Day 3

Today was basically the same program as yesterday. We split the team into sharing the gospel with the older children and the younger children. We had the same number of classrooms that we visited and were able to do the same activities.

We have seen a total of 20 classrooms so far and have shared the gospel with so many children. The children like to come up to us throughout the day at their recess and visit with us.

We played catch with another 2 classes today of whiffle ball. Again, we paused during our time playing catch to talk with them about Christ.
 

We concluded our ministry today by going to a store like Costco and having pizza. Some of the team members bought some coffee and we also bought some soccer balls for the children at school to play with during recess.

It has been hard this year keeping up with the blog as I have had very little access to the internet. I hope to add pictures soon, but it may not be until we get home.

We are all still doing okay health wise, but please keep praying for continued good health, safety and team unity.

Dios te bendiga.

Day 2

Our day started at 7AM and we had a nice pancake breakfast with fruit and coffee.

 

We got started at the school just before 9AM. We divided the team into 2 separate teams to work with the younger children and the older children.

The team that worked with the younger children was able to present to 5 classrooms today. They did an interactive song named, “El Sapo” and a Bible story. The children learned a about Daniel and the lions den. The team also performed a puppet show, “Becoming a Christian”. The children then get a salvation bracelet and the beads on the bracelet each has their own significance. The children are given the opportunity to accept Christ during the explanations of the bead bracelet.

The team that worked with the older children worked with 5 classrooms too. The older children participated in an interactive game that teaches them the effects of drugs. After the game we give them a story about some teenagers that had a problem with alcohol and suffered some consequences. We also played a game that we call, “Field of Temptation” with the children. The game uses 10” X 12” pieces of paper and they are placed at randomly on the floor. We ask the children to name a sin to label each piece of paper. The children are then paired up and one of the children in the pair is blindfolded. The one that isn’t blindfolded guides them through the pieces of paper on the floor. The idea is that we need people in life to keep us from falling into temptation.

The final activity of the day is to work with classrooms on playing whiffle ball. During the time when we were paired up playing catch we asked the children to tell us what was the most important position was on the baseball team. After discussing with them that every player had an important role and they all needed each other, we talked about the church. The church also need to have people that are willing to participate, as that helps the church grow and bring more people to know Christ.  The other comment that we made was that we are all special in God’s eyes even when others say that are insignificant. Christ loves them and he has a plan for their lives.

After our ministry day, we went back to the hotel for a nice dinner. We concluded the evening with our devotions and the rain started to fall for the rest of the night.

Thanks for reading and keeping us in your prayers

Day 1

Day 1

We arrived at the airport 2 hours before our scheduled departure. We had time to eat breakfast and relax before our flight left at 9:50AM for Atlanta.

In Atlanta, we spent time together as a team before we boarded our flight to Guatemala. The trip had a relaxed schedule, so we could get ourselves prepared for our ministry.

 

The customs in Guatemala was interested in our athletic equipment and Bibles, but after they looked at the whiffle ball equipment and a box of Bibles, they were satisfied and we had no other questions.

Our accommodations are quite nice and we look forward in taking pictures of them in the morning when it is daylight. The cabins are set up to accommodate 2-4 people. We arrived after 8PM and it gets dark around 6PM.

 

 

Tomorrow is our first day of service and we look forward to getting started.

Guatemala City Ministry 2017 Send Off Service

We are all packed and ready to go. We had our prayer service this evening with pastor Ryan Tarman. We are praying for safe travel, good health, team unity, spiritual growth & that many people come to know Christ.

We are planning to work with K-6 grade children each morning. We are sharing an interactive song with them, Bible stories, puppet show, salvation bracelets & coloring sheets. We are also working with older kids (Jr. & Sr. high) playing an interactive English game that we created, a blindfold game that we call Field of Temptation and a drug education class.

In the afternoons we will be doing physical education classes. We are playing whiffle ball and baseball with the kids.

 

Thank you for partnering with us in prayer. I will update the blog and I am assured that I will have an internet connection.

Dios te Bendiga!
Dan & Vikki Murray, Shari Dudrey, Denice, Terry & Danielle Dull and Marie McCarthy.

Brief Movie of 2016 Pictures

Travel Day

We started the day with clear skies and we got a chance to observe some of the beautiful surroundings in Antigua. After spending a few moments taking in some spectacular views, we had breakfast and rushed off to catch our flights home.

Day of Rest and Relaxation

We slept in for an extra hour before traveling to our hosts home for breakfast.

