First, I want to express our prayer support to Mike Geerlings.  Mike was to be on our Nov ’08 trip and his mother was near passing which, obviously, led to Mike staying home.  His mother did pass while we were in Guatemala.  Mike rebooked his ticket and was good to go for this trip and now his father is seemingly near death’s door so Mike had to change his plans again.  Mike, we are praying for your dad, you, and your family. 

We are also praying for Scott & Gail Broekema.  They too were scheduled to be on this trip but some unexpected health problems prevented them from coming.  Scott & Gail, we are praying for you guys!

God has put together a great team.  Everyone except Boyd & Joan Kroeze are here and the Kroezes are traveling from the Guatemala City airport as I type this entry.  We thank God for His traveling mercies upon this team.   

The team arrived around 3:15PM and, after a brief meeting, we were on our way to Pollo Campero.  We then met again at 6:30PM for some praise & worship led by Carla Mast.  We even have a band this week with Ross Van Peursem and Izaac Arendsen joining Carla.  We then had some basic instructions and now about a thousand folks are having a pill party! 

Some of the Michigan folks pulled a terrible, horrible, horrific, painful, unbelievable, et cetera (there are not words to describe the emotion I felt) stunt on me today!  It was AUful, just plain AUful!  I thought some of them were my friends!  Tonia Elenbaas, you are now on my list – big time!  Kim French would have loved it but I need to see a counselor! 

We presented some t-shirts today with Tom Compagner & Dean Kapenga now being “Captain Love” and Louise Mason earning the “slacker” shirt!  We are playing “trip trivia” this week too which is going to be a ton of fun – I hope! 

We leave for church at 6:20AM tomorrow, then head to Antigua for shopping & lunch, back to the property for a wedding, and then out to distribute food & clothes in a village about an hour away.  Busy, busy day so pray for us. 

The next entry will come tomorrow night and I will try to get it up fairly early.  Pray for us and know that we are praying for you!  Thank you for reading this entry!