Happy Independence Day!

We hope each of you has a safe and happy 4th of July!

Lately...

This is a photo of a rainbow that was over our house the other day. We are in full-swing rainy season. It is raining every day! We sure enjoyed this sight! We made packets of gospel tracts & a few other things to hand out to the pastor's in Sayaxche' when we attended their monthly meeting on Wednesday.
There were over 50 pastor's, missionaries, & leaders in attendance.
David handing out their stuff.

We attended the day session and then went back for the evening service. There was one public profession of faith made. It was a young guy. The pastor asked David to come down and pray with him at the close of the service. (The photo is not very clear because I cut the flash off to keep from being a distraction. )

We stayed overnight at the Hotel Guayacan there in Sayaxche'. We were late returning after the service. They have a small parking garage. It was full when we returned. They had one spot left for our truck since they knew we were coming back, but it was right inside of the gate- blocking all of the other cars. We knew what that meant!!! We set our clock for 6:00 so David could get up and move our truck out before the others were ready to leave. WELL, they get up earlier than that around here! ha At 5:10 A.M. we heard a knock at our door. David got up, moved our truck, and then came back to get me up. He wanted me to walk outside and see the BEAUTIFUL sunrise view over the river. We never get to see a sunrise so we were kinda thankful to be forced out of bed or we would have missed these views-----

not a bad way to start the day, huh.

July Newsletter

GREETINGS FROM GUATEMALA! We just finished up another wonderful month here. We had a great visit to the village of Se' Pata with national missionary Bro. Miguel Chub to visit some new believers and have a service with them. We are looking forward to returning there again next week with a team we have coming in to work in the Lanquin/ Cahabon area. They will be a new prayer team from Alabama. We held a recording session and got 13 new stories recorded for the K'ekchi' radio stations. We had the privilege of seeing 10 people get baptized! That blessed our hearts! We flew to Mexico to attend a mission prayer retreat. It was great to be around fellow missionaries and pray for each other. We received word that a village a team showed the Jesus film in back in January recently had 13 new believers. Sometimes our teams don't see immediate fruit, but they do make a difference!!! It was another full month, and a great one!

On schedule for July we have a pastor's conference we will be attending in Sayaxche'. We will be hosting a prayer team. We will be attending a wedding for the son of one of our K'ekchi' missionaries. I, Regina, will be having a wisdom tooth cut out. Our supervisor will be returning from his Stateside Assignment and we are looking forward to having him back. We will appreciate your prayers for us this month!

Thanks for your faithful love and support. Until next time......

Sending our love,
David & Regina
Your Missionaries to Guatemala

PRAYER PRAISES:
1. good health & safety
2. seeing new believers being baptized
3. being able to encourage new believers


PRAYER REQUESTS:
1. our health & safety
2. for our planned activities this month
3. for our organization, imb, and the many changes that are taking place within it
4. for wisdom and knowledge to do our job
5. for teachable spirits
6. language, language, language...

Dancing Kids

Another thing we enjoyed watching over the weekend was some K'ekchi' children & youth performing a typical dance. Here are photos and videos of both groups- And the videos-

Blog Anniversary!

We started this blog one year ago today! We thought it would be a great way to get our stories out. We've enjoyed sharing with you a little part of our lives along with lots of photos and videos. We hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as we have enjoyed writing it & living it. We look forward to many more memories to share as we continue to follow God wherever He leads! Thanks for coming along with us! Click here to see our original posts.

Race

We walked uptown Sunday morning to watch the start of the race. We didn't get to see the finish because we had to get to church. We were very surprised at the number of people in the race. They just kept coming and coming!

The calm before the storm Local news crew
There was a caravan of vehicles all with sirens leading the pack. It was soooo loud!

And, there off!!

And the winner was.....

the Kenyan! (again)

We ate lunch on Friday and sat at the table next to this guy and his translators. He was being interviewed by a local newspaper. I wanted to ask to take his photo but chickened out. bummer!!

