We are checking on the possibility of doing a future solar panel outreach in a rural village that doesn’t have electricity here in Guatemala. The idea is to provide low voltage lighting in homes that have never had electricity. Our question is, do any of our friends know where to find solar panels for donations or possibly at a reduced price? We would love to hear from you and have your feedback about this idea.

This week we assisted our friends from Living To Serve in the installation of preventative health apparatus in a rural village to reduce health risks for the extremely under privileged families. The mountainous village of Poqomchi descent Mayans is located in Alta Verapaz about an hour from Coban. Twenty-two families received three items designed to improve their hygiene and living conditions hence lowering the risk of lung disease, parasites and reducing malnutrition in the community. The strategically designed items are safe cooking stoves, a bucket water filter and a Tippy Tap hygiene station. The heavy rains, muddy trails and long distances made the outreach more challenging. Car problems on the way to the villages, made my participation very limited but in the homes that I had the privilege to serve in the people were genuinely appreciative of our efforts. In addition each family was prayed for and mandatory bimonthly training sessions will allow proper followup for this project to assure that the Guatemalans get the most benefit out of these donations.

Calvary Chapel Durango, Durango, Mexico

A little over a week ago, I asked you to commit to pray for the city of Durango, Durango, Mexico without having all the details to share. Well that was because, recently I was contacted by our friend Jonathan Sanchez who shared the vision that he had to go back home and be used by the Lord in a mighty way. He was living and working in Dallas, Texas for about a year. During his time there he felt the Lord stirring his heart to return to his home town of Durango, Durango, Mexico where he could use his unique God given talents to reach people for HIS kingdom. He attends a Calvary Chapel church plant and is starting a ministry in a local juvenile correctional facility there. He also paints graffiti (as seen in this video clip) with an evangelistic message to lead people in repentance to Jesus. Our ministry would like to provide him with prayer support, Bibles and possibly host a mission team there to help support this endeavor. I have asked him to post periodically on this blog to help keep everyone informed of his progress along the way. Below is his initial post and greetings from Durango, Durango.

Blessings,

It’s an honor to share what God is beginning to do in this city ”Durango, Durango, México. Our starting point is a ”Youth Detention Center” (Center of Reintegration and Treatment for Juvenile Offenders).

One of the ways to share the Gospel of God is through Graffiti and Skateboarding, I believe that God can use all of our talents but over all the things he uses our heart to share His love; like we can see in Matthew 25: ^{36 ”}I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me”.

Sending greetings from Durango,

Jonathan Sánchez

Youth Detention Center Durango, Durango, Mexico

In April we teamed up with our friends from Sharing The Journey International (STJI) to host a surgical mission team in rural Alta Verapaz Guatemala! The team was a huge success & about 30 cleft lip & palate surgeries we performed. And most importantly the genuine love that this group displayed changed lives in Guatemala.

Rice Family

Following after the footsteps of Jesus, is a never ending adventure with lots of twists and turns in the road. After living with family in Zacapa in 2011, God is supernaturally opening some doors that I never dreamed possible. We are in the process of moving yet again and this time we are headed to Guatemala City! We will still continue to build relationships and hold outreaches in Coban and other cities as God leads, but our home and ministry hub will be in Guatemala City.

We have been concerned for a long time about finding the best answer for our daughter’s bilingual education. When we lived in Coban, she went to a bilingual school and both languages were starting to flourish. Last year she studied at a Spanish speaking school in Zacapa and I noticed that she was losing some of her English abilities. So one day after school ended for the year, she and I flew to Virginia and the following Monday she was enrolled as an exchange student at the ABC preschool in Amelia, Virginia. She is now dominating English and also very inquisitive, as most five year olds are. In Guatemala City, she will now be able to attend a US accredited, English speaking, Christian school for missionary kids. We are so thankful to our friends who are helping to make this possible by paying the rent for a house that is just minutes away from the school.

