VBS in Membrillal and Pollo Campero

Blog for June 6^th

Greetings from Guatemala!! Today was a lighter day for construction work. By Wednesday, our group completed all the work they had hoped we would accomplish this week.  So we are now doing some additional work, and this morning we filled in some of the footings that we poured earlier in the week.  Our team has been amazing! Everyone pitches in and does whatever needs to be done. We all return exhausted and sore, but it’s a good feeling to be here, doing God’s work.  The group supports each other and the camaraderie is great. It’s been really fun for me to be part of the group. They make me feel my age as I watch how hard they can work. It’s been a great time down here and I’m glad to be here.  Thank you for your continued prayer support.

John

Today we were privileged to be able to host VBS for the children at the church and school in Membrillal.  The whole team participated, starting with a short worship session with all of the kids (1^st to 6^th grade). We then split the kids into three groups and they rotated through three stations.  Jen’s station taught the kids about small sins and large sins being equally able to separate us from God, and then amazed the kids with a demonstration of how trust in Jesus takes away our sin. She took empty teabag wrappers which had a list of different sins written on them, lit the wrapper on fire, and the wrapper floated up toward the ceiling as it burned down, leaving only a whisper of ash lingering in the air.  Kenzie’s station had crafts for the kids to decorate and make necklaces and crosses and other fun stuff.  Christine’s station was the sports station where the kids played soccer, jumped rope, and played corn hole.  Everyone had a great time, and at the end, the kids took turns hugging every one of us.  The Membrillal school is one our team helped build, and its importance to those kids is hard to imagine.  Guatemala has a huge problem with alcoholism, sexual abuse of girls/women, and other tough challenges.  This school helps get these kids grounded in Christianity and a good basic education that will hopefully be one small place that can help shift the culture to a better place.  It is a blessing for me to be able to serve here and see what wonderful things our church partnership provides for all of us.

Susan

V

More Cement, and off to Membrillal

Greeting from Guatemala, to God be the Glory!!

Once again we came here to serve and bless, and we are the ones who get served and blessed. Awhile back I told Kevin, I love being put in the position, were I whole heartedly have to depend on Christ. Well I’m there now. A lot of illness has hit here and hit me hard. Today the woman went with Jennifer and I to membrillal, Jen and I taught the class we teach at our church to approx 20 pastor’s. I feel it went very well and the pastors seemed to really enjoy, hopefully we gave them some tools to start this classes, for the people suffering emotion instability and addiction issues.

The women were able to play with the kids and serve them lunch. It was made very clear to me that we serve a very big God and he is everywhere.

Construction continued on today, at a slower pace then previous days which was a relief to all, as mentioned earlier stomach issues are hitting us and I feel this team is under spiritual attack, but I have read the end of the book and know God wins.

We so appreciate your prayers, please continue them.

Tomorrow is VBS day at the school which is always fun, watching the kids be kid’s. I am amazed each trip that the people here and how happy they are and their love for god. I have learned to appreciate what we have it is truly a blessing to be here.

and again we came to serve and bless and were the ones being served and blessed to God be the glory.

Scott

Hola! This is the place where my soul comes alive! We have had continued blessings today. Praise God that he blessed us with His peace as Scott and I delivered the message of freedom from the bondage of addictions, emotional issues and destructive thinking behaviors to the churches surrounding Membrillal. I was meet with the reality of the magnitude of the alcohol problem here in this country again. Children in grade school have the freedom to purchase and abuse alcohol. The Transformation Program will be able to offer hope to mothers as well as the church leaders here with their congregations. God’s word heals and saves! I pray that those that are back home will feel the relationships that we have built with God’s church here in Guatemala. We are all one body where God’s message of hope and love can be felt.

We were then taken to the Oasis girls home where the organization Kids Alive International operates the most amazing ministry of helping sexually abused girls here in Guatemala as well as all over the world. We were able to see the orphan needs here in Guatemala and how the Oasis is meeting the needs of the girls for an advocate in the justice system, a safe place for girls that are in crisis situations and the importance of re-integrating children back into family situations. We were encouraged by Gods greatness in this ministry.