A big weekend in our town

This weekend our town is hosting the annual 1/2 marathon. It normally takes place in late May but because of the swine flu scare they postponed it until June. People from all over the world come here to run in this race. For the last 8 or 9 years someone from Kenya has won it. There are locals and tourists all over town. It is very lively and festive!! There are food and vendor booths set up all over town.

There were several booths selling DVD's. We bought a few movies that we've been wanting to see.
I also got a marathon t-shirt.
Another event that takes place along with the race is the annual "mud bog". Or that's what we call it back home. This was our second year to watch this and we love it. It sure reminds of us home, ha.

We spent the whole morning walking around and seeing things. The actual race is not until Sunday morning. Just as we were leaving the Plaza, the dark clouds rolled in and it started to rain. We got quite wet trying to walk back home.

So, we'll make a pot of coffee, watch a movie, and wait until it passes. We'll head back out late this afternoon to catch the night festivities. We LOVE our town!

Vacation Bible School

While the adults were in their meetings in Mexico, the kids were being taken care of by the volunteer team from Olive Branch, Mississippi. They spent their days in VBS. The theme was "Boomerang Express". They had a great time and on Sunday afternoon they showed us a little of what they had been learning.

Here's a few photos: Here are a few videos of them singing. They were very entertaining! Enjoy!

Mexico- Day 4

Sunday was our last day of meetings. It was a full day! We finished up with our share & prayer time. We had a great final worship and Bible study time. We recognized several milestones within our mission family. We had one family receive a 5 year service pin & one receive a 15 year pin. We recognized and presented Bible's to 4 graduates. We recognized and prayed for those going on Stateside Assignment this year (we were in that group).

The children presented a program from their VBS they have been participating in. I will post videos and photos of that in a few days.

For our lunch, they catered tacos al pastor. They were delicious! They were made with pork.
They shave the meat off Another person then finishes the cooking by grilling it.

They then heat the tortillas and fix the plates. These are some of the fixings to go on top. We had lemons, onions, cilantro, 4 different sauces, and my favorite- pineapple.
My plateFor dinner we went out to eat with Billy & Mary. They serve in Honduras. We ate at a very delicious Italian place! After dinner we visited a coffee shop that was next door to our hotel. They gave away several free capuchinno coupons and both of our families had won one as a door prize. We drank our coffees and sat and talked for about 2 more hours. We had a great time with them!They decorated the drinks really pretty.
Today we will say good-bye to everyone and travel back to Guatemala. That will mean a 20 minute cab ride to the bus station, a two hour bus ride to the airport, a 2+ hour flight to El Salvador, a 45 minute flight to Guatemala City, and a ride from there to the mission house. Whew! Please pray for our day of travel and for all the others who are traveling home today as well.

Mexico- Day 3

If there is one thing we are getting a lot of here, it's food! We are eating because it's meal time, not necessarily because we are hungry. We start our day with breakfast outside. After breakfast we meet for worship and Bible study (in English!). We have a team of 14 from Long View Heights Baptist Church in Olive Branch, Mississippi here to lead us. They are leading us in worship, their pastor- Wayne Marshall is leading our Bible study, and they are doing VBS with our children and youth. They are a great team and we are all very happy to have them here with us!!

Each morning we have door prizes. You get to pick a gift item and a food item.

One of the team members, Ray, has a pottery business and brought several of his pieces to give away. On Friday morning I won a door prize and picked his gift. It was a coffee mug. I also got a snack pack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for David.

This is Ray. His store is in Corinth, MS- Spero Pottery. You can visit his website at: http://www.speropottery.com/. Check it out! He has some pretty work.

Coffee break time-

One of our sessions on Saturday was for the women and men to meet separately. The women had a great fellowship & share time.

We were excited to get popcorn & chocolate in our session. We also each got a bottle of lotion.
Saturday night many of us went to a local mall and ate at the food court. I didn't take photos but we did enjoy some delicious Tony Roma's ribs & chicken. We also got some Starbuck's coffee. YUM!

We are having a great time. The fellowship and encouragement we are receiving has been wonderful!

