More Leadership Training Photos

We copied several photos from Dr. McGowin's camera and I thought I would share a few from the pastor's training that took place in Las Casas and Sayaxche'.  The first few are from Las Casas.  They had twenty-one attend the study.

Mrs. Jane was in charge of snacks at all three locations.  She did a great job of getting it together and serving the men.

The next few were taken in Sayaxche'.  There were thirty-seven who attended the sessions here.

Mr. Wendall and Mrs. Jane did registration

break time

All three studies (Coban, Las Casas, and Sayaxche) turned out well.  We thank each of you who prayed for them.  There was a lot of sickness going around that kept the team from feeling 100 %, but they were still able to do the sessions despite feeling ill.  All three locations asked them to return to do another study.  I am sure Bro. Jim and Dr. McGowin will be making plans to return again next year.

Leadership Training in Coban

We traveled to Coban on Tuesday to visit with missionary friends and also be a part of some leadership training classes that were taking place there this week.  Dr. David McGowin has been coming down for many years and teaching the K'ekchi' pastors.  He is Jim's brother-in-law.  Jim also flew down with him.  Miss Fran and the Parker's greeted us all in Coban.  It has been fun having fellowship with all of them as well as getting to visit with the pastors.  We worked with many of these pastors during our years in Coban.  There were 48 who attended the study. 

group photo

this is a photo of a few of the pastors before one of the sessions

 a few breaktime photos

Dr. McGowin is teaching the sessions and Miss Fran is translating for him.  Here they are reviewing notes during one of the breaktimes.

 

With the exception of a little upset stomach that Cruz is having (most likely due to tooth #9 coming in) we are all feeling much, much better.  It is good to be getting back to normal.  Thanks again to everyone who prayed for our health over the past week.  The cool, fresh air in Coban made us feel better too, haha.

The group traveled to Las Casas today and will be doing the same sessions there today and tomorrow.  Please pray for the study that is taking place there.  We returned home to Sayaxche' to get ready to host the group here over the weekend.  We plan to do something touristy on Saturday, attend worship in a K'ekchi' church on Sunday, and then there will be a leadership training conference for the pastors here on Monday and Tuesday.  We would all appreciate your prayers over the next few days.

Pastor's Conference and Prayer Requests

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week we attended the monthly K'ekchi' Pastor's Conference here in Sayaxche'.  They meet the first week of each month.  The women were not meeting this month so I joined the men for their sessions.  I spent most of my time chasing around a very active ten month old in his walker which meant I spent very little time getting to listen to anything that was going on.  He decided he wanted no part of an afternoon nap which made it a long afternoon for me.  Instead he was too busy being social with all of the pastors.  He would run from one to the next, and just to anybody that would show him some attention.  He loved "hanging out with the brothers" and didn't want to miss a second of anything that was going on.  He finally crashed in the last five minutes of the meeting. 

During the time that the national missionaries give their reports, one of the missionaries, Bro. Domingo, introduced two new believers that he brought to the meeting with him.  They are from the village of San Miguel which is a few hours from here.  Their village has around 75 families and 5 of those recently believed.  He invited us to visit this village with him and we plan to do that in the future.  Please pray for these new believers.

Bro. Domingo (on the right) with the two men

We were saddened to hear that one of the national missionaries, Bro. Jose Xol, has decided to step down for the remainder of the year (he was the missionary who accidently ran over and killed a child last fall).  Now because of some family issues he is having, he feels it is best that he not serve in the position until things get worked out.  That breaks our hearts because he has a huge heart for his own people and the Lord has used him to impact many, many lives.  It just seems that the devil has attacked him, his life, and his family greatly over the past year and they really need your prayers during this time.  Please join us in praying for him and the situation he is dealing with.

In the meantime, the pastor's named Carlos Pao (not sure of the spelling) to replace him.  I didn't get a picture of him but will try to do that next month.  Please pray for him as he begins to fill the task of national missionary to the K'ekchi'.  We look forward to working along side of this brother and getting to know him more.

This Sunday afternoon we will be traveling to the village of Escarbado 2 to hold a service there.  This is a new area where some people have recently believed.  We learned about this particular village on a previous trip to the village of Jordan.  The pastor at Jordan, Bro. Adilio, will be going with us.  Please pray for the service and for our travel to and from that village.  We will post an update about the trip next week.

We Work, He Plays

On Wednesday we attended the monthly Pastor's Conference here in Sayaxche'.  They meet the first Wednesday of every month.  They start arriving in the morning, but they don't really start their meetings until 1:00.  David went to hang out and visit a while in the morning and then we all went back for the afternoon sessions.  This is a monthly time for them to fellowship, conduct their business, hear a report from their national missionaries, make announcements about upcoming events and studies, etc.  Because the K'ekchi' work (as a whole) is divided into six regions we used to have to try to attend six of these meetings each month.  It's nice now to only have one, although we miss seeing some of the brothers from the other regions. 

Since the Peten Association added a sixth national missionary this year they needed to re-divide the work area up among all of them.  They announced at the meeting what churches/ areas each of them were responsible for this year.  We received a copy of each of their assigned areas, and that will help us in our visits.  We look forward to working along side each of these men this year.

The K'ekchi' national missionaries

Javier, Marcelino (in the back), Jose', Domingo, Matias, and Abilino

At one point in the meeting David was asked to come pray over these men.  Here are a few photos of him doing that.

The meetings were from 1-3 and then 3:30 to 5:30.  During the break many of the men enjoyed playing with Cruz.  I had taken him a blanket and some toys to play with.  He spent most of the first session on the floor playing.   

