We are officially home from Guatemala and Nicaragua.  It was an amazing trip with some great churches.  The Lord allowed us to help the construction process of a church in Guatemala and a church in Nicaragua. We worked at medical clinics and nutrition centers.  We helped put on some Bible Clubs and we got to love on some orphans.  We performed outreaches with food baskets and water filters.  We were able to see people saved and people baptized (both nationals and people on our trip).  The sick were ministered to, as were the young and the elderly.  We got to meet a new orphan on his second day at the orphanage and were able to watch him go from scared and timid to engaging in just two weeks time.  We had fellowship with relationships we had built last year, and got to start some new friendships.   Thank you to everyone that went, prayed for us, supported us, and kept up with us.  You are a huge blessing to our family.

It has been a great week in Nicaragua, through the help of a lot of Advil. LOL.  A group of us have been helping to build a structure for a new church that is being planted in a village/community called Palopan.  We are using 120 lb blocks and have moved 350 of them thus far.  That’s 42,000 lbs.  The structure is progressing well, but it took a lot of work to clean all of the dirt off of us each day.  Another group has been working at the Bible clubs each day and helped with the music, Bible lessons, games, face painting, etc.

Today we did a special outreach in the village to invite them to church this Sunday. It will be the first church service of the new church.  It is really neat to be a part of the beginnings of something like this.  This afternoon a group of us went and painted a structure that used for a Bible Club and a youth service that will happen tomorrow.  We were able to take the group to an active volcano one evening as well.   There are more great things to come.

It has been an awesome week watching kids from the States helping serve kids in Guatemala.  Of course, I’m a little partial, two of them are my kids.  It has been a great couple of days.  Yesterday we went to Sumpango and worked with Pastor Jaime and his wife with the kids and the feeding center, then did a couple of home visits.  Today we worked at a medical clinic in El Arado, then did home visits in the village.  It is a Mayan community and we are almost finished with the construction of a church.

What a way to start week 3 in Guatemala.  We have an awesome team of girls that were willing to roll up their sleeves and get dirty by helping us build the church in San Lucas.  Then we went to help with the nutrition center and they painted the fingernails of the girls at the center.  Finally, we got to do 2 home visits and see 2 people accept Christ!  Not a bad start to the week.

What an amazing couple of days we have had this week. On Monday we were able to work with MJ in El Arado.  We washed hair for lice and feet.  One one girl we found some problems with her feet.  Some worms had burrowed into her feet and laid eggs.  The local nurse and a nurse in our team were able to remove the worm and many of the eggs.  We were going to deliver food baskets for some home visits, but the rain prevented us from doing that.  Praise the Lord we were not able to. Because…

Today we worked at the feeding center in Sumpango with Pastor Jaime.  After we fed the kids the group performed a puppet show in Spanish.  Then, we were able to take food baskets to some of the families in the area.  Because of the rain the day before, we had an extra basket, so Pastor Jaime added 1 extra visit to our schedule.  What a visit it was.  The lady had lost her husband 5 years ago and was very bitter and felt the Lord did not love her.  We gave her the food and some ladies in the group were able to lead her to the Lord in Spanish!  Plus, another member of our team lead a 13 year old boy to the Lord.  So, because of the rain the day before, there are now two more names written down in Glory.  Amen.

We spent the second half of the week at La Gomera and San Lucas.  In La Gomera we were able to hand out shoes to the kids and I was able to see the cooktop in use that my home church purchased last year on their trip.  In San Lucas we helped with the construction of a new church, and the women attended a Ladies’ Bible Study.  Then, we helped feed the kids and did a Bible lesson with them. Afterwards