Good day!  Yes, our Tuesday was a good day of ministry and some relaxation.  We began the day with our morning devotion time and then left for Alotenango around 8:30AM.  Ross Genzink led a dedication team, Pastor Max Lara led a second dedication team, and I took the third dedication team.  We presented each family that received a house some gifts including a Bible.  As always, the families seemed very grateful to have been blessed with a house and the other things.

The team stopped in Antigua shortly after noon and ate lunch and did some quick shopping.  This was literally their first opportunity to exchange money.  Then it was back to the mission house where they quickly sorted clothes and we then headed for a village just east of Tecpan to distribute clothes and food.  We saw between 350 – 400 folks come through the line but that is only half of the story.  Those folks came from some pretty great distances and then stood in a fairly significant rain just to get that bag of food and the articles of clothing.  Wow, I am always amazed by that!

Domino’s cooked supper tonight and we were joined by Pastor Max & family along with Samuel & his family.  Great fellowship.  Louise cooked a blackberry cobbler that was excellent!  For a cranky old woman, she is a pretty good cook!

Keep praying that we we will finish well.  I so appreciate you taking the time to read these entries.

Well it wasn’t just as we had drawn it up but it ended as we had prayed.  Yes, God is good!  Our day began with a word from the Word by Pastor Bob.  We then headed to Alotenango and were on the building sites by 9:00AM.  The rains came about 10:30AM and didn’t stop  until 5:00PM.  However, this team did as many others have done and just kept working through the rain as there was no lightning.  At the end of the day they had completely finished 10 more houses.  So, tomorrow will be spent dedicating houses and doing village ministry.  Again, we give God the glory for all He has done.

It happens every mission trip – there is that one “special” moment that just touches your heart.  (Better get your kleenex ready!)  I am putting sand in the wheelbarrow in order to mix cement.  I have my back to the house being built but I hear Ross say, “You want to wear my rain pancho in order to warm up?”  I fully expect to hear Ross’ wife reply but instead hear Pastor Bob Harvey say “No, I’m okay!”   Is that a sweet moment or what?  I just had to walk away and reflect on the tenderness of the moment!  I think Ross & Bob have bonded!

We are having a blessed trip.  Thanks for caring enough to read this entry.  Keep praying!

We had an uneventful Sunday.  Our day began late (8:00AM) with a devotional word from Pastor Bob and then we headed to the services at Su Presencia.  Dr. Tico had asked me to preach in that service and he was gracious enough to translate for me.  The preaching was so so at best but the musical worship was great!

Las Antorchas in Antigua was our next stop and we enjoyed an excellent meal with great service.  However, Antigua was majorly crowded as it was “The Day of Antigua” whatever that means.  So, (with great hesitation) I decided that we would not shop because of the crowd.  The team members were very “flexible” and we came back to the mission house for an afternoon of fellowship.

The team members filled plastic eggs with candy and then hid them in the front of the mission house.  (Pastor Bob’s definition of hiding an egg is to lay it on the concrete parking lot!)  Around 5:00PM the boys from Vencedores at Casa Aleluya arrived and the eggs were found in a matter of minutes.  Soccer, running in the woods, picking berries (black, red, green), and other games consumed their time.  The boys were treated to hot dogs, chips, cookies and a drink.

I am very grateful to Dr. Mike Clark for allowing us to host the boys and to Lee & Candy Sugiyama (dorm parents) for bringing them here.

It is now almost 8:00PM and four guys are in the kitchen “cooking” supper – oh my!  Pray for us tomorrow as we attempt to build the final ten houses.  I think we can get it done if the weather is favorable.  God has been so good to this team in that regard.

Again, thanks for your prayers and for caring enough to read this entry.  All is well here and we give God the glory!  He is awesome!

God  is good!  Pastor Bob brought us a good word from The Word (Luke 15) this morning.  We then headed to the village where we would be working arriving there around 8:30AM where we were met by 39 folks from Trinity Baptist in the Memphis, TN area.  Assignments were made and off we went to build houses with a goal of completely finishing 10 today.  Mission accomplished!  I told you that God is good!