Mexico- Day 2

We looked out of our hotel room window Friday morning to see this sight. I wasn't able to get a great photo of it but it was very pretty! We had a great day of meetings. Most of the morning was spent on business type issues. In the afternoon we had a good bit of time for each family to share about their work and to pray for each other. We were all surprised at our break time in the morning when they brought in several dozen Krispy Kreme donuts for all of us. We were all VERY happy.
Gary & Lily

David & Billy
For lunch we all walked next door to Peter Piper Pizza and ate together. It was delicious!

Mexico- Day 1

Our morning started at 4:00 A.M. It's not often that we are up before the sun!! We arrived at the airport, had a smooth check in, and headed straight to McDonald's for breakfast and some much needed coffee. The first leg of our flight was from Guatemala City to San Salvador, El Salvador. It was our first time to visit there and although we never left the airport, I had to take a few photos. There were also several things I had my eye on in the gift shops and look forward to picking a few of them up on the way home. I guess we will always be tourist at heart.
We flew from there to Mexico City. The airport in Mexico City is quite large and has many stores and eating places. A few that caught our eye were Starbucks & Krispy Kreme donuts. Yes, Krispy Kreme!!! I had to stop and have a moment of silence. haha I wanted to skip lunch and just eat donuts, but waited until I ate my slice of Domino's pizza and went back.

It was the first donuts we have eaten since our trip to the States last October. We thoroughly enjoyed them.
After eating, we headed down to the bus station to catch our bus to Puebla. We traveled today with the Grossman family. Here are Roger, Vicki, & Nathaniel waiting to board the bus.

This was our bus. It was very nice. Nothing like the buses in Guatemala!
We relaxed, enjoyed the snacks & movie, and the two hour ride.

Once arriving at the bus station in Puebla we collected our bags and caught a taxi to the hotel. We checked in and spent the rest of the afternoon visiting with others who had arrived.

For dinner, we went to eat with Keith & Penny Stamps at Vips. It was across the street from where we are staying. It was a great day!
Our meetings start this morning and we have a full days schedule. We'll post more when we can. Thanks for your prayers for our travel. We appreciate it!!

Look Out Mexico, Here We Come!

We are very excited about our travels over the next few days. We will fly today from Guatemala City to Mexico City. From there we will take a bus and travel two hours to the city of Puebla.

We are going to attend a Meeting/ Prayer Retreat with other Indigeniuos workers in our mission. We are excited about the fellowship, the food, the fun, & hopefully the shopping, as well as the information we will be learning about the changes and new structure within the mission. We will try to make a few posts with photos while there so check back to see how it's going. And, as always, please keep us in your prayers.

Here are a few photos I found of Puebla. It looks like a beautiful place!!!

Monday in the City

Our day started off with a visit to the lawyer's office to sign some more papers for our permanent visas we are applying for.

We then made a trip to the mission office to check our mail and visit with George & Janet. We spent the afternoon at the mission house.

Late in the afternoon we went to a local mall that we have not visited yet. It was very nice!!! We spent a while walking around window shopping and people watching. We ate dinner at a new place, Skillets. It was yummy! Their motto is "laid back gourmet dining". We think it must be an American chain, but we have never heard of it.
David ordered this hamburger that had grilled shrimp on it.

And I had the chicken fajitas

After eating we went to visit an aquarium that is inside the mall. Nais is a chain restaurant here in Guatemala. We love to eat there. This Nais has an aquarium inside of it. We thought it was just an aquarium and not a restaurant or we would have eaten there. We will definitely want to go back now and eat and watch the fish at the same time!!!

After that we stopped by the McCafe for coffee

Celebrating 30 years!!!

Sunday morning we attended the 30th Anniversary of Iglesia Bautista Belen K'ekchi' here in Coban. It was an exciting day of worship with them. The entire service lasted 4 hours! and then they served a meal. It was a long morning, but a good one. There were 5 professions of faith made public today. Below are photos showing some of the original members of the church. There were several visiting churches there today to celebrate with them. The church itself is large and it was standing room only. Very crowded and very hot!! One church brought a group of kids that did creative movement to a few songs. It was very cute and I recorded one of them to share with you all.

We are now packing and loading up to drive into Guatemala City. Please pray for our travels this afternoon.