Hello all from Panajachel, Guatemala. Team YETI has been here now for almost a week and are getting settled in quite well. This is the land of opportunities! We got hooked up with a church here and I truly thought that it would be the same as Aguilar, where we were in Mexico last… that we would be having 2 services every night one for the kids and one for the adults, but I was pleasantly surprised. The church in no way wanted us to take over, Praise God!! I really don’t think that that is the healthy way to do it, being missionaries that take churches over for a couple of weeks, it wears the locals out and the missionaries out too!!
So we found a great place to stay with a huge eating area and a good kitchen with a freezer and fridge! We have had a couple people over for dinner and games, some travelers from Germany whom we befriended in Antigua, and a few of us were invited to a guy in our English classes’ house for dinner tonight, at his sisters Italian restaurant actually! Speaking of which, the church has a ministry to offer English classes to everyone in the community Christian or non, to come take classes for free to broaden there ability to get jobs or excel in the jobs that they do have. I really love this, my heart just beats for these students, to help them in pronounciation and to just sit down and have chats with them is great. I have met with one guy Pedro after class in his shop where he sells secondhand sheets and blankets. He is enjoying teaching me Spanish as I teach him English and answer his questions about the best or normal way to say things in our crazy language, he taught me the alphabet yesterday!
A bunch of people on the team have now been connected with an orphanage in the area and will go there in the mornings from Mon.-Wed. I believe. I think they have 75 babies there and only 27 volunteers, its a busy place where the huge need is to relieve these volunteers and hold babies to show them love and just spend time with them!
On Tues. Pedro, our Pastor contact here, took us to a small town about 5 km away where he has another church and a typing and English school. We were walking up the sidewalk in the town and I saw a lady that was having a hard time with her baggage, so I offered to help. We walked her to her house which was at the very top of the town, the road ended at her place, and it was perched precariously right in the rock of the mountain!!
I don’t know if any of you have been to Chincoterra in Italy, or to San Torini in Greece but it looks just like this (except a little more third world) there are only sidewalks, hardly any roads for vehicles, and the town goes straight up from the beach at the lake to almost the top of the mountain, all it is is stairs! Beautiful! Getting back to the story, we got to her house and talked a bit, she was a Christian and had 8 kids, one of which had died last year and since then her husband had been drinking a lot and not coming to church, she also had diabetes and didn’t have adequate medication because she had no fridge for insulin. We prayed with her for a long time and really encouraged her to be the spiritual pillar in her house, to just have strength and that God had not forgotten her!
After that we went to the ladies house who we had actually come to see. She had just became a Christian 2 months earlier and wanted her family to be a part of this wonderful family too. We went with her to her mother’s house and when we got in her mother told us through our interpreter that she wanted to become a Christian. We had no idea that this was why we were coming to this town, our pastor had kinda left us in the dark, so this was so cool. So Ginger read her a couple verses and led her through a simple prayer and we hugged and celebrated. Then her granddaughter piped up, she had been in and out of the house the whole time. She said she wanted to be in the family of Christ too!! This was so cool cause I had prayed over the old lady, Pascuala, for her son whose marriage was falling apart and who drank everyday, that this would start a wildfire in the town of people knowing Christ! So Andrea, the granddaughter, accepted Christ and as we were just finishing praying the son, Ramon, came in, he hadn’t been a part of any of the prayer but just started talking to Pedro our pastor and after about 10 minutes he decided he needed to change, he wanted his wife back and he needed to be transformed! So he accepted as well!!
There is just such an alive spirit here, our team is much more alive just being in this place! Thank you so much for your prayers they are so important especially when we are moving around so much and trying to seek God out in each and every place, see what He’s doing, where He’s doing it and then latch onto that and run!
Prayer Requests
1. That we would focus on the ministry we have agreed to and excel in it, not spread ourselves too thinly
2. That our team would be able to communicate openly and that grace would abound in all our conversations.
3. That I would continue to press into where ever God wants to take me in my prayer life, praise Him that it is so easy to hear His voice here!!
4. Praise God that He is moving here, and that we can be a part of it!
