Working with the Knutson Family

The Knutson family arrived Sunday.  Monday served as a preparation day for activities later in the week.  Tues we all went to clinic.  During the medical clinics, the kids shared coloring sheets with the children who came to clinic.

As you can see, they are having some trouble getting along. 

Tuesday night we shared family worship with the Ficker family.  Here is Katie leading worship with Caleb accompanying. 

Wednesday started off early so the workers could be on their way to Tapachula, Mexico for their retreat.

Wednesday night was 'movie night'.  Norman Sutton let us set up the movie projector for a treat.

Please pray for us.  For patience, health, etc.  It is a BIG job to fill in for the workers at Hogar de Vida!

The Knutsons Have Arrived!

The Knutson family survived their long day of travel yesterday and arrived in Canilla at about 4 pm or so.  We will spend the day today getting organized for clinic tomorrow and the Home on Wednesday.  It is fun to have them here!  We will post more later!  Thanks for praying!

Widows' Project

"Yo les he dicho estas cosas para que en mí hallen paz. En este mundo afrontarán aflicciones, pero ¡anímense! Yo he vencido al mundo."  Juan 16:33

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

Last Monday, Leslie asked me to do the devotion with the widows on Tuesday.  I found a devotion on-line in Spanish with the above verse.  I was just going to attempt to read it to them in Spanish and then pray for all of them.  As I prayed before clinic on Tuesday morning, I felt like the Lord wanted me to share about my dad and our "trouble" this past year.  I was working on how to share my heart in Spanish and praying for the Holy Spirit to just give me His words (preferably in Spanish!)

When we got to clinic (about a 40 minute drive up the mountain), Bethany and I weighed and gave food to the kids in the nutrition program.  The widows don't come in until the end of clinic so I had lots of time to pray and think about what I was going to share.  I felt like I was totally prepared and ready to share when the time came.

Flor is a Guatemalan girl who helps out in the clinics.  She does ultrasounds and also translates from Spanish to Quiche.  Most of the people in this clinic do not speak Spanish.  She is so good at what she does and is such a blessing to this ministry.  Leslie and Flor talked to the widows at the beginning of their time together and then Leslie introduced me.

Flor read my verse in Spanish to the ladies.  I started to read some of the devotion.  I was then going to start sharing about my dad.  Immediately the tears started to flow.  I only got out the words that he died last April and then couldn't speak anymore.  

One of the widows started to share that she knew "exactly" how I felt.  She lost both of her parents and her husband and then continued to share about more tough things that she was going through.  When she finished, I looked at Leslie and asked "where do I go from here?".  Their problems were so much worse than mine and really, what could I say that would encourage them?  Leslie started to share with them that even though we are different and live in different places, our pain is the same.  They were all nodding their heads in agreement.  

I didn't feel like I could add anything more to the discussion but I felt that the Holy Spirit wanted me to put my hands on all of them and pray.  They began to share their hearts.  One lady's son beat her and she really wanted to go to church but she had to pay Q25 (about $3) to attend.  This doesn't seem like much to us but these widows don't have enough to feed their children PLUS the idea of her having to pay to go to church was unbelievable.  Another lady twisted her ankle on the long walk to clinic.  As they continued to share their stories, I went from lady to lady, touching them physically while asking the Lord to touch them spiritually.  I am absolutely sure that I was blessed way more than them but I am praying that the Lord reveals Himself to them as their provider and protector.  

Once we were done praying, the ladies brought out their baskets.  They were beautiful.  Flor inspected them all and decided how much to pay them for their hard work.  Once they were all paid, we put a piece of tape with the name of the creator inside each of them.  We packed them up and brought them back down the mountain with us.  I plan to fill our luggage with as many baskets as possible.  Flor is also teaching them to make beautiful tortilla cloths.  I can't wait to see the finished products!  

As I was looking for the pictures of the widows, I found this picture on Bethany's camera.  It was raining in the mountains one morning and then this rainbow appeared.  It was so vivid and beautiful.  It reminded me that, yes, we are going to have trouble in this world but the Lord has "overcome the world".  Be encouraged!  We can count on His promises and rest in His faithfulness.  In Him, we will find peace.       

Medical Clinics

We arrived in Canilla Sunday morning, the 13th, and hit the ground running.  From the airport in Canilla, I got in a pickup and headed off to San Andres to clinic.   This year, Bethany has been helping in the medical clinics.  Here is a picture of her in San Andres taking a blood pressure.  She also learned to check blood sugars.  We will see, this may be a view into her future calling. 

