mission trip to guatemala 2007

We are home now in SA, but for many our hearts our still in HueHue.  My trip was so frustrating because I could not be a workhorse on the construction team and, worse for me,  I could not play soccer with the precious kids at VBS or the orphanage.  Amy and Travis did a phenomenal act of love by taking the Crocs to those sweet kids.  Braden and Travis handed out the crocs (T-man) and the gift bags (Braden).  The two of them also got to go to a birthday party for Maria’s step-daughter.  They had a blast. 

However, the title stems from Saturday night’s worship service held in the new church.  It was one of the greatest nights of my life.  Ranks up there near the top right after accepting Christ, marrying Lisa, and the birth of Braden, but slightly higher than when Baylor beat A&M in football a few years back.  :-}  My heart was so full that evening as we worshipped with our brothers and sisters in Christ in their new worship center.  It was so moving to experience God in that place that He had allowed us to be a part of giving to them.  As they presented sweet gifts to us for what we had sacrificed to help their dream become a reality, it was so obvious how much it meant to them.  As Chris and I stood on their stage, accepting a gift to our church, the young lady who presented it just weeped because her heart was so full of joy and of thankfulness for our obedience to serve.  Even now I share tears thinking of that God-ordained moment.  I am so grateful that God allowed me, hernia and all, to go and be there for that worship service.  To be allowed to have shared my heart that night, to be allowed to see the goodness of God, to be allowed to see what our partnership with Heart Springs and with God had culminated in, is a blessing that can only be described as God opening up the heavens and allowing us to be flooded by His presence.  It was a taste of Heaven on earth. 

I thank you for trusting in me as the leader of the class and in Chris as the leader of our mission efforts.  I thank each of you that has partnered in sending someone in the last three years, that has donated an item to a garage sale, an auction, or the golf tournament, that has worked one of those events, and that has purchased something from a fundraiser over the last three years.  I thank you for the prayer coverage as well.  You played a role in in the two water systems, the crocs, the medical team’s work, the kids being saved at VBS, the other ministries that have gone on, the improvements to the mission house, and the completion of the church.  What a God we serve!  What an incredible group of servants He has brought to us to send each of the last three years!  I am blessed to call you friends, to call you brothers and sisters, and to partner with you in working with and for our Savior.  May we continue to be bold in our vision, to be obedient in our service, and may we continue to be humbled by the fact that God desires to use us to bring glory to His name! 

Kevin

In honor of the 3 birthdays here in the house today (Daniel, Peter and Julissa), Amy and I decided to take Travis and Braden to a local birthday party for Valentina, Maria’s daughter. Maria has done pharmacy with Ian and with me the past 2 years. She married in December and Pedro (her hubby) has a beautiful daughter who turned 6 yesterday. We played traditional party games and a couple of the ladies helped Brade and Travis STUFF their goodie bags after the breaking of each pinata…yep, 2 pinatas. Braden had fun with a soccer ball and several of the dads - go fiugure. He hardly noticed the dogs in the area. Travis got caught with the keys in their rendition of hot potato so I pulled Amy, Travis, and Braden into the middle so we could all do the Guatemala version of the chicken dance together.

And happy birthday to 3 of our 18 team members too. What are the odds of that ever happening again? I thought mine was close to Daniel’s being the 18th till I found out our twins are also the 14th with him.

Lisa

Here is a copy of an email that Linda, the in country missionary, sent out this morning.  Enjoy!

Hola a todos !

No, I haven’t died, and I still love you enough to write to you at 5:48 on a Saturday morning.  The challenge will be in sending you news without writing a novel.  Remember what John said at the last verse of his gospel?   I can relate, as far as describing what has gone on this week, so without talking about too much of my personal stuff, or how my week went, I want to tell you about this team..

