Our Week In Sayaxche

We ate breakfast in Flores on Tuesday morning and then finished the last leg of our trip on to Sayaxche. We arrived around lunchtime.

Here are Cruz and I on the ferry that crosses the Passion River at Sayaxche.  He and I got out of the car as we crossed so we he could look at the water.  We then waited until all of the cars got off and we walked off last. He loved it.   We crossed on that ferry many times when he was a baby although he has no memory of it.

We then drove to the motel to make sure the rooms were ready for the team to arrive.  I'm glad we got there early.  They had lost our reservation and already had other reservations for the week.   In other words, they were full.  Well, when David finished talking with them we were shown our room and the four rooms for the team were ready also.

We ate a hot dog and nacho lunch at the Oasis (our favorite place in town) and then waited for the team to arrive.  They got there mid afternoon.

Here I am greeting Mrs. Jane and Ms. Shirley as they arrived

I'd say we were happy to see each other

We spent some time hanging out and getting caught up with everyone before supper

Here is the team after breakfast on Wednesday morning.  In addition to our family there was Jim McGriff (retired IMB missionary who was our former supervisor), Jim and Carol Browder, Shirley Hammond, Wendall and Jane Parker (retired IMB missionaries and our former mentors), and Bro. David (the Parker's pastor from Georgia).

As I mentioned in an earlier post the reason for our trip to Sayaxche was to attend a retreat for the Kekchi national missionaries.  For many, many years Jim McGriff and the Parker's have done an annual retreat for them.  Even after retirement they have continued to come down each year to do this retreat.  It is a time for the Kekchi brothers to fellowship, have Bible study together, pray, and encourage each other.  These men are passionate about sharing Christ among their people group, and starting new churches in unreached areas.  We got to work alongside of most of these men for several years while we were assigned to the Kekchi.  Those were some of our favorite years!  We love these men and learned a lot from them.  We miss working with them but are happy to hear how the Kekchi work is continuing on through their faithfulness to serve.

The Kekchi national missionaries who attended the conference.  There were some who couldn't make it.  I think there are around 25 total.

Each one had a time to share about their work.  They talked about their struggles and also shared about the good things God is doing where they serve.  Afterwards they were prayed over by the group.  It was an encouraging time for them.  This is Bro. Miguel Chub who serves in the Lanquin/ Cahabon region near Coban.  We always enjoyed getting to minister with him.  He has a servants heart!

This is Bro. Javier who serves in the Peten region. 

Mr. Wendall and Mrs. Jane led the group in a few songs before each session.

Bro. David (the Parker's pastor) came down to teach the Bible study.  It was his first trip to Guatemala.  He taught the study and Mrs. Jane translated for him into Kekchi.

Below are some other miscellaneous photos from our time there-

Here is our group having devotion one morning.

A breakfast meal one morning at Don Rosendo's restaurant.  He was our former landlord and the house we used to live in was in the background to the left.

We only did a night meal once with the team.  It was just too hard with our rowdy boys.  So while they went out one night we visited a new pizza place.  It was not there when we lived there so we thought we would give it a try.  It was a cheap meal ($5.00) and not too bad.  It was also raining that night as you can see by David's soaked shirt.

Here is Cruz with Bro. David one afternoon when we finished.  Bro. David had a picture Bible story book and was going through it with Cruz.  It was soo sweet to watch the two of them together.  It blesses my heart when people take up time with my kids!!!

and here are my two rowdy boys doing what they do best- playing (and getting dirty, ha)

The retreat ended at lunch on Thursday and all the Kekchi men returned to their homes.  We had to leave on Friday morning because of some commitments we had back home, but the team stayed and made some prayer visits on Friday and Saturday and attended a Kekchi service on Sunday morning before starting their journey back to Guatemala City later that day.  Before departing ways we took an afternoon boat ride together down the Passion River.  I'll try to blog about that tomorrow.  We had a great week together and we were very happy we got to be there to be a part of it all.