I just wanted to give a quick update about the new skate facility in Cobán. In a previous post titled, “It is Finished” I made the mistake of posting before going inside and seeing it with my own eyes. When I went in a few minutes after posting, I thought oh no because the water and electricity wasn’t even hooked up.

Now it is truly ready and yesterday the skate mission team helped us get the ramps inside the new facility. Today we will have the grand opening with music, prizes, contests etc. On Thursday, we will hold a skater Bible study for the first time in the new building. A skate session will follow and in the evening we will serve them hot dogs and show them the Spanish version of Livin it, an evangelistic film produced by the Palau Association that focuses on Skateboarding and BMX bike stunts. We are stoked about the eighteen decisions that were made for Christ on Sunday and now is the time to follow up with them to get them a base knowledge of the Word of God. Please continue to keep this ministry in your prayers.

The ramps are in & ready to go!

Check out this video summary of the first three days of our 2010 Skate Missions Team!

I just wanted to give you a quick update today about the building in Coban, Guatemala that is now our Extreme Sports Ministry base; it is finished! The construction phase has been completed and as you can see in the photos below, it’s time to move some skate ramps and equipment in! We appreciate those of you who have been praying for and/or financially supporting this effort. We believe this building will be used mightily to reach at risk kids for Christ! We’d love to hear your comments, when you get the chance.

Extreme sports building is ready in coban, Guatemala

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Our Ministry Trailer

For those of you who read our last post and were wondering how we were going to transport our portable ramps after they get here, this post is for you. A few weeks back, a pastor of a new congregation in Virginia inquired about our upcoming needs. It was communicated to him that we will be receiving our portable ramps in the upcoming months, and we’ll need a way to carry them around to different events. Shortly thereafter, we found a used trailer for sale from a missionary in Guatemala City and the church purchased it for our extreme sports ministry. Praise the Lord!

One of the six portable ramps

We are excited to announce that six portable ramps will soon be a part of our equipment for our Extreme Sports Ministry based in Coban, Guatemala. God is opening up doors so that we will be able to hold mobile skate sessions in different cities in Guatemala as well as other countries in Central America. We are currently in the process of purchasing the used ramps with the proceeds from a 2009 fundraiser. This will allow us the opportunity to have an even bigger impact in communities where extreme sports are rapidly growing in popularity. We hope to have them here before our skate mission team comes in July, so that we can use the ramps to do demos in local schools. It has been quite a challenge to find a way to get them to Guatemala. We have tried to get them here in the back of vehicles that are being driven down, to no avail. We also have tried to find someone who is already sending a container by barge to allow us to use one pallet’s worth of space. Please pray for us to find an efficient cost effective way for us to get these ramps shipped to Guatemala.

Five16 Magazine Issue No. 7

God is still opening doors in unique ways for our ministry. One of the most recent has been having a magazine article written and featured in the current issue of Five16 Magazine. Our good friend Paul Burgett was the author of the article and contacted the magazine about the possibility of having it published by them. Five16 Magazine is an online extreme sports magazine that offers a Christian perspective on the extreme sports scene and music culture, but is still able to captivate the interest of non-believers as well. I totally recommend this magazine and you can sign up for a 100% free subscription at the Fize16 Magazine Link. The actual magazine’s pages are setup on a Flash viewer, so your internet connection needs to be of a decent speed. Our article is titled, “To Fall Like a Cat and can be found on pages 34-41, of the current issue. We hope you get a chance to check it out and please give us your feedback about it. We want to say a special word of thanks to Paul Burgett for writing it and to magazine editor Chad Armel for including it in this month’s issue; God bless you guys.

This is just some video footage of some of our regular skaters at our February 23rd skate session  in Coban, Guatemala. We only used three ramps in this outreach because it was during the week with about twenty skaters in all. The types of ramps that you will see here are a quarter pipe,  a kicker and a fun box. Let us know what you think!

