the movie because of the rain and we had a long trip back anyway, so it was probably much safer since we left at that time. Jimmy and I are going to go back soon with Domingo and José to show it.

Please pray for this village and the 50 other villages just like it that these Kekchi men have found. There are countless more that still have not been reached.

Happy New Year

Our Bible studies went great on Sunday. We have been a little concerned. When we first arrived in New Horizon the Catholic church was not open very often and we could not find anyone who could tell us anything about Jesus Christ. Jimmy spoke to one of the men in the village who said he was Catholic. He said that he didn’t really believe any of that stuff, but that it was just tradition. Many people in New Horizon do not even believe God exists. We really see a need in the village and that is why we felt God leading us to it. Well, when the Catholic church found out that adults were starting to come to our Bible studies and that the attendance to our kids Bible study was growing they started having weekly services. We had scheduled our Bible studies starting at 4:00 on Sunday afternoons so as to not cause any strife.

We heard recently that the mothers in the village had gotten together to discuss why more kids were coming to our Bible study than were going to the Catholic church. The mothers said that they don’t tell their kids what to do, and they can go where they want. They said that the kids want to go hear our Bible stories, and they don’t want to go to the Catholic church.

Sunday we found out that because of our Bible Studies, the Catholic church has decided to move their services to Saturdays. They are blaming us for their low attendance (something that existed way before us) and so are changing in hope that people will come now. The Boggs told us that similar things happened to them. The Catholic church was not interested in a certain area, but when they started a work there that was beginning to grow, they decided to get more involved in the community.

The kids were laughing because I asked who has sinned and the kids replied “everybody.” One of the teenage guys that was listening through the window yelled, “not me!” He was a little too well know to make that claim!

The Bible study was about reaping what you sow. Jimmy brought 10 bags of different seeds and they had to identify what fruit it was. No one got kiwi right. They said it was imported fruit!

Because of the drama that our recent team did, we were able to reach some more teenagers that we did not have a relationship with before. One of these was Carlos. He played the dad in the second scene. He is Jaime and Eliu’s older brother if some of you know who they are. Anyways, he came to our Bible Study for the first time this Sunday. Throughout our rehearsals, he had been hearing the plan of salvation. He was hanging around afterwards on Sunday night and Jimmy asked him, “Are you ready to accept Jesus yet?” He said yes! Jimmy said, “Do you know how?” and Carlos replied, “Not really.” Jimmy took him through the Romans Road and he understood each part. Afterwards he prayed on his own, “God save me. I know I’m a sinner and I need your salvation.” This is our second man to get saved here. He is 18 with a second grade education. He is also the oldest guy in his family. Please pray for him as we begin to disciple him. Pray that his family sees a change in his life and wants what Carlos now has!

Amy and Carlos

One last thing to pray about. Luis told us last night that in the next town assembly meeting, he is going to ask for us to have land in the village to build a church on. Once again, he is the town council presidents nephew, so hopefully his word will go a long ways.