The two teams blended together nicely and displayed much patience as the afternoon slowed down waiting on the concrete teams and the finishing teams.  However, they entertained the children and just had super attitudes!

The TN team came very prepared to make some special donations to the 10 families that received houses today.  I am sure the dedications are going to be sweet!

Yes, two members of the TN team were asked to go find the green board stretcher and after about one hour of diligently searching they came back to share it could not be found.  They even came back for a description of it but to no avail!  Hilarious!

Kathy Genzink, Louise Mason, & Teresa Lara have supper ready so I am headed to a hot shower and a nice meal.  Thanks for being interested enough to read this blog and to pray for us.

I pray that you will have a great Sunday in your church service tomorrow!

The Lord blessed and we had a great second day of this trip.  Breakfast was followed by our morning devotion at 6:30AM and then we were out the door at 8:00AM arriving at the work site at 9:00AM.  We were blessed with a day of no rain which was great regarding the work.

As we walked away from the work site, this team had 10 houses completely finished and ready to be dedicated.  So, we now will go to another village today and join with a team that has never built houses here before to build 10 more.  This will be a challenge as these folks are from TN and teaching them even how to hold a hammer will be monumental.  Again, we will need a good weather day in order to completely build 10 houses today.

We did have one problem yesterday.  One of our young ladies was sent to borrow the “green” board stretcher from Ross Genzink’s team.  They didn’t have it and after about thirty minutes of searching she returned to tell us it had disappeared!  The good news is that another one of our young ladies offered to go help her look.  So, two blondes looking for one board stretcher  – you get the picture!

Pastor Bob is happy as his “man purse” arrived last night!  He was walking around singing “o happy day” or something like that!

The young lady who suffered the cut is doing great as she worked all day with no problems.

Louise Mason & Teresa Lara were our cooks for the day yesterday – awesome supper!  Of course, most “old” people can cook!  LOL!

Pray for us!  Thanks for taking the time to read this blog!

We had a good day of travel yesterday as both the Delta & Continental flights arrived in Guatemala at 11:00AM. We stopped for a quick meal on the way in to the mission house arriving around 2:15PM.

In a move that one our GRACE teams has never made before, most of the team then left at 3:00PM and headed to our work site for the week arriving there shortly after 4:00PM.  It was raining really hard upon our arrival in Alotenango but we began the process of building houses.  When we stopped for the day, we had 3 houses ready for cement and a fourth about 3/4 of the way ready.  Great start to our week – praise the Lord!

In another move that one of our GRACE teams has never made before, I took one of our team members to a local private hospital last night where see received about 8 or 9 stitches in a cut on her shin.  Pretty nasty looking cut.  The hospital was good and the doctor was excellent!  He even spoke fluent English!  Many thanks to Dr. Tico for going with us to the hospital.

Who was it that got cut?  Don’t worry it was only a Yankee!  She is a real trooper and the cut sidelined her for the last few minutes of the day yesterday but it will not keep her down.  By the way, the emergency room visit and the antibiotics cost Q360 which equates to $45.

It should be noted that Pastor Bob Harvey did not go to the work site as he lost his purse!  No joke!  I’m concerned about a man who brings a purse on a mission trip!

It should be noted that Ryan Elenbaas did not go to the work site yesterday either.  Said he was tired!  Reminded me of Joe David Bailey & Jason Bowling wrapped up in one!  Pitiful!

Queen Genzink & Louise Mason had supper ready when we got back to the mission house shortly before 8:00PM.  It was great!

Pray for us as we hit it early this morning!  Thanks for keeping up with us via this blog!

Our final day of being in Guatemala was a very relaxed one.  We began the morning a bit later (8:00AM) with our worship time and then it was off to Casa Aleluya.  Lee & Candy Sugiyama were so very kind to meet our team and show them around the property.  We were also able to spend a few minutes with Mike Clark.

