This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it!  We had a blessed Sunday.  The day began with Pastor Eddie Burdette bringing a message to our team in the meeting room.  We then attended the worship service at Rios de Agua Viva where Pastor Terry Rainey brought the message.  Both of these were good worship times. 

We then went to Antigua and enjoyed lunch at the Las Antorchas restaurant.  Several team members came back to the mission house but most stayed in Antigua for the afternoon.  We then had supper at 6:00PM and drove down to the home of the Ruiz family.  Tico Vargas, president of the seminary in Chimaltenango, had a group of musicians/singers there to lead us in worship and he then shared about some of the things God is doing in and through the seminary.  That was a good service which capped a really good day. 

Tomorrow will see us wrap things up and get ready to head home on Tuesday morning.  We have had some sickness but nothing major.  Please keep praying and check out the many pictures on the mission section of this website. 

The Lord blessed and we had another productive day.  The Bible study this morning was very good as Pastor Eddie brought a strong word from Mark 5.  We spent some time in prayer groups with our deacons and pastors leading that time.  What a great way to begin any day! 

The tile team made some nice strides today in getting the tile in place in the parsonage.  The paint team almost completely finished their job.  My hope is that all of the tile can be in place by Monday’s end.  We can focus on the grout at a later date.  Since our team will be attending the morning service at Rios de Agua Viva we will be able to check out the work done by those teams. 

We were also able to dedicate ten houses today.  Two more houses were finished to the point of receiving the concrete and four others were cemented today.  As it stands now, only one house needs concrete and three need the fronts placed on them.  We will finish those as we dedicate the remaining ten on Monday. 

Pastor Terry Rainey and Pastor Eddie Burdette led a team to attend the service at Paul & Cristy’s church this afternoon.  Pastor Terry preached and those folks had a good time. 

As usual, Caroline Ford has done an outstanding job with the cooking this week.  Wow, have we ever eaten well!  That is Caroline’s ministry and she does it very well. 

We are receiving a large number of hits on our website which indicates folks are keeping up with us via this blog and the pictures.  Again, thanks to Michelle & Ben for their help. 

I sure pray that a large number of the members of the Friendship family will make their way to the services tomorrow.  Bro. Jerry will be preaching in the morning services and Kirk Talley will be singing in the evening service. 

I forgot to mention last night the pictures from this trip are being posted in the missions section of our website.  Again, there are already hundreds from the first two days and I expect Ben Vickers will probably post day three today and day four possibly as early as tonight. 

We are about to go into our morning Bible study which will be led by Pastor Eddie Burdette.  Plans call for us to finish building, do some dedications, continue working on the tile, and start painting in the parsonage. 

Thanks for your prayers.  My plans are to post tonight with a recap of today’s activities. 

Our day began with our usual morning worship time as Pastor David Smith brought a strong word from the Lord to us.  Several folks shared about what God has done in their lives thus far on the trip. 

We sent one team back to the parsonage of Rios de Agua Viva where they were able to accomplish some tile work.  That is a slow process.  They will go again tomorrow as will a paint team. 

Everyone else went back to Itzapa.  All twenty houses now have at least the frame in place and fifteen have received cement.  We will most likely finish the houses tomorrow and begin the dedication process. 

Supper tonight was gumbo and eleven of the Tennessee team joined us for that wonderful meal.  Afterwards, they departed and we will not see them again on this trip.  However, we fully expect to see them in the coming weeks/months as some wonderful friendships were established. 

Michelle Rolls is our resident camera expert and she has been taking a ton of pictures.  She sent them to Ben Vickers who posted Day One and Day Two tonight.  There are already hundreds of pictures for your viewing pleasure.  Thanks Michelle & Ben for your help with this project. 

Thank you for praying and please continue to do so. 

A good day!  The Lord blessed and we had an absolutely beautiful day weatherwise and we were able to get a lot accomplished.  We built an additional eight houses up to the point of needing cement and were able to put cement in six others.  So, our total built now stands at fourteen with seven of those being completely finished. 