The Lord has both challenged and blessed the mission team from Community Bible; the HeartSprings team; and the workers we are helping with the construction of the church.   The church building is not completed, and it was overly ambitious to expect it would be.  That said, the team worked so hard, accomplished so much, and found such great joy in doing it even once they knew they would not be able to finish.  They have hauled countless,back-breaking amounts of sand by wheelbarrow into the sanctuary, to be compacted by extremely noisy, heavy, and physically demand-to-operate machines.  They have willingly operated those machines.  They have hauled 5 lb buckets of cement.  They have painted the interior walls of a very big and tall sanctuary with rollers and extensions - no spray painting equipment in Huehue.  They have installed some wiring and light fixtures.  And they’ve done all this in all kinds of weather, slogging through a lot of mud.  The end result is quite beautiful, and they have punted this ball as far as they can.  Still, they plan to go back out there this morning and do whatever in advance of tonight’s thanksgiving and celebration service.  I will send photos tomorrow, after the service … and also once I locate my USB cable.    The cable has no legs, and has to be somewhere in this upside down house.

The VBS team has also been hugely successful.  The word spread daily about what the Lord was doing through them at Zaculeu school.  The first day, about 20 kids showed up.  The second day, around 40.  Yesterday, the team ministered to, played with, prayed with, and were the love of Jesus to about 120 kids and several local mothers who came along with their children.  The VBS team included two 4 year olds, Travis Halvorson and Braden Walls, who have been just spectacular in their behavior and their patience with all the culture change and inconveniences, and are each a credit to their parents.  Just in the response of the people to the VBS, the Lord gives us a glimpse of what could happen in “big church”.  It is mind-boggling to think of it.

I should mention that the team accomplished all this with no sanitary facilities at Zaculeu church or school.  We made the 7-minute drives over to Sammy and Gale’s house once or twice a day to shuttle folks to the bathroom.

I have to describe last night’s entertainment to you.  We arrived home in the late afternoon to find that, once again, there was no water for showers in the mission house.  Chris asked Carlos if we could pay a water company to bring us water.  Carlos called, but the water company’s tank truck was broken down.  Carlos then had the bright idea of calling the Huehue volunteer fire department.  Within an hour, they arrived, planting their huge truck at the bottom of our driveway.  The whole neighborhood turned out to watch as they snaked their water hose up through our 2nd floor patio and up to our tanks on the roof.  Then, no action for about 90 minutes as they couldn’t get their pump to work.  Our guys thoroughly enjoyed helping them with the hose and trying to help them solve their mechanical problems.  By the time water actually was filling our tanks, most of us spectators had lost interest.  Some had lost hope and shuttled over to the Wilsons to take showers.  But still, about Q1,500 (donated by the team) and two hours later, we had  plenty of water.  Then came the fun of watching the fire truck try to turn itself around in our driveway, with all of our rental vehicles and the regular parked vehicles in the way.  I’ll send some pictures of these events tomorrow.

That’s enough for now.  God bless us everyone, and please be praying for the turnout tonight at the celebration service.  My Huehue band, Generacion de Poder, will lead worship, and Tim Taylor will preach.  We expect the Lord will change everyone in attendance.

Your MIA Guate reporter,

Linda

When I wrote about the fire department coming last night we thought that was the whole story. I guess I jumped the gun, becuase the incident was far from over.

The fire department finally got some back up here and were finally filling the water tanks to the mission house. Mid way through the refill, the city water was turned back on! Perfect timing right. We all got a good chuckle out of that.

Finally our tanks were full, we had paid the guys and they were going to leave. There was just one small (or should I say steep) problem. For those of you who have been here before, you know that to get to the mission house you have to go down a very steep driveway. Well, for the fire truck to leave they have to get up that very steep driveway. With each try the truck backed up as far as possible in an effort to get a running start. It took the crew at least 5 tries before they finally made it up the hill. I felt bad for the very frustrated driver, but the entire team seemed to be entertained.

After they were gone our entertainment turned to Smash Pong (aka ping pong). I tried to get a Texas Hold’em game going, but couldn’t get enough interest. Oh, well. We had a great night of talking and hanging out with each other.

