Life Lately August 2024

 

  We began the month celebrating David's birthday.   He turned fifty-one on August 2.

 

 

On Monday, August 5, we started back to school.

 

 

The boy's youth group also kicked off the new year with a fun "groovy" themed celebration. Wednesday night youth group is a highlight of their week!

 

 

We made an overnight trip to Quetzaltenango to secure housing for the English family.  While there we had a pizza and movie night with the Robertson family.

 

They watched Rio 2.

 

 

Cruz and Luke

 

Ben started back attending Encounter Academy for extra-curricular classes.  This year he is only attending one afternoon a week and will have health, P.E., and art classes.  They had their first field trip recently.  They spent the day at Finca Florencia, which is a park about fifteen minutes up the mountain from Antigua. 

 

 

We spent an afternoon visiting with a prayer supporter of ours.  Mrs. Debra taught preschool at her church in Florida and learned about our family several years ago through their Lifeway curriculum.  She has been receiving our newsletters ever since.  She was in town on a mission trip and wanted to finally meet us in person.  We love encounters like that!  It was great to spend a little time with her and get to know her better.

 

On another occasion, we met a missions pastor and his wife for supper.  They serve at a church in Kentucky and were in Antigua on vacation.  It is the home church of one of our IMB colleagues who serves in Mexico.   He put us in touch and that allowed us the opportunity to discuss a possible partnership with them in the future.  They are specifically interested in mobilizing their students to be on mission.  We had a great starter conversation and will follow up with them soon.

 

Here are the boys one Sunday after church waiting to eat lunch at a local restaurant. They are growing and changing so fast these days!

 

 

David has been patiently teaching Cruz how to drive the motorcycle.   Currently, he is only making loops up and down our street.

 

He also started rehearsals for Little Women.  There will be weekly rehearsals from now until the play in mid-October. 

 

At the end of the month, Cruz joined a local youth group here in town for a scavenger hunt at Telares Mall.  They were divided into teams and had to take photos with the items they found. His team didn't win, but he had a lot of fun! 

 

youth group scavenger hunt

 

 

Cruz at Telares Mall in Antigua

 

It is rainy season, but August has been more dry than rainy.   We took advantage of a beautiful clear mid-week evening and ate outside.  We built a fire and cooked hotdogs and marshmallows.   Sitting out by the fire is one of my favorite things to do.

 

 

We were thankful for two date nights this month.  Here we are enjoying pasta at our favorite Italian restaurant in town.

 

 

I began the task of restocking our freezer with baked goods.  I began by making several loaves of chocolate chip zucchini bread and chocolate chip pumpkin bread.

 

 

Later I made a few loaves of chocolate chip banana bread. 

 

I made several batches of sausage balls.

 

Lastly, I made several pans of cinnamon rolls.  I think we should be well stocked for a little while.  It would be a great time to stop by for coffee.

 

David has been busy this month finalizing plans, paperwork, and preparations for our upcoming medical team.  They will arrive on Saturday, August 31.  Be praying for us this upcoming week as we host this team. 

 

It's time to drag out the fall decorations!!! 

Life Lately April 2024

 Here is a look at our family life over the past month.

 

We made a trip to Quetzaltenango for our quarterly team meeting.  This was our Saturday morning view of the Santa Maria volcano.

 

our IMB Guatemala team

 

Cruz began a seven week flag football program that will end with a game in late May.  Here he is after his first practice.  He loved it!

 

Ben went on a field trip with Encounter Academy to Los Celajes, which is up the mountain from Antigua.

 

 

 

 

pretending to be birds in a nest

 

 

 

We enjoyed a Saturday evening fire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.

 

The boys and I were invited to an afternoon outing at our neighbor's house to play games.  This was my coffee cup while there.

 

Home alone, pizza, and the Pioneer Woman- what more could a tired mama want?

 

 

We enjoyed a visit with an old friend who was in town.  We first met Maria back in October 2008. We were flying back to Guatemala after making our first vacation trip back home to Mississippi since arriving on the field in 2006. We were flying on Delta buddy passes and got bumped several days in Atlanta trying to get back. While waiting to see if we would get a seat, we met the sweetest lady who was also flying on buddy passes and trying to get to Guatemala to see her sister who was dying. We formed an instant friendship and have regularly kept in touch all these years.  She has been back to Guatemala a few times since then to visit family, but we have never been able to meet up.  After fifteen years of emails, messages, and Facebook interactions, we finally saw each other in person again. It was so special! We enjoyed a meal together that included us getting to meet her daughter and her getting to meet the boys.

 

 

We celebrated Ben's 12th birthday.

 

 

Ben was invited to a birthday celebration for two of his friends.

 

David helped our IMB teammates host a volunteer team.

 

David translating in the clinic for the mission team.

 

 

Sharing the gospel.

 

 

making new friends

 

 

We ended the month celebrating our 28th wedding anniversary.

 

Life Lately February 2024

 Here are some random photos from the month of February. 

We began the month with a volunteer team in country.  They left on February 2.  You can click on Easthaven Baptist mission team to read about their time here. 

The following week we made a visit to Chiquimula to worship with our church plant in the mountain village of Nearar.  

 

We also enjoyed a Super Bowl party with our IMB mission family.

 

 We had a lovely Valentine's Day.  We began it with a heart shaped pancake breakfast. 

 

My guys gave me roses and a new coffee cup.

 

I love collecting the seasonal cups from San Martin.

 

The boys had a party at Encounter Academy that afternoon and then that evening David and I enjoyed a date night outing in town.

 

We had a Saturday puzzle night.

 

A volunteer team from Florida was in town working with another ministry.  Their children's classes  had studied about our family on Wednesday nights so they wrote us the sweetest letters and brought them down to us.   We enjoyed reading through each one. Thank you Fruit Cove Baptist Church!

 

The boys playing Battleship.

 

One of my favorite things is currently available at our McDonald's. I love their strawberry & cream pie!!

 

When we were home in the States last summer, our friends gifted us a set of outdoor lights.  David finally got around to hanging them in our backyard.  They have many different color patterns and we are enjoying them a lot.

 

 

Ben and his neighbor friend Josue playing video games one afternoon.

 

These beautiful yellow trees are in bloom all over town.  They are such a pretty sight to see. 

 

The jacarandas are also in full bloom.  I love purple so seeing these each year brings a smile to my face.

 

 

When we were on STAS in 2021 I discovered how good coffee was with half and half.  At the time we could not get it here in Guatemala.  Now, our PriceSmart carries it.  Life is good!

 

Ben went on a field trip with Encounter Academy to visit some of the historic places around town. He had a fun day hanging out with friends.

 

 

 

Enjoying a picnic lunch on their field trip.

 

This quarter they are taking P.E. at Encounter one afternoon a week.  Here they are practicing basketball.

 

In Science Cruz was doing a module on Earth Science.  He did an experiment exploring the properties of plastic rock. 

 

 It was a little messy and he loved it!

In addition, we had a wonderful time attending the annual Intermissions Conference. 

 

and while there, I celebrated my birthday.  

 

David is ending the month on an exploratory trip to the Kanjobal area to make some contacts there for future visits.

 

An afternoon ice cream outing just me and the boys while David was away traveling.

Overall, it was a lovely month!