Guatemala City Ministry 2018 Travel Day

We have started our ministry trip with a flight from Minneapolis to Houston for part of our team. The other team members will be routed through Atlanta before we all arrive in Guatemala City this afternoon.

The plans for today are organizing, planning and building relationships within our team. We are all excited to start serving.

We have service projects that have already started. We are able to bless the school by providing them an adequate ventilation system for their kitchen. An exhaust fan will help remove the smoke from the wood stove, so the kitchen workers can provide meals without being overwhelmed. The kitchen walls are being enclosed, so the classrooms next to the kitchen will not experience any smoke, in case the ventaltiion system experiences a power outage.  We are also able to provide the kitchen with a UV water filtration system. The clean water will improve the overall health for the children and can be used as a way for the school to provide an income to raise money for less fortunate children who can't afford to pay for an education.
The last small service project is the money left over from these projects will be used to place lights in the classrooms.

Our ministry this year is working with the children more than actually doing the service projects. Our Guatemalan partners will be completing most of the service work this week and we hope to share pictures of the work and of the children.

We will be working with students K-12th grades this trip. Hope to see as many of the 2,000 students through our childrens and young teen teams.

Thanks for your support and please continue to pray that we can make more disciples for Jesus.

Service Day 3

Unfortunately we still can't post pictures, but I will be adding them when I can get a good internet connection.

We have had 3 great days of service. We have had a little rain that has affected our outside games, but we have been able to do many of the activities inside the classrooms.

The childrens team has been seeing about 6 classes each day and the children really enjoy the lion craft.  After the children's program, we see the children holding up their craft of the lion and growl and roar as they walk.

During recess the team will make balloon animals; dogs, swords, turtles, poodles and monkeys are all among the most popular.  Other team members face paint or play ball with the children. We came with close to 500 balloons and they are mostly gone. There are probably about that many children that have received face painting.  We were asked to help them teach American football next year, as the boys have enjoyed the soft (Nerf) football.

The high school class that we worked with today was very attentive and enjoyed the chemistry project with a spiritual meaning. They also liked the addiction message and how the brain sends messages. The students were actually taking notes and enjoyed the quiz at the end if class. They would have liked us to stay another 35 minutes, but we needed to go to a 5th grajde class.  We may try to visit their class again tomorrow to teach them some English.

It's hard to believe, but tomorrow is our last service day. We have seen well over 1,000 children and we have shared the gospel and God's love with them all.  The children will bring us food, candy, and lots of hugs each day. It has been a blessing serving them in ministry as they are so responsive and appreciative.

Thanks for your continued prayers.
Terry

Service Day 4

It's hard to believe, but our last service day has come and gone. We probably saw all the children at these schools this year. It has been a busy week and everyone would like to stay another day. We have so many memories this week of the children wanting to give us hugs and food. It amazes us how loving these children are and want to spend time with us.

We were able to finish up our service time with the morning and afternoon 5th and 6th graders. Some of the children could be well into their teens, but they are academically not in the high school.  The children's team saw several more young children and they had no more classes to minister to this afternoon.

Our supper was spaghetti, bread and freshly squeezed lime juice. It was a real treat. We ended our day with a little team time in the cabin having some smores.  We had some nice fellowship time together for a while, but we are all getting tired. We need to pack up our bags for tomorrow and go to Antigua for some R&R.

Still not able to get pictures uploaded, but we have quite the collection of pictures to share later.

Dios te bendiga,
Terry

Guatemala City Ministry R&R Day

After breakfast we packed up our bags and went on a sightseeing trip to Lake Amititlan and saw a few volcanos along the way to Antigua. Arriving at a place that overlooks Antigua, we took some pictures of the City and also a large cross that is at this location.

We made it into town around noon and were able to check into 2/3 of the rooms. We left the hotel and started our shopping for souvenirs at the market. The city is rich with history and the cobblestone roads add a nice rustic touch to the older architecture. The flowers are always spectacular, as they have so many different colors that accent the courtyards and the buildings.

We shared a nice meal with our Guatemalan partner, Davis and his family at a nice restaurant near the hotel. It was a great evening with the team on our last evening together.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Guatemala, as we will work with Davis and some of the students from the school that he works with in his ministry. We will help him in the afternoon and then by evening, we will be heading to the airport. Our flight leaves for Minnesota at 1:10am. It will be a long day tomorrow.

Terry

Service Day 1

Our first day of service we are able to work with children from kindergarten to 9th grade. We had both morning and afternoon programs for the school.  The school that we work with is 3 schools in one as we work with 3 different principals.

We arrived at school at 9am, but the children were just finishing exams, so we got started at 10am. We split our team into 2 separate teams. We had some of the team working with grades K-2nd grade and the other half working with 3-6th grade.

The K-2nd grade team had puppet shows, lion crafts for the story about Daniel and the lions den. The puppet show was about becoming a Christian.

The 3-6th grade team did a rally. We played a parachute game that the children tried to get a soccer ball to go through a basketball hoop by catapulting the soccer ball with the parachute. We played another game by having 4 different classrooms race with spoonful's of water. They had to carefully carry a tablespoon of water and dump it in a cup. The last game was our dum dum sucker, gloves and greased goggles to simulate the effect of drugs. In the afternoon session, we were able to give the children a Bible lesson.

The 7th - 9th grade classes, we did a small scientific experiment with iodine, water and bleach. The iodine represents sin, the water is good works and the bleach is Christ. The iodine when mixed with water doesn't have an effect. However when bleach is mixed with both iodine and water, it changes the color of the solution to clear. It represents how we can be forgiven from our sins, when we accept Christ into our heart.

Overall we worked with over 500 children today.
We thank you for your continued prayers.

Service Day 2

We arrived at the school before the children were ready for us, so we took the opportunity to take a team photo. The picture includes our Guatemalan partners as well.

The morning programs were similar to the first day of service. We had some of the team working with the small children and some work with 4th grade children.  The small children enjoy making their lion craft and getting a chance to growl during the story.  The 4th grade children did games and had mini competitions.

The afternoon started out with a steady rain, but out activities we're all indoors. We had the children's team seeing 4 classrooms and I was able to talk with 2 high School classes and a 5th grade class. The activities were engaging for the children. In the high school class, some we're actually taking notes on how addiction works. The high school classes were given opportunities to accept Christ and repeat after the translator. There were some that were saying the prayer.

Continue to pray for our health and continued effectiveness in bring them the gospel.  We have been flexible this trip and being receptive to what God wants us to do. We have a story to tell about a teacher and how hearing about Daniel and the Lions den caused her to open up to our team.

Thank you for your prayers and we apologize in not being able to post every day. We have been writing, bit he haven't had internet connection.

Blessings.