The day was spent traveling to buy some coffee, view the park near Lake Amatitlan and travel to Antigua. The view was still spectacular over lake towards the Volcano Pacaya, even though we had some cloud cover.

The team got a chance to climb some of the Mayan replica buildings. We viewed a small display of snakes, lizards and spiders of Guatemala. The grounds were full of different trees, plants and flowers from Guatemala.

We traveled to Antigua and checked into our hotel rooms. We then got a quick lunch and then proceeded to the shopping area. We had a little rain along the way to and from the shopping area.

After our shopping event, we had a delicious meal at a steak house











The team enjoyed the day and we had some time to reflect on the trip after our devotional time.
It was a good time of sharing and planning for next year.

Recap of the Ministry

The team worked hard throughout the week with long days. Getting up early and being ready by 7:15AM in the morning for breakfast and not concluding the day until after 10PM.

Each day consisted of getting a delicious home cooked breakfast from our host at his home.

The first two mornings we traveled to Zone 12 in Guatemala City to our ministry site at the Precious Moments School working in our dental ministry. Lunch consisted of getting a quick meal on the run after the dental clinic while traveling to the school in San Jose Pinula. The afternoons were working with the older students at the school on a spiritual based activity and a drug based activity.

In our ministry at Santa Elena Barillas we worked with Casa Loney ministry that helps street children learn basic reading and writing skills. The children are from families that can't afford to send their children to the school. The children go to school for only half of the day.

Lunch was made over the wood stove and consisted of rice or noodles and vegetables. These meals are not the normal for these children. They will normally have 2 meals. Their breakfast is normally a tortilla and refried beans. The families may have eggs, but they will have only a couple to be split among their family. Their dinners will consist of tortilla, beans and maybe a vegetable. So, sharing these meals with them was a special treat.

In the afternoon of the last ministry day in Santa Elena Barillas, more children came after school and we were able to share the gospel with them through stories, puppet shows and crafts. We worked with Luis, who had planned on 200 children for a big event. The rain may have kept some from attending, but we still had well over a hundred children participate in this outreach event.

After our ministry day, we returned to our hosts home for a home cooked Guatemalan dinner. Each day we had an extra activity in the evenings. We would return to the retreat center by 9PM and have devotions and reflect on the day.

Service Day 4

We spent our last service day at Casa Loney. We presented Bibles to the children that we worked with in the mornings.

We also performed a puppet how for these children in, "Becoming a Christian". The story is about a discussion of great news about having forgiveness of their sins. The puppets talk about how Christ paid for the penalty for sins and if we ask him into our lives, we can be forgiven. However, the bad news the puppets realize is that they are puppets and the salvation is for the humans. "lucky humans" is one of the final comments that the puppet makes. After the puppet show, we shared the meaning of the story with the children and then prayed with them.

Again, We had lunch at Casa Loney which consisted of rice with carrots, peppers and hamburger.

After lunch, we had over 100 children. The street was blocked off and Luis shared songs, prizes and a clown act for the children. The team also got up in front of the audience and performed El Sapo and several other songs with Luis.

We also performed 2 puppet shows. "Becoming a Christian" and "A Special Prayer". The special prayer was about one puppet buying a special prayer and being told to pray in a special position in order for the prayer to work. The prayer and advice cost the puppet, $30. and the puppet figured that he could easily earn his money back through this guaranteed method of prayer. However, a much wiser puppet informed him that there was no special prayer that he could buy, nor was their a special position. The puppet learned that he wasted his money and can easily come to God with his prayers anytime and anywhere.

After the clown came to entertain the children, the children were surprised with snacks and treats.

The Casa Loney ministry works with local children and blesses them with sharing the gospel and inviting them to spend time with them. The ministry also makes wooden tables and benches. Our team decided to donate some money to buy a table for a family that needs one and let them have it for their use. The money can be used to both bless the Casa Loney ministry as well as the family that receives the table.

Tomorrow we visit the park and spend the remaining time in Antigua.

Service Day 3

We spent our third service day at Casa Loney.

We spent the morning interacting with about 15 children with face painting, teaching them how to make balloon animals and playing games.

We were waiting for the leader of the VBS. Later in the morning, we had learned that he had car trouble and was not going to be there for the day.















We had lunch at Casa  Loney which was cooked on a wood stove. The lunch consisted of Ramon noodles with carrots, celery and chicken.

After lunch, we had over 30 children color, make bead bracelets and performed a Bible story with the children.