The group working of the parsonage hit a few snags which prevented them from getting much done but we hope to remedy that tomorrow. 

We have been blessed the past two days with twenty folks from Faith Baptist in Bartlett, TN (Memphis) joining us for breakfast and then working on the houses.  Tonight, they stayed for supper and will do so tomorrow night too.  This team has truly added to the experience for us.  The last three days will definitely be different without them.  Thanks to Pastor David Smith (Minister of Education) and the other nineteen who have joined him on this trip – it has been great!  By the way, the best thing about this TN team is that not a single one of them is a fan of the Vols!   

Pastor Terry Rainey did his usual great job of getting our day started in the right way as he brought the Word to us this morning.  Tomorrow, Pastor David Smith will bring the Word to us.  Then on Saturday morning, Pastor Eddie Burdette from South Carolina will be sharing with us.  What a special time those morning devotions are! 

Thanks for your prayers.  We are all doing great.  God is good!

Better late than never – I had kitchen clean up duty today and walked out of the kitchen at 10:00PM.  We had a great meal but the clean up was a killer! 

Our day began with a devotion and then we sent everyone except the cooks out to build houses in Itzapa.  We completed five up to the cement stage and completely finished a sixth one.  We had a terrible rain storm around 1:00PM but that was okay as we had plans to leave at 2:00PM anyway. 

We did a food and clothes distribution tonight in a town west of Chimaltenango.  It was a good evening as we ministered to 100 familes and had 381 folks come through the line.

Pastor Terry Rainey preached in chapel at the local seminary this morning.  I appreciate his willingness to minister to these students. 

Our plans for tomorrow call for more building of houses plus beginning the tile work in the parsonage of the Agua Viva Church.  I really believe, weather permitting, we will really put a dent in the house building tomorrow.    Pray for us and we will keep updating the blog. 

Happy Independence Day!  Although we are two countries removed to the south of the USA, our thoughts today will be on the freedoms we enjoy as Americans.  I am proud to be an American. 

Here is a recap of yesterday – we leave the church at 1:55AM arriving at the Pensacola airport at 3:20AM where we are first in line at the Delta counter.  Check in proceeds smoothly until one Delta agent and one TSA agent decide we cannot check food – especially frozen.  They then change course and decide we can check some frozen food and the other has to be carried on.  Kevin Vice now has 30 #’s of shrimp in his carry on luggage as others have various foods with them too.  This whole process of exchanging food, carry on bags, et cetera almost costs us as the last few of us literally have about five minutes to spare before the plane takes off. 

We have a smooth flight to Atlanta where we meet up with Pastor Terry Rainey, Pastor Eddie Burdette, 12 others from South Carolina, and Chris & Pat White from Missouri.  We arrive in Guatemala City shortly before noon and leave the airport a little before 1:00PM.  The traffic is congested due to road construction and we finally get to the mission house a little after 3:00PM after a brief stop at Casa Aleluya to meet with some folks from Tennessee. 

We have a brief meeting where we make room assignments and then unload the food and folks check out the surroundings.  We then go to the bank to exchange money and to Pollo Campero for supper.  Shortly after our return from supper, the place grows silent as most everyone hits the proverbial sack. 

Our missions committee meets for almost two hours discussing and praying for GRACE Ministries.  That is a spiritual time and I appreciate those folks, their wisdom, and their insights. 

Bernard Suthoff, Claude Landry, and William Sessions are on Continental and miss their flight in Houston.  I am writing this update shortly after 3:00AM and I honestly don’t know if they arrived on the later flight or not.  Oh well, if you had to lose three team members. . . (j/k)  Hopefully they are here somewhere! 

My plans are to post an update (if the internet is up) from today’s activities after we return back to the mission house tonight.  We will be joined in the work today by 20 folks from the Faith Baptist Church in Bartlett, TN.  (This is a true mission trip as we minister to that group of foreigners!)  It should be fun!  Check back tonight for the update!