Catherine-singing in the rain 01/31/2010

I just want to take a few minutes and give God the praise that HE deserves for something that, even the non-believers are talking about at our skate outreach in Coban, Guatemala. I want to start out by saying that I have lived and served as a full-time missionary in Guatemala since November of 2001, and have seen God completely take over and intervene in many different situations. Occasionally HE has pushed a rain cloud away, until we finish an outdoor event but nothing equals how HE has orchestrated this year’s rainy season; in terms of our outdoor activities with the local skaters. Coban is located in the edge of a tropical rainforest, so light drizzle with high humidity and early morning fog is a given here. However, there is also a very evident rainy season here between the months of November to February where heavy, all-day rains are expected a couple times a week.

I returned from last year’s Christian skate ministry conference on November the third, all fired up and refocused to continue leading these local, at-risk kids in a lifestyle of following Jesus on a daily basis. We held an average of three weekly, outdoor skate activities for the months of November and December of 2009. We are now in February of 2010 people, and we have yet to have our Masonite covered skateboarding ramps even drizzled on! I am not saying that it hasn’t rained. On days in between the skate activities, it has rained for hours and we have even had several steady two to three day torrential rains. We have held approximately thirty outdoor activities in the last four months including skate sessions, Bible studies and Sunday afternoon events that are four hours long. Even yesterday as I was driving to the school for our 3:00PM Skater Bible Study, I started shaking my head as I hit a patch of light rain. I was noticing the the thickness of the dark clouds covering Coban like a blanket. I wasn’t shaking me head out of doubt; it was because I already knew that God was going to do it, once again! Jose, a regular skater that comes from Santa Cruz about fifteen minutes away, almost got off the bus because it was raining so hard. It rained at my house and reportedly all around the city of Coban. At the school where we were pouring our hearts out to rejected kids, it never rained a drop! As I was finishing up teaching the Bible study, I told them that it doesn’t matter who has turned their backs towards them and rejected them because God loves every one of them so much and you want to know how I know that? I asked them to think about how many times we have held outdoor activities since the beginning of November and not once have we been rained on. Ivan, a hardcore Emo kid in his twenties said, “hey, you know that’s right; we live in Coban; can you believe that?” YES I CAN, PRAISE THE LORD!

Metal Trusses are in place

As you can see from the adjoining picture, the metal structure for the roof has now been fabricated and welded into place. The roof support is made out of metal trusses and will be covered by long sheets of tin roofing material. Both of which are very typical styles for most construction in this area. The roofing tin should be installed soon and then the floor would be poured next week. The cement floor will need to dry and start to cure before we will be able to hold skate sessions there. So we are probably looking at a few more weeks of dodging raindrops and lifting 350 lb. ramps, before we inaugurate the new facility. Currently, we are holding outdoor skate sessions on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons with the Skater Bible Study being held at the beginning of the outreach activity each Thursday. Please continue to keep our Extreme Sports Ministry in your prayers!

I just wanted to give you all a quick status update about the construction of the building that we will be using for the Extreme Sports Ministry. We have spent the last week getting the ground smoothed out and ready for pouring the floor, including the removal of excess dirt, rocks, roots etc. One of the local skaters helped me shovel dirt and God allowed me the opportunity to mentor him about his current circumstances. He’s really searching and I know its only a matter of time before he realizes that the Lord is capable of fixing his messed up life, just exactly like he did for me in years past.

The actual floor pouring will be done after the metal roofing is in place. Currently, the huge, metal support structures are being fabricated offsite and will hopefully be ready to install sometime next week. Until then, we’re just waiting; which is the toughest part for me. I am definitely ready to get back to the busy routine of holding regular skates sessions and our weekly Bible study for Skaters. We are also hoping to use the building as a youth center where the locals can come hangout, play games or shoot pool, and learn more about God. We don’t have a pool table or video games yet, but we believe that God will open those doors when the timing is right.

Thanks so much for those of you who are keeping this project lifted up in prayer!