Tuesday clinics are up the mountain in Chiminisjuan.  Here is a picture of Armondo, a local pastor, preaching before clinic starts.

Lori and Bethany helped this last Tuesday with the nutrition program.  Children are weighed and given milk and food to supplement their diets.  The most nutritionally compromised kids seem to always be the sickest.

Last Thursday, was the monthly clinic in Chumisa.  This is a more isolated village to the north.  A Guatemalan dentist went with us.  Here is a picture of him working on the other side of the door way.  Our pharmacy table is to the left.  Clinic was held in an adobe village home.  The low ceilings and lack of windows is typical of the homes in this area.  You can also see the power cord hanging down on the right.  Not the easiest place to evaluate and treat patients.

It is always so rewarding and overwhelming to serve here in Guatemala.  The needs are so great and the resources so limited.  Whenever the need is beyond what we can offer medically, we ask for the help of the Great Physician - we offer to pray with them.

The Wall (dun-dun-dunnnnnnnn!)

I(Caleb) am sure you all are on the edge of your seats waiting for the next blog post after the last whiz-banger Beth wrote.  After all, she had pictures and witty humor!  Well, here it goes. . .

(insert funny joke to start the paragraph)  For the past few days I have been helping with various projects.

On Sunday I helped put a 4-wheeler back together and for the past few days I have been helping build part of the wall around the ministry compound.  They originally only had a wall around the front and half of each of the sides, with barb-wire fence around the rest of the property.  Now though they are planning on building another building toward the rear of the property.  But before they can break ground, they need to have a wall around the entire facility for security purposes.  So Monday and Tuesday I helped with the digging of the trench for the foundation of the wall (which was done with a backhoe - I didn't use the backhoe, just measured depths for how deep it was supposed to be) and marked out the posts.  The wall and posts are made out of concrete blocks and concrete.  The wall is only about 3 feet tall and the posts are about 5 feet tall above that, so they take chain link fencing and concrete it onto the posts.  The posts are formed from re-bar and have to be marked out 8 feet apart in the ditch that forms the foundation.

Wednesday was Sabbath and we had worship that night so I played guitar and Kate Ficker played piano.  Playing instruments is even more fun when you are playing them with someone else, and then to play some amazing songs with God's presence all around you is always phenomenal.  Today I had a most interesting job.  The way people irrigate here is with a canal that gets water from the river (for some cool pictures of where the canal starts go see our post from January 6, 2009 called Un Paseo).  Everyone who pays gets an allotment of time to have the canal on their land.  Yesterday was our day to have it.  Unfortunately, most of it ran to the back of the property and into the trench we dug.  So today we had to go and drain the water.  Once we got all the water drained there was another problem.  The mud left behind had the consistency of chocolate pudding so we had to drain that too.  All in all, a very messy job.

Here is a picture of the wall.

Peace out!!

Great Times in Guatemala

Hi there, all you readers. This time you get to hear the my (Bethany's) opinion of our stay here in Guatemala.                           

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We are enjoying mostly sunny days and beautiful weather (I'm sure most of you who are stuck in the snow are jealous).

    

   We even went swimming yesterday evening! Lots of fun down at the river.

 There are a lot of animals here (woohoo), including a cat, dogs, chickens, a turkey, a horse, a cow, lots of birds, and fish. Here are the dogs.

This is the cat. He has an injury above his right eye, though it looks much better now. I have been appointed as the "vet".

So all in all, I'd say our stay here has been awesome so far. I'm really enjoying it, and I am hoping that it has been a blessing to the family we are staying with. 

I'm praying that we keep God first in all things, and thank you all for your support. Keep it up and look for more blog posts. 

Bye from Bethany.

Settled

We had an awesome flight from Guatemala City to Canilla yesterday morning.  We decided it was the smoothest landing we had had the whole trip . . . and it was on a dirt runway!!  Once we landed, Don took off for clinic in San Andres.  The kids and I headed to the house.  We are staying in a little two-bedroom apartment this year.  It is a very nice space.  I tried to get us organized while the kids played and got dirty!

Last year when we brought a team with us, we had put a Guatemala phone number on all of our luggage tags.  It was the phone number for our friends who live at the children's home in San Andres.  When we packed this year, we just left those same tags on our bags.  Turns out, our bag is not in Dallas.  There was a large team flying in with us last Saturday and they mistakenly took our bag.  They called Norman and told them where they were and that they had our bag.  The team will be back in Guatemala City next Friday so we will try to meet up with them then and get it back.  We are very thankful to know where it is!