The bead bracelets consisted of 5 beads; black - sin, red - blood of Christ, white - cleansing of our sins, green - growth in Christ and yellow - Heaven.  We performed the story of Moses delivering the Israelite's from the Egyptians. We used members of our team to be the characters; Pharaoh, 2 soldiers, 2 Israelite's and Moses. The children participated unknowingly as being the Red Sea. When the story came to the point of crossing the Red Sea the children in the audience parted in the middle and the Israelite's crossed on dry land. When the Pharaoh and his soldiers started to cross through the sea, the children closed in around them and Pharaoh with his soldiers were lost in the sea of children.

After a homemade pizza for dinner, we went to church to share a sermon and faith story at the Wednesday night service. Linda shared her faith story and I prepared a sermon, shared the Ephesians 5 passage and we did the "field of temptation" activity.

Denice, Danielle and Marie went downstairs and provided a program for them. We prayed over 4 teen age girls as they recommitted their lives to Christ. The pastor spent some time with us after the service to give us a tour of the church.

Service Day 2

Our second service day was supporting the dental clinic and working with our Guatemalan team at a school in San Jose Pinula.

We spent the morning working with the older children and the youngest students in the school. The older children were in 5th and 6th grade. The youngest children were first grade. We used the same Bible story on the tower of babel and the craft. We also taught the older children how to make a balloon sword.. We were able to see some of the children that we have been working with for the past 4 years.



 Marta, (the founder of the school) was again very grateful for us coming to help her provide this dental clinic for the students. The children's families can't afford dental care among many other health related expenses and basic conveniences that we may enjoy. The school was started for families that couldn't afford sending their children to school and they were invited in to Marta's home where she taught them basic education. The basic education included learning about Christ and it began with only a few students about ten years ago. Over the ten years the school has grown to over 160 students and many of the classes meet in hallways, small rooms and have added small additions. The school primarily runs on donations and with the money it pays for material, teachers and building upkeep. It is truly a remarkable story in this very poor neighborhood.


In the afternoon we worked with a high school class and a middle school class. We introduced the children with the teamwork activities, message for staying off of drugs, as well as sharing an activity that we created referencing Ephesians 5.
 


In the Ephesians 5 activity We placed several large 12X12 poster board cards on the ground that had many temptations written on them that are sins. Sin is defined as what separates us from God because of our disobedience to his standards. On these cards were words written like, gossip, murder, robbery, cheating, lies, etc, that are obstacles that we can become disobedient to God. The activity uses these cards spread in random patterns on the floor and the students navigate through the "temptation field" as a threesome. These groups of three consist of a leader and the other two members of the threesome that are wearing blindfolds. These teams of three have to trust their leader and try to avoid these cards on the ground. It was really a wonderful activity from a teamwork perspective, but it is rich with spiritual content. 

We had more students today that made decisions for Christ and some that recommitted their lives.

Tomorrow we leave for the Vacation Bible School in Santa Elena Barrillas. It is about a half hour drive and we should be able to see some better views of the volcano's here in the area.

Everyone on the team has been healthy and we are collecting the last 2 duffle bags currently that arrived a day after our last team members arrival. We will now have the remaining supplies needed for VBS. We were thankful that of the bags that got delayed in coming to Guatemala, it was this bag, as it wasn't really needed until tomorrow.

Thanks for your continued prayers.

Dios te Bendiga!
Terry

Service Day 1

 We traveled to the Precious Moments School in the morning to begin the dental clinic with our Guatemalan dental team.

We were warmly greeted by the director of the school. The children came to the dental clinic one classroom at a time. We saw three classrooms of 2nd - 4th grader children today which was around 75 children.

As the children waited we shared a Bible story and a craft on the tower of Babel. The children used their creative skills to make the tower out of construction paper squares on one side of the paper and on the other was 10 different languages of a simple, "Hello" greeting. We will be back to the school tomorrow to work with K-1st and 5th-6th grade children.

 

After we finished up with the school we were able to go to the airport pick up our team member that had flight delays from Sunday.

We got a lunch along the way to the school in San Jose Pinula.

At the school we visited three classrooms of Jr. high students. We were able to engage these students with the teamwork exercises with drug and spiritual content. Both of the activities came with much enthusiasm from the students and they participated in the discussions afterwards. The Guatemalan team leader prayed with each classroom and the students had the opportunity to accept Christ or recommit their life. Each student filled out an information card so the church could reach out to them, so they could become part of their youth program at the church. 2/3 of the students accepted Christ or recommitted their life to Christ. Many of them also wanted to have the church contact them too. We have one more day at this school tomorrow with the high school students.