Last week we lived in a village called Puerto Abajo. Imagine any "World Vision" promo video you´ve seen, with the dirty kids, and tiny houses, and desperate need all around. That was a lot of what it looked like. There were a couple nice houses, a few people who could afford a horse or a small car, but there was a lot of poverty too.
I made friends with one, especially desperate, single mom of two boys. She was only 17, and lived in a house smaller than the little bedroom we had in our little rented house in the village. Her bathroom was a plastic-bag-enclosed stick structure, and her yard was dirt, with garbage strewn around to serve as toys for her five year old. When I visited her, she showed me around proudly, making a huge point to show me her small collection of teddy bears, hung neatly from the ceiling. I couldn´t help but think that those would make for better toys for her son than the dirty hand soap bottles that Z and her son Dav were playing with in the yard.
During my visit though, I watched my son, and learned what it meant to be a friend to someone very different than myself. Z and his friend played wonderfully together, sharing the most treasured pieces of garbage, and laughing and talking to each other in their own languages. My friend loved seeing our boys play together, so I spent almost an hour with her, trying to understand her rapid Spanish and offering generous comments about the beauty of her bedspread, view from her yard, and her infant son´s napping ability. She was thrilled, and we spent a while every afternoon chatting with each other from that day on (I even managed to figure out what she was saying most of the time by the end of the week.)
The main reason we were in the village though was to put on a week-long Vacation Bible School for about 200 kids. A church from Guatemala city were the ones organizing the event, and we were blessed to be able to come alongside them and minister to the kids. I was the most impacted by talking with the mothers who would stay and watch the older kids, most of them nursing a second or third child. I was thrilled to see them listening to the story, and hearing the gospel message. We also had a movie night where we showed the movie "Facing the Giants" in Spanish for the Fathers and other family members in the evening. A lot of people came to that event as well, and Dave shared his testimony. As a result, we were able to pray for a girl who has been struggling with multiple miscarriages, and pray for her healing and for a baby for her.
We visited a lot of people´s homes, including my friend with her two sons, and during those times of visiting about 6 people came to Christ. During VBS almost 100 children accepted Christ, and even a few more people accepted because of the movie! We were thrilled by the amazing openness of these people´s hearts towards the gospel, and their readiness to accept Him as Savior.
During our week in Puerto Abajo though, a lot of people on our team got sick, including myself, Dave, and Z. So for the past five days we have been battling with travellers sickness, and bringing bags of dirty laundry to the laundry mat every morning. Last night was the first night that no one in our family was throwing up in the middle of the night in almost five days! Praise the Lord that we have recovered (mostly) from this sickness that found us. Thank you to those who have been praying.
Throughout this whole time in Guatemala (almost three weeks), we have continued to seek the Lord´s will for the future in our life. We know that the Lord has called us to be parents, and to parent those who do not have parents. We still do not know what that is going to look like, but we are excited to be going to an orphanage on Friday, and we will be going to a couple orphanages over the next few weeks. We will be moving from Guatemala city very soon, and going to another city further north. Please continue to pray for our team, for health, for the Spirit to overflow with joy and love through us for this country and for each other... and pray for our family to have vision and clarity for the future.
We saw great success in Puerto Abajo, and we fully expect to see more of that over the next six weeks! The Lord is great and mighty to save!
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