Our time at Casa was made even more special as Jeff & Nadine Holifield got to meet Eric 4.  They have been sponsoring this young man for eight years and this was their first meeting.  What a blessing!

The team then headed into Antigua where the shopped the afternoon away.  It seemed everyone had a good time.  We had our final group meeting time from 5:00 – 6:30PM before enjoying supper and then making final preparations to leave.

Our team leaves in three waves today.  It is 3:15AM and I am about to take three of them to the airport so they can take the 7:15AM flight.  The Texas folks will leave the mission house at 7:30AM and the rest of us at 8:30AM.  Pray for traveling mercies for all 44 of us.  I will write one final entry once we are home.

This is being written at 6:30AM on Wednesday but is actually a recap of yesterday’s activities.  (No internet last night!)  We began our day with a meeting at 6:15AM and were on the road before 7:00AM.  Our mission was to finish the houses and then to dedicate them.  We have been blessed with tremendous weather and we knew if it held we could finish.  Mission accomplished!  All twenty houses are complete and all have been dedicated!  As a matter of fact, the first van returned to the mission house around 2:00PM which is pretty amazing.

We have been building in a little village called Tunino.  We could not access the road up to the town because of repair work.  So, we had to park the vehicles at the very bottom of the hill and walk.  Honestly, it was a challenge with the tools and the gift baskets but the team did what they had to do.  Great attitudes on this team!  (Charity Hacker is the lone exception! LOL!)

We had our daily worship time at 6:00PM with Pastor Abel challenging us from the Word and that was followed by a supper consisting of pizza and Sherry’s desserts.

Today, 6/23, we are going to visit Casa Aleluya and then spend some time in Antigua.  This will be the first opportunity for this team to shop.  Again, they have had a great attitude about it all.

We haven’t found the girl who disappeared with the islander but there are only so many places to go on an island!  LOL!  Kathy & Cecy – your girls have been nothing short of awesome!

Thanks for reading this entry.  Keep praying!

The internet issues persist so this is actually being written early on Tuesday morning.  We had a good day yesterday as we saw four more houses built to the point of being ready for the concrete and one more started.  We were able to pour cement in five more and four more were completely finished.  I “think” we now have eight completely finished, thirteen with concrete, and fifteen at least started.  So, that means we have five more to build with seven needing concrete.  (I may be off a little but we will eventually get to twenty!)

We only worked half of a day building houses as we then went to Parabej to do a food & clothes distribution.  It took us about two hours each way driving.  This village was hit hard by Agatha.  Our February ’10 GRACE team built houses there and also did a medical clinic.  It was a good afternoon of ministry.

We “had” to stop at Paulino’s on the way home for supper.  Excellent food & fellowship!

Today, we are moving our worship time to the evening so we can hit it hard for the entire day.  Our plan is to finish the houses and at least begin the dedications.

Everything/everyone is good.  We found one of the Mobile girls but we think the other one may have run off with an islander!

Keep praying!

We continue to have internet issues so I am typing this on Pages and will cut & paste once we get online.

We had an unusual Sunday for one of our GRACE teams as this is the first time that a team did NO shopping!  Our day began with a morning devotion where we presented Tico Vargas & Kirk Lightfield with a gift from GRACE Ministries & friends.  Surprised would be a good word to describe their reaction.  Pastor Mel brought the Word to us and we then headed out for the services at Su Presencia.  Pastor Doug Chappelle brought the message in that service.

We then headed to Las Antorchas where we enjoyed a good meal and even better fellowship.  We headed directly back to the mission house and quickly readied to go to a village to distribute food & clothes.  We got back to the house around 6:30PM and the ladies sorted clothes for tomorrow’s distribution after supper.

Everyone is well – praise the Lord!  This team is doing very well blending together.  The students on this trip have done very well!  (We’ve lost the two girls from Mobile but feel confident we can find them before our departure on Thursday! LOL!)

Thanks for checking on us.  Keep praying!