The study center here is large so David thought it would be a good idea to take his walker for him to play in.  I am glad he thought of that because it came in handy.  For most of the second session he ran all around and really enjoyed himself.  He played inside and outside.  At one point he chased a group of seven turkeys around outside for a good while.  He loved that!  He really seems to be curious about animals.   

Playing inside the study center. 

You can see the pastor's meeting upfront and there is a wide open space in the back, with plenty of room to roam.

I can honestly say that his two favorite "toys" these days are his walker and a plastic bottle.  He toted that bottle around all afternoon, at one point banging it on the floor loudly like a drum.  He hasn't learned to play quietly yet, haha.  If he saw one of the brothers drinking something he would scoot over to them and try to take their bottle.  He loves those.

By the time the meeting was over we were all hot and tired, Cruz especially.  I took one last photo of David with the new President of the Association before we headed home.   

Bro. Pedro Choc Cas, David, and Cruz

It was a great day.  We got our calendars for the next few weeks pretty full, and that's exciting.  We love being out around the K'ekchi' people and are looking foward to the opportunities we have coming up to do that.

K'ekchi' Annual Convention

This week we have been attending the K'ekchi' Annual Convention in Sayaxche.  It began on Wednesday morning and ended on Thursday at lunch.  There were meetings during the day, and we had a great worship service together Wednesday night.  In addition to a lot of business matters, during these meetings they elect officers for the new year, appoint their national missionaries, they look at the previous years goals to see how they did, and set goals for the following year.  Despite a lot of problems that took place within the Association this past year they still accomplished a lot.  For example, there were 530 new believers, there were 500 baptisms, they started 5 new missions, and one mission was organized into a church.   They elected a new Associational President, Pedro Choc Caz, and added a sixth national missionary, Abilino (former Radio Berea worker).   Thanks to those of you who prayed for these meetings.  They were long, but good.  We are excited to see what the Lord is going to do in 2011!  I had good intentions of taking pictures, but as you can see I didn't do so well. 

Weekend Travels

This past weekend we took an overnight trip to visit a few churches and to attend a Pastor's Conference. We left Sunday morning and drove to the community of Xuctzul, which is on the other side of Chisec, where we had morning worship at Iglesia Bautista Monte Transfiguracion. We first visited this area back in April with a Prayer Team. They were such a friendly group of people and we have wanted ever since to return to worship with them. We finally got our chance this past Sunday.

We had a great service and afterwards were able to enjoy a delicious Caldo lunch with the Pastor and his wife.

After eating we drove another hour to the town of Fray de Las Casas. This is where we stayed overnight- Hotel Valle Del Sol. It is just a typical small town Guatemalan place to sleep and shower.
We walked to a local eating place and spent the afternoon drinking coffee and talking. It was nice. That evening we attended services here at Iglesia Bautista Peniel in Las Casas. It was another great service!

We returned there on Monday morning to attend the monthly Pastor's Conference in this region. The McGriff's and the Parker's drove over and joined us for the meeting.

Our work is more with the national missionaries than with the Pastor's, but by attending these monthly meetings we are getting to know many of the Pastor's and enjoying them very much.

This is David with some of the Pastor's. He is sitting by Bro. Juan who is a pastor at La Balsa. We visited his church back in April and spent the rest of the day visiting and prayer walking in other areas with him. He is a lot of fun to work with!

When we broke for lunch we walked next door to the Pastor's house to eat. They fixed us a delicous Caldo lunch with beef, carrots, and guisquil. David, Jane, & Wendall getting ready to eat
Jim & Carol Some of the Pastor's eating

This is the Pastor at the church in Las Casas. He asked us to pray for his mother who is sick.

So we had a time of prayer for her before we left

Some K'ekchi' pastors

some K'ekchi' kids

These little boys followed David out to the car when we were leaving

It was a great trip and we just hope that we were as much of an encouragement to them as they all were to us!

Good Times in Sayaxche'

This week we attended the monthly Pastor's Conference in Sayaxche'. Sayaxche' is about 3 hours north of Coban in the Peten. They had a great meeting and they really enjoyed having all of us there.


At the end of the day they had a closing prayer and laid hands on some new pastor's and prayed for them.This is our group having dinner at the Yaxkin restaurant- Jane, Wendall, Jim, Carol, David, & Regina.

Lately...

This is a photo of a rainbow that was over our house the other day. We are in full-swing rainy season. It is raining every day! We sure enjoyed this sight! We made packets of gospel tracts & a few other things to hand out to the pastor's in Sayaxche' when we attended their monthly meeting on Wednesday.
There were over 50 pastor's, missionaries, & leaders in attendance.
David handing out their stuff.

We attended the day session and then went back for the evening service. There was one public profession of faith made. It was a young guy. The pastor asked David to come down and pray with him at the close of the service. (The photo is not very clear because I cut the flash off to keep from being a distraction. )

We stayed overnight at the Hotel Guayacan there in Sayaxche'. We were late returning after the service. They have a small parking garage. It was full when we returned. They had one spot left for our truck since they knew we were coming back, but it was right inside of the gate- blocking all of the other cars. We knew what that meant!!! We set our clock for 6:00 so David could get up and move our truck out before the others were ready to leave. WELL, they get up earlier than that around here! ha At 5:10 A.M. we heard a knock at our door. David got up, moved our truck, and then came back to get me up. He wanted me to walk outside and see the BEAUTIFUL sunrise view over the river. We never get to see a sunrise so we were kinda thankful to be forced out of bed or we would have missed these views-----

not a bad way to start the day, huh.