Praise God for the team’s unity on the construction site! Today the team hit 78.5 tons of concrete poured…absolutely amazing!

In Gods love and grace,

Jen Brown

A very full day

Tuesday, June 4

Matthew 19:26:  But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Today our team participated in several activities:
1. Pastors Jared and Sean lead a Pastors’ Conference on Worship
2. Mary and Jenn lead a similar conference on worship for the Pastors’ wives
3. In the morning the remainder of the team continued with the concrete work on the church
4. In the afternoon, the ladies returned to Naomi’s house to play with the children she cares for and the men carried on with the concrete work.

The turnout for the conferences was amazing!  There were 135 attendees including pastors, wives, and worship leaders.  The attendees came from distances as far as a 4 hour drive to attend the conference.  The presentations were well received and all present were blessed.

The work we did on the church was beyond our imagination.  The Scripture above describes how I felt during the day, since what we accomplished was more than we ever dreamed.  We placed 127 bags of concrete (recipe:  1 bag concrete, 1 bucket water, 3 1/2 buckets sand, and 4 buckets rock).  It was only by God’s strength that we were able to accomplish all of this.  Needless to say, we were all very tired at the end of the day, but we knew that we came to serve and that our service is not based on our strength, but on the power of the Holy Spirt at work in us.

We definitely missed the ladies in the afternoon - they really worked hard on the church and were a key reason we accomplished so much today.  They shoveled dirt to cover up some of the concrete we placed yesterday, carried water for the concrete, and filled buckets with sand and rock.  To put it it simply:  “they rocked!”  See Mary’s blog below for details of their afternoon.

I feel so blessed to be part of this team, since I don’t live in Salt Lake City, but am welcomed by the team each time I join them.  Every time I return to Guatemala and work with the people of Iglesia Galilea and the team from Risen Life Church I feel like I take away much more than I am able to give.

Gerry

Four women manned the shovels and buckets on the church construction site today.  Filling in a trench with dirt, shoveling gravel and dirt into buckets and hauling them to the cement mixer, carrying buckets of water from one water tank to another we weaved in and out of the men who were pushing wheel barrels and mixing cement.  I had the opportunity to try the wheel barrel a few times, hauling wet cement to an open trench and pouring blind over the edge.  Corby kept a close watch and gave orders, “Back up, back up! “  So none of us were pulled over the edge of the trench by the wheel barrel, though Christina had a close call.   It felt good to have sore muscles by lunch.  

In the afternoon the women went to Naomi’s other house where the low functioning girls live. Naomi had brought the other four over as well, so we had opportunity to play with all of them.   I was surprised by how happy the girls were. They love to play DJ for their mom.  She plays their song requests on her phone and the girls dance quite dramatically.  We also jumped on the trampoline with some of the girls or just held others that couldn’t do much besides be cuddled. Naomi was free to talk about the challenges of being a single mom to so many disabled children and she also shared more of what God has done to heal some of the children.  

A song that has been going through my head today is “Word of God speak, won’t you fall down like rain, washing our eyes to see your majesty, to be still and know that you’re in this place, please let me stay and rest in your holiness.”   Though the country of Guatemala has so many problems God is displaying His majesty in the work being done here.   One of Naomi’s girls named Lopita was born with her heart on the wrong side.  The hospital did x-rays and scans and determined that her blood was flowing the wrong direction.  I don’t remember all of the details but the surgeons were negligent during the surgery, opened her up on the left side (despite the xrays showing the heart on the other side), and then closed her back up.  They told Naomi that Lopita would die. However, God is not boxed in by the limits or science or man’s capabilities and a week later she was healed.  Though no new scans have been done to determine what has changed, Lopita is now a joyful, outgoing, active girl.