Mondays are typically "catch up" days here after the clinics on the weekend.  Don ran to the tienda to get us some food and then a patient arrived.  The patient had just had twins via c-section about a week ago and wanted Leslie to look at the babies and take her stitches out.  Don got to take out stitches and I got to hold sweet little 5 lb. babies!  I definitely got the better deal! ; )

We are getting settled and acclimated.  The weather is very springlike - warm during the day and cool at night.  We are not missing Nebraska winter at all!! ; )  Bethany has taken over the job of giving medicine to a cat with a wound next to its eye.  Today, Don and Caleb are helping build a fence that will completely enclose the property.  Hannah and Samuel have the job of playing and got a great start yesterday!  We are praying for the Lord's plan for us in this place.  He has a purpose in bringing us here and we don't want to miss all that He has for us.  Thanks for your prayers!        

We made it!

We are all six here; however, one of our bags is not!  We have traveled here with 12 and 10 bags in the past and never lost one!  This year we had 7.  Hmmm . . . . maybe that means it is better to travel with more bags??  ; )

So, we made it to the hotel by 9:30 pm which means we did not make it to Walmart (for those of you praying about that trip!).  We had already talked to Leslie about Plan C anyway so no worries!  And the other good news, we did not lose our bag with all of our overnight stuff.  We have our toothbrushes, pajamas, contact stuff, etc. etc.  Very, very thankful for that!!

Our bag is in Dallas and should arrive tomorrow night.  Please pray that it will find us in Canilla!  We were carrying some things for the Suttons (missionaries at the children's home) as well as some of our clothes, gifts, etc.

We are heading to bed.  Sam is very ready! 

Here is another quick picture of our room.  We have 4 beds!

Do For One!

"Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone."
 - Andy Stanley

The sun was shining today so I decided to brave the below freezing temperatures and take our dog for a walk.  Once I made up my mind that I was going to go, I noticed that it was almost 10 am.  There are a couple radio programs on our local Christian radio station at 10 and 10:30 am.  I ran to my room to get my 3 dozen layers of clothes on (ok, maybe that is an exaggeration) so I could be outside in time to listen to the programs.  The first one was really good and I am going to pursue the book that they discussed (maybe I will share on that another time!).  I usually really like the 10 am program better than the 10:30 one but since I was still walking, I decided to keep listening.  Oh my goodness!  It was so good.

It was a sermon from Andy Stanley who is a pastor of the second largest church in the US.  He was talking about how we get overwhelmed by all of the bad things going on in our world.  He was saying that our responsibility is just the "one" that the Lord brings to us.  We can't solve all of the world's problems but we can affect the life of one.  He challenged the listener to "do for one what you wish you could do for everyone" over this next year.  He had three main points on how to do this:
  
1. Go deep rather than wide.
2. Go long-term rather than short-term.
3. Give time not just money.

Here is a link to the message.  I want to encourage you to listen to it!
Making a Resolution to Care - Andy Stanley

I "made" Don listen to it tonight after supper and his response was, "I just read this".  He is reading a book called Radical by David Platt.  The part that Don just read last night talks about how we tend to do the opposite of what Jesus did. We want to have the big programs and activities that bring in the crowds.  He gathered 12 around him and went "deep", "long-term" and gave his "time" to them.  He focused on them so that they could then focus on making disciples of others.  We tend to go wide because it is easier.  We tend to go short-term because we get tired of commitment.  We tend to just give money because it is quicker to write a check than it is to spend time with someone.

As we prepare to go to Guatemala in a week, this has hit me hard.  It gets overwhelming to see the needs and the poverty and the sickness of so many people.  We cannot make much of a difference to very many in 3 and a half weeks.  We can't change their living situations or their physical conditions and it takes time to speak to their hearts spiritually.  Are we really making a difference?

Hearing this message encourages us.  We have been making these trips since 2003.  This is our 9th trip to the highlands of Guatemala.  We know that this is where the Lord has called us to focus and "go deep".  We have relationships with those at both ministries where we serve.  We didn't know that we were in it for the "long-term" when we started but here we are almost 10 years later - still going, still serving and still wanting to make a difference.  It would be easier to send a check in MANY ways but the Lord has called us to invest our time.

So we go.  My prayer is that this year we don't focus on ALL the needs but instead listen to the Lord's voice as He brings the "one" into our path.  We pray that the Lord will show us how "to do for the one what we wish we could do for everyone."