The End of the Road (Puerta Abajo)

Juan teaching some of the kids how to make things out of recycled pop cans 

Puerta Abajo

Brayan and Dave at the school 

All of the students teaching songs during kid's club

Time to colour!

Little kids song/game time

Puppet show!

Juan presenting the gospel using a giant "EvangeCube"

Hosting an evangelistic movie night at one of the churches- seven people accepted Jesus!  

Z and some friends eating lunch.

Amarilis was the only student for the literacy program, and she only showed up for one day of class.  We were prepared for ten students, but we will just have to save our supplies and try again somewhere else.  

Brayan's impromptu morning music group, with Z and Francisco.  

     On the way to Puerta Abajo we had to bring both of the base vans to get all the gear up there.  We had big plans for ministry that week, including a literacy class, movie nights, kids club, and Bible distribution (door to door prayer and encouragement ministry).  We also had to bring in all our own food and cooking utensils, and bedding.  It was like a big camping trip, and we weren't packing light!
     We stayed in two small houses that share a yard, and had a kitchen with stove to use, as well as a dining room table that we could all fit at to eat meals.  Not a bad set-up.  The shower in one of the houses even had a widow-maker shower, so we could have warm water.  The houses were right down the hill from the school where we held the kids club too, so it was a easy to carry supplies up there for each afternoon.  Dave made all the meals and we never had to worry about left-overs because there was always a group of kids hanging around outside to see if we'd give them something.

    Literacy class was a no-go, due to the fact that none of the women showed up.  We invited them personally, and sent other people to tell them about it, but no one had the time for it.  I wasn't too upset about it though because as it turned out Z got quite sick on the fourth day, and after spending the day cleaning up his puke until we had no more clean clothes or towels, I decided that we'd had enough Outreach and it was time for Mom and Z to be done. (He recovered completely within 6 hours of arriving home.)

    Everyone else carried on though, and saw great victories as they went door-to-door and visited people in their homes and prayed for them.  Dave's group saw a woman's knee instantly healed of pain caused by diabetes, and both groups were used to the Spirit to minister to people's hearts and show them the love that God has for them.  Puerta Abajo has a deeply-rooted poverty mentality, and one of the challenges was encouraging people to look to God for their help instead of just asking the "rich white people" to give them hand-outs.  The two teams visited almost every home in the entire community (over 100), and gave away about 50 Bibles into homes that didn't have one.

    The kids club was also a big success, and was attended by around fifty kids every day, along with many of their mothers.  The gospel was preached, Bible songs learned, and everyone participated in the fun games and activities.  Many of the children don't receive a lot of attention at home, and they drank up every moment of time the team gave them.  If the sun was up, so were the kids, ready and waiting to hang out with the team!

    Our students facilitated a church service, and also hosted an evangelistic movie night.  After the movie Brayan presented the gospel and six children came forward to accept Jesus.  When many of the people had left another man came forward and said that he also wanted to re-dedicate his life to God after many years of bitterness because of a dispute between himself and the pastor of his church.  He was reconciled with the pastor, and tearfully submitted himself to the Lord in front of everyone.

     The team arrived back to the base for a good night of sleep and a chance to wash laundry before they headed out for El Salvador on Sunday morning.  They will be gone for two weeks, but Dave did not go with them for this portion, because he can't leave the country... our residency paperwork is now pending approval at the immigration office!!!

    With our involvement in the Outreach basically complete (except for DTS graduation in a few weeks), our hearts are being drawn towards our soon-to-be home at the lake.  We have started packing the room, and with the boxes piling up, it is becoming very real that we are actually moving!  We are very excited to finally be doing what we have prayed about for the past year, and we know God is about to do even bigger things in our life and work here in Guatemala!