June 2012 Newsletter

Greetings from Guatemala!  Rainy season has officially begun in our area.  We are enjoying the late afternoon and evening showers we are getting.  The daytime is still quite warm, but the rain cools it off some to make it more bearable.   We spent the first part of May in Guatemala City finalizing Ben's paperwork and getting check-ups before returning to our home.  In just over a week we were able to get both of his birth certificates and both his U.S. and Guatemalan passports.  Considering how crazy it can be to get paperwork done here we think that is pretty good!   I got to celebrate Mother's Day twice.  Here in Guatemala it falls on May 10.  We celebrated that day as well as the Sunday that it falls on in the States.  We attended a retirement fellowship for Ellis and Judy Leagans in Guatemala City.  We were given a baby shower by the missionary fellowship group in the Chiquimula area.  We attended a birthday party for our neighbor who turned three.  She is Cruz's good buddy!  We celebrated Cruz's second birthday with an Elmo themed party at our house.  We have enjoyed all of those fellowship times!   We were able to visit with Jim McGriff, Wendall and Jane Parker, David McGowin, and Ms. Fran Eachus while they were all here to do some leadership  training with the Kekchi pastors and leaders.  The study times went well and we appreciate your praying for that.  David helped with a volunteer team in our area.  They did some door to door visitation and had a service where several attended.  We spent most all of last week in the town of Sayaxche attending an Indigenous conference with nationals representing ten different people groups from five different Latin countries.  It was a great week of meeting together.   This month David will continue to go out visiting with Bro. Nahum from Honduras.  They visit on Wednesday's in a village in our area.  There are a few new believers in that village and they have been having some home Bible studies with them.  Pray for this village, the new believers, and for those who have yet to believe there.  Pray for one of the new believers who is wanting to build a small place of worship on his land for them to start meeting.  Pray for David and Bro. Nahum as they try to disciple him and another man in that area.    We are also trying to start a work in another village.  We have been slowly building a relationship with a family there.  This is the village where we plan to partner with Dan from Honduras to do agriculture work.  We will be having a village wide meeting there on Wednesday, June 20 to explain to the people what we would like to do, and get feedback from them as to how we could help them most.  Please pray for this meeting that it would go well, and that we could soon begin working in that area.    Outside of these two villages where we are trying to work there is no Baptist work at all in this area.  There are no Baptist churches to attend.  There are no pastors to encourage.  It makes it difficult on Sunday's not having anywhere to go to worship.  This is very common for missionaries who are working in unreached areas.  Please pray for us and many others who are struggling in this area.   Knowing that we are being prayed for is a huge encouragement to us.  It lifts our spirits, and keeps us going.  We cannot express how important it is to us your being a part of our ministry through prayer.  We thank you from the bottom of our hearts!