This move will also be beneficial for our ministry. I can’t even imagine what it will feel like to pick up mission teams and interns at the airport without making a long trip! Our focus will still be on the cities in the interior of the country, but living in Guatemala City will allow us to reach out to many more cities in a circumference of Guatemala City instead of mainly focusing on the Northeast region of the country. Please continue to keep our family and ministry in your prayers for all the remaining minor details to be taken care of in a timely fashion.

It wasn’t much later that I got involved with this community of faithful college students who desired to be “missional”.  Knowing God personally through His word really helped me understand what it meant to be on mission for Him. The bible opens up with a union (Adam and Eve) and ends in a union (Jesus and his followers, the “bride”), and God since eternity has always been God the Father. He is Father to many sons and daughters and this is seen through the covenant that God has made through the death of Jesus Christ. The cross not only forgives us from sin, but it also restores us to have a relational life with God. By the grace of God we can live by this beautiful truth, but in no way are we to stay idle. God has a mission for all his followers, and that is that we share the gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone.

This idea of being missional on campus and in my surrounding community became very important to me, not only because I wanted everyone to know the love and freedom that is found through Christ Jesus (John 6:27), but also because I wanted to share my life as a testimony of the powerful work that God does through his sons and daughters and how He yearns this for every living person. While praying about possible post-college jobs, I prayed about being on mission for God. I went to an event at a local church and saw pictures of a group who had gone to Guatemala. I saw pictures of homes being built and the poor being loved on. My heart sank and that night I prayed for the people of Guatemala.  I am a first generation American of Guatemalan parents, however, I am not familiar with the country or its needs. I understood how I can serve in Guatemala and knew I had to pray about going on missions there. Matthew 25:40 says, “The King will reply, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine you did for me.” God loves his children despite their backgrounds and this verse helped me see how I can be used by God to serve the people of Guatemala.

If you ask me today, where I fit in, I will firmly tell you that my identity is found in Jesus Christ and I am praying about bringing the gospel and love of Jesus Christ to Guatemalans.

The new Luisa Marisol

Back in January, when we met her for the very first time, Luisa Marisol needed a custom wheelchair due to her condition after having meningitis at the age of one; or so we thought. We started looking for options to see how we could help her and her family. We got word that there was a wheelchair team that was coming to give wheelchairs to children in Antigua in February.  So a team from a local church plant and me set off on an early morning journey to Antigua.  When it was her turn, the occupational therapist removed her bulky clothing to fit her for the chair and all of our jaws dropped because she was literally just skin and bones, weighing just seventeen pounds at twelve years of age. Her condition was so severe, that the therapist stopped what she was doing to take us to a nearby hospital that has a program for malnourished children. The hospital is called Hermano Pedro and has a program to help low income families receive high quality care for their children. The doctor told us that her only chance for survival and full recuperation was if she were to be admitted into the nourishment program for several months. This was a difficult decision for her parents to make because they thought that they were just going to Antigua to get her a wheelchair.  So, we left her there in February and we prayed, putting her in God’s hands.

Luisa Marisol January 2011

As the time passed, the local pastor and I would go and visit with the family to check on her status but they really couldn’t tell us much. They were calling the hospital regularly, but were unable to go visit her because of the expense of the long trip to Antigua. On Friday July 8th, we went back for a visit and to our great surprise, Luisa Marisol was there and looking like a completely different person. She now weighs 28 lbs and her arms and legs have filled out nicely. The change is so drastic that her mother didn’t even recognize her when she went to pick her up and had to ask a nurse to show her which child was hers! The mother told us that she went back to the place where the wheelchair distribution was and that she is scheduled to get a wheelchair in August.

Luisa Marisol with the occupational therapist

The best part of this process is that the parents are getting an education about the proper way to prepare food for her and now she is on different medications. The father was in tears as he told us about the lessons that God has taught them through all of this. We are so thankful to God for giving us the opportunity to meet her and for the miracle that HE has done in this family. They will be presenting her in the Coban church plant, De La Comunidad, after they get her wheelchair and now know that there is a group of local Christians that care about them.