Amy

Well the fire department is at the mission house!  Don’t worry we don’t have a fire emergency, we have a water emergency.  The water is out (again) at the mission house, so a plan was hatched to call a water company or some place and pay to have our water tank filled up.  Well, the first people willing to come was the fire department.  We are paying them approx $80 to fill it up.  The water and ability to shower is well worth it, but the entertainment value is priceless.  They have been here over 2 hous and have been unable to get their hoses or pump to work.  We now have a backup fire truck here and I think the tank is filling up as we speak.  All I know is that if something was burning in Guatemala, these guys would prabably be very little help.  As a funny side note, one of the “firefighters” had a LAFD uniform on.  I guess Huehue is the city of choice when you transfer from LA.  Something isn’t right here?!?!?!?

Amy

Today was a great finish to our 3 days of Vacation Bible School.  We started it all of Tuesday with about 45 kids.  We had 45 kids again on Wednesday.  On Wednesday we did a craft with the kids where we take a poloriod picture of them, they glued it to a foam mat and then decorated it.  They loved it!  We told them that if they came back on Friday they could have another picture.  We also encouraged them the bring all of the brothers, sisters, cousins and friends.  The told us they would bring 100 friends!  Well, they were close.  Today we had approx. 125 kids and we were overjoyed at the turnout.  If they were only going to come one day, this was the one to attend.  We did the picture craft again and each kid recieved a salvation bracelet.  Kevin had a great message for them about salvation that corresponded nicely with their new bracelets.  The salvation bracelets are leather with 5 different colored beads on them.  Each bead represents the salvation and living a life in Christ.  They seemed to be taking it all in because they recalled the meanings of the beads when quizzed later.  The influx of kids created a little frenzy for us as we scrammled to prep more goody bags and salvation bracelts, but it all came together nicely.

 I saw my sweet friend Evelyn again today.  Her eyes and smile melt me to the core.  She is just precious.  With the added kids today things were a little bit more active.  I didn’t have much time with her today.  At the end I looked around and she was gone.  My heart sank as I realize it.  I hoped to have just another moment with just her to love on her and be with her.  I have a great picture of the two of us that I will always treasure.  It surprises me becuase I don’t normally fall so quickly, but this girl had me at Hello!

Did I mention that God signed his name to our last day of VBS?  As I mentioned we had prepped for 100, so when more showed us, we scrammbled a bit to make more salvation bracelets and goody bags.  The bags for the kids had crayons, pencils, coloring sheets, etc.  Well, as we handed out the bags, we had exactly the amount we needed - no more no less.  I know that God will always supply us with what we need, exactly when we need it.  It is just an extra special blessing when he shows us that he is doing just that.  It reminded us all that He has us covered even in the little things!  It was a great way to finish it all off. 

We invited the kids to come to the church dedication tomorrow night.  We want them to all come and bring their families.  Who knows, maybe I will be blessed with one more devine appointment with my sweet Evelyn.  If not, that is okay too, I know God has it under control. 

Thank you all for your many prayers, support and love.  We can’t wait to share more with you all when we are back home.

 Amy

I sang their praises yesterday, but this team continues to be a blessing beyond measure!  What they have been able to do this week has been nothing short of amazing!  Last night Drew (Chris’ college roommate) shared some wonderful dirt on Chris with Amy, Julissa, and I last night until about 2 am.  I woke up this morning and felt great and was ready to work.  Got to the site and was visiting with Tim as we got ready to start working.  All of a sudden I had a sharp pain from my hernia.  It was not intense to the point of being doubled over, but it was the first pain I had felt so it made me very nervous.  The VBS prayed over me and I took two advils before I led the lesson today.  The lesson went well, but we did the Robert Emmitt model of group prayer and that did not seem to be very comfortable for the kids.  I saw kids mouthing the prayer, but then no one raised their hands when we asked if anyone had prayed asking God for forgiveness for the first time.  Later when Julissa asked something again, a few hands went up.  This really was not frustrating for me because I know God’s word does not return void.  Coach Mike came up for the first time for VBS and the kids loved him!  There is a reason he is a coach!  He is full of energy, motivation, and a heart for kids.  I have known Mike since he was a freshman year of high school due to him attending Clark and being a Hobby MS athletic legend.  He exceeds the legend!  He is a great guy!  I am hoping he gets engaged and married soon and then chooses our Lifebuilders class to serve in!  After VBS, I chose to come back to the house to rest and not overdue it.  It was easier today than Tuesday when I was so frustrated with my uselessness to the team and to the work.  I am extremely excited and energized that I will have the opportunity to speak at the dedication service tomorrow.  Tim asked me to speak this morning.  I was near tears as I accepted.  As I prayed on Tuesday about what I could do with this hernia, I thought of my gifts.  They are not exactly construction oriented.  I am not a manual labor workhorse.  I will work hard, but I do not have the energy or passion for that kind of work like Chris, Lisa, etc.  I am much more VBS and relational oriented.  I am a teacher.  When Tim asked, I knew that this gives me a purpose for being here beyond experiencing missions as a family, leading the message on salvation at VBS, and encouraging the team through letters and conversations.   I am honored to represent our group and to speak to the church about our Savior and the call He placed on us to invest in this group of Guatemalans.  Pray for me as I prepare for the service, share my heart, and try to endure my nagging hernia.

Some of you are wondering how two four year olds are doing on missions.  They are great.  The team is wonderful with them- even when they are fighting (did I mention they are four?) or whining.  Mostly they get along great.  They will probably want to come back each Sunday instead of CBC because it is the largest sand box they have ever seen.  Travis loves playing with the rocks and the dirt.  Braden loves playing soccer with the locals.  The kids take good care of him in line and hug on him constantly.  They both listen well during VBS and enjoy the craft.  Today, Braden answered several questions first since he heard them in English.  He was frustrated that we would not give him the candy for correct answers.  I was just pleased he knew the answers and had listened to the stories.  It is a major blessing to be able to have the two of them here with us.  Amy and I have had extensive conversations about how wonderful this is for them to see and experience and how awesome it would be to bring them back in five to ten years for them to see it again and them to talk about “helping to build the church.”  These are memories for a life time.  The impact is for eternity!

 Kevin

I am getting ready to go to bed, but wanted to send an update.  We are all doing great and we really have a wonderful team.  We arrived without incident on Tuesday.  All of our fights were fine, customs created no real trouble, and the Guatemala crew was waiting for us.  We loaded up and headed to Huehue.  Travis and Braden traveled very well but we were all glad to finally arrive. 

Tuesday was the start of all the fun.  We headed to the church in the morning and started working.  We spent most of Tuesday shoveling, hauling, leveling and moving dirt around.  We are like little ants in a dirt assembly line as we work.  It is a lot of physical stuff, but atmosphere is great.  We are all cracking jokes and getting to know each other (as we shovel).  Richard Rogers and I had a great conversation today as we shoveled countless loads of dirt into wheelbarrows.  We started painting today.  We were wearing the baylor green shirts today and I thought Kevin was going to cry as we all got yellow paint on our baylor green shirts.  Too funny!  I don’t like to paint, so I held tight to my shovel as to not be forced into painting duty.  Also, if you can’t get to the gym, shoveling duty does the trick!  The boys are having a lot of fun too.  They think this church is so cool becasue it is basically a giant sand box - for now.  Travis also is havig a blast as he plays with the many piles of sand and dirt that have been delivered and Braden enjoyed a game of soccer with some of the local kiddos. 

 The VBS team (Tori, Kevin, Julissa, Sarah and myself) go to the school around 10.  We play games with the kids, do the craft and the lesson.  We have about 50 kids, and they are a great group.  All of them really enjoy getting to color and they seem to be having fun.  One sweet angel, Evelyn, latched onto me today and I didn’t want her to go when it was over.  She held my hand and stayed with me as much as she could.  I can’t wait to see her tomorrow, but am sad that tomorrow may be the last time I see her sweet face.  I have a handy Poloroid of the 2 of us to remind me of her- one of God’s sweet miricles that I had to travel to Guatemala to see.  She has the same picture, so i pray it will be a reminder of a happy time for her and a connection to the message of Jesus we have been sharing with them.  Tomorrow (Friday) we do the salvation braclets with them, give out the goody bags and wrap it all up. 

 We have had a lot of shower and electricity outages.  It just makes the trip seem like more of an adventure!  That’s easy to say right now becuase I’m clean, but we try to stay upbeat in these situations. 

The time is flying by. I can’t wait to share more with you in person. 

Amy

Some of you may be wondering why there has been no posts about the trip yet.  Well, it helps if you know how to get in to write a post.  We have no Josh, no Ian, and no Katie.  It helps more to actually have power in the mission house.  Tonight, we were without power so we ate out since they could not cook during the afternoon.  We got back and had power, but lost it shortly thereafter.  We sat around in the dark and got to know each other- about killed Chad.  The positive news was we had water- cold water since we had no electricity, but since many of us were covered in paint we were glad to shiver through the pain to get clean!

Yesterday when we went to the churh for the first time, I was almost moved to tears to see the work that God has allowed us to play such a major role in here in Guatemala.  The churh looks great.  There was and is plenty of work to do, but it looks great.  I am so blessed to serve with such incredible workhorses.  Lisa has bruises all over her legs from hauling sand in wheel barrows.  Sarah Thompson was high on platforms painting with Daniel most of today.  Everybody knows how hard Chis, Levi, Peter, and Chad work.  David has no lactation consulting work to do so he is using a machine to smooth out the sand on the floor for tiles.  His arms will still be shaking when we return home!  Bob and Peter have been doing a great job getting the electricity to the lights and outlets wired.  Julissa and Tori are playing with the kids constantly (locals, Braden, and Travis) when they are not working on the church construction.  Richard, Drew, and Mike are in that workhorse group.  Coach Loudermilk does a decent job for such a young guy- he can almost keep up with the 30 year old men! 

Amy just seems to do a little bit of everything that is needed- coordinate VBS, shovel dirt, monitor Braden and Travis, and make sure that I am doing ok physically and emotionally.  She and I have had several conversations about how cool it is to be building this church since it will still be here long after our work here is through.  People will get saved in this church; people will get discipled in this church; kids will grow up in this churh and choose to enter ministry and spread the work that God started in a small life group at CBC in the fall of 2004.  Praise God for the eternal impact He is allowing us to be apart of here in Guatemala!

You will notice that I did not mention myself.  Yesterday I was extremely frustrated.  Monday before we left, my doctor diagnosed me with hernia.  I will have surgery sometime after I get back.  Because of the hernia I am now useless in more than one country!  I cannot lift anything which on a construction site makes me next to useless.  I was scheduled to do VBS any way, but now I cannot play with the kids which kills me!  I brought Travis and Braden back to the mission house and watched them yesterday.  Sure I write encouraging notes to the team and individuals about how every role is important, but I had no role yesterday.  Today, we started painting and I was able to do that and felt much more productive and useful. 

We appreciate your prayers!  Pray for less rain, for the electricity and water to work, and for my hernia to not start hurting or become an issue.  Right now it is fine.  I feel good, nervous, but good.  I am being cautious and am confident that it will not be an issue this week. 

Again, I praise God for this team here in Guatemala, but also for all of our prayer warriors and workhorses back home.  All those who took prayer hours make such a difference.  All those who worked garage sales, the auction, and golf tournament are a part of what we are doing here.  All those who contributed to our individual support allow us to be the hands and feet in country this week.  THANKS!  It is easy to wonder what kind of long term impact we have as individuals even when on a mission trip.  When we stand in this church and realize what God will be able to do with this facility it is easy to see not just a long term impact, but the eternal impact that we are a part of! 

Kevin 

Hola a todos -

Thank you all for your continual prayers.  I am really excited and thank God that I have Internet capability on my laptop again.  I humbly request that everyone pray blessings on brother Josh Kerr, as he spent more than 90 minutes on the phone with me last night, working in the blind and despite a 30 minute electrical outage at the mission house to fix this problem.  God loves you, Josh!

Where to begin?  It’s been a week and a day since I returned, so I’ll have to just hit the best of the highlights.

Last weekend in Chiquimula, a city about 3 hours east of Guatemala City,  was a total blessing.  I have new family there; my brother Pastor Otto Bonilla and my sister Pastora Lisbet, my nephews Otto (”Otito”, 22) and Eric, 18, and beautiful niece Lily, 21.  What an anointed, sweet, generous family who are all diligent servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Their church, Dios de Pactos, is small but wonderfully filled with the Spirit, and the church has grown exponentially since Otto started out with just his immediate family as his church. 

Last Saturday we participated in a ladies’ meeting, where I took part in leading worship and Sammy preached on Elijah.  That meeting was so good it lasted two hours.  That evening, we participated in the youth meeting, where the Bonilla boys are leading worship with a minimum of musical training.  Otito plays the keyboard and sings lead, their cousin plays bass, and Eric had his public debut on the drums Saturday night after just 5 days of practice.  He is a natural, and had so much joy in doing it that I had to nickname him “Goofy”.   They allowed me to play along with them during their worship set, and what a joy and an anointing!  Many kids were filled with the Holy Spirit that night.  The boys later thanked me and asked me how long I had been playing the guitar.  I had to tell them I’ve been playing twice as long as they’ve been alive!

Sunday, we participated in a prayer meeting they had at 9:00 am.  After about 40 minutes of individual prayer, Lisbet told me she had been directed to ask me to get up and give a word.  I gave a short synopsis of my testimony, and it had some preaching in it on various points.  It was so much the Holy Spirit’s doing that I don’t really know what I said, but I think it lasted about 15 minutes.   She asked Sammy if he had anything to say, and he said he didn’t … the anointing wasn’t on him, but on me that morning, and that I had already preached what needed to be said.  Others got up and gave testimonies as well, which were stirring.  Sammy also had me lead the prayer ministry, which blessed me greatly.  We prayed again as as group before leaving, and Otto gave a word about how the Lord really means it when He tells us repeatedly in His Word, “do not fear”.  We are to trust, trust, trust Him.  We left by noontime feeling wonderfully full.     

Otto has a leadership course which is open to anyone knows they have accepted Jesus as their Savior and Lord and wants to progress in the Lord.  The student doesn’t even need to know how to read or write.  Otto’s latest crop of students graduated at 4 pm Sunday, and we had the privilege of taking part in the graduation ceremony.  Many family members and friends turned out to see these 15 people, men and women, young and not so young, all graduate.  Otto says that in this course, they don’t concentrate so much on studying or memorizing reams of Scripture, or knowing apologetics; they concentrate on what it means to walk out your faith daily; on changing unhealthy mindsets, attitudes, and bad habits, and getting rid of resentments by renewing minds with the Word of God.  I love this approach, and asked Otto for his curriculum.  Hopefully, he can send it to me soon.   Now, I am really wanting to get some mission teams over to Chiquimula to support and minister in Otto’s church and that community.

We rode back to Guatemala City with Otto and Lisbet on Monday, and picked up Sammy’s 4Runner from his friend Tico, who had stored it for him.  Then Tico and his family went with us to Antigua, where we met up with friends Mario and Eladia.  Mario is the brother of one of my friends here in Huehue, and he and his wife are dentists.  Eladia is from Spain and they live there now.  They met while Eladia was in Guatemala on a Doctors Without Borders trip, and she was not a Christian at the time.  They have a wonderful story and are a great couple whom I enjoyed gettiing to know.  The favor the Lord gave us in Antigua was amazing, because we got to stay at a posada that was one of the more beautiful places I’ve ever stayed at in my life, with a great shower, a great bed, and really good food.  We wished we could have stayed longer, but thank you Lord for that wonderful time of relaxation!  It turned out we were going to need it, because the ride home from Antigua the next day was long and hard.  We left Antigua at 12:30, and didn’t arrive at the mission house till 8:00 pm Tuesday night.  Many road construction delays and a new, unmarked speed bump between Cuatro Caminos and home made for a tiring trip, but we did have travel safety; Sammy’s vehicle held up despite great abuse, and we were glad to get home.

I’ll write more later, as this is probably about the maximum most of you can tolerate at one sitting.  Thanks for your attention, love, and prayers which we feel and gratefully receive and reciprocate.   

Yours in Christ,

Linda