Peten Assoc. Annual Conv.

We spent the last two days in Sayaxche' attending the Peten K'ekchi' Annual Convention. It was a long two days but enjoyable ones. David attended the men's meetings and I met with the WMU ladies during the day. There were 48 ladies present and almost 100 men. It was a large turnout. We met here at the Sayaxche' Study Center. Within our work, there are 6 Baptist K'ekchi' regions (Coban, Chisec, Cantabal, Polochic, Peten, & Las Casas). Each have their own study center similar to the one above. Each of these were built by Southern Baptist Stateside Partners. The K'ekchi' use these study centers for their monthly Pastor's Meetings, Pastor's Trainings throughout the year, as well as meetings like the one we just attended.

I think they are more excited about our K'ekchi' language learning than even we are. As soon as I arrived for the WMU ladies meeting they asked me to give the devotion! WHAT! I was NOT prepared for that. This completely caught me off guard. I also had to share my greetings (the first of three times in one day) and was called on to sing their study song, by myself. No music & no help. It was a new song that I was not familiar with, nor the tune. I had one of those Cameron Diaz moments from "My Best Friends Wedding" where she was called on to do karaoke. Soo embarrasing! Anyway, I survived it all. My devotion was way shorter than I think they were wanting, but I shared. That night in the service all the women went on stage to sing the song together and also quote their memory verse. Here are some photos of that:

I look like a giant among them. ha I plan to take some time in the next few weeks to write a women's devotion to have on hand should this situation arise again, and I feel very sure it will.

They elected all of their new officers for the year. There was also a time to appoint the national missionaries who would serve this year. In 2008, they had 4 K'ekchi' Baptist missionaries. We were excited to learn that they had funding to add a fifth this year. So now we have five national missionaries working the Peten. How exciting! The new missionary is Javier Coc Ical. This is the only photo I was able to take of him-

There was also a time during the night service to recognize those who had studied this past year. There were 8 who received diplomas/ certificates for their study at the Instituto Biblical Bautista K'ekchi' Peten (Peten Baptist Bible Institute). They do a great job of honoring and recognizing these men.

Here are a few more misc. photos we took. It was a great meeting! Thanks for praying!