Celebrating Lauren's End of Term with the IMB

For the past two years we have had a Journeyman on our IMB Guatemala team.  The Journeyman program is designed for young adults between the ages of 21 and 29. It is for singles or married couples with no children.  It is a fully-funded 2-year missions opportunity.  To learn more about the program, the responsibilities, and qualifications, click on this link- IMB Journeyman Program.

In late July Lauren completed her two year term.  To celebrate that with her we had a mission family meal at TGI Friday's in Guatemala City.  When she arrived in Guatemala, that was the first place we took her to eat.  She thought it would be fun to have her last meal there also.   

 

Our mission family greeting Lauren when she arrived in Guatemala back in 2022.

 

Our celebration meal for her completing her term of service.

 

Cruz and Luke

 

Timothy and Ben

 

 

Lauren with our MK's.  

We have added a few kids to our mission family since she arrived.

 

Lauren with our boys

 

IMB Guatemala mission family

 

 

Pray for Lauren and her future plans.  She is returning to Guatemala independently to teach at a local school.   Pray that God would continue to use her gifts and talents to advance the Gospel here.

Lauren and the Boys

So what did our boys do while we were on a work trip to Mexico?  They were at home living their best life with our Journeyman Lauren.  She came to our house and stayed with them while we were gone.  They were very excited about their time with her.  In addition to taking great care of them, she kept them well entertained. 

 

They enjoyed getting coffee around town

 

and ice cream too.

 

They ate sushi.

 

Cruz loves it!

 

Ben actually tried it for the first time and said it wasn't so bad. 

 

 

more ice cream

 

They went biking at Finca Azotea.

 

Cruz helping cook breakfast.

 

 

They spent an evening playing at El Bosque.

 

El Bosque Antigua

 

They invited the Johnson boys to an afternoon outing at Gotcha Survivor Antigua.

 

Game on!

 

 

Lauren chaperoned a field trip to the zoo the boys went on with Encounter Academy.  The Guatemala City zoo is fantastic.  We love any opportunity to visit it.

 

 

 

A bird pooped on Cruz's shoulder.

 

 

 

On their last day together they enjoyed a lunch taco meal before we arrived home and life returned to normal. 

They had a blast together!  We are so thankful for her willingness to serve our family in this way.  She was a blessing to all of us!

Lauren's Visit

After our mission Christmas luncheon Lauren spent the rest of the week with us.  It was our first chance to spend extended time with her since she arrived and we loved every minute of it.  Lauren is an IMB journeyman who is here serving a two year term but in an area about three hours away. She just arrived on October 1. Here is a look at how we spent our time together.

She is still in language school but was able to do her classes virtually that week.  She would spend her mornings in online Spanish class and then we would spend the rest of the day hanging out and exploring Antigua.

 

On one of our outings into town we introduced her to Wendy's Frosty-ccinos. Yum!

 

a photo in front of our Central Park fountain

 

Ben enjoying a frappe from Cafe Barista

 

an arch photo

 

the fountain and volcano view from McDonald's

 

shopping in the artisans market

 

 

One afternoon we drove over to Finca Azotea and rented bikes.  We love biking through the coffee farm.

 

 

 

 

The boys put plastic bottles and cans on the bikes to make noise.

 

This photo makes me laugh.

 

 

Looks like someone got tired.

 

We also spent some time on the ropes course.

 

What time is it?

Coffee time!

We stopped for a coffee break.

 

 

We walked through the drying pads to see the coffee beans and visited the gift shop.  We ended our time with a little play on the zipline swings.

 

One evening we visited a nativity exhibit in Antigua.

 

 

 

Part of the exhibit featured nativity sets from around the world. Looking at all of them was my favorite part.

 

 

 

 

Towards the end we used homemade instruments and played them while singing a Christmas song together with the others in our group.  Cruz was excited to have permission to touch something.  If you'll remember on our last museum visit he set off the alarm by touching a turtle shell drum.

 

Enjoying an evening coffee stop at & Cafe. Their seasonal Christmas toffee coffee was delicious! 

I did a lot of cooking that week and we enjoyed some great meals around our table.  We also spent several evenings watching marathons of America's Funniest Home Videos.

 

After a week long visit we dropped her off at the airport where she flew to Mexico to spend Christmas with some other IMB families she had met in training.  We were a little sad to let her go.  We had really enjoyed her company.  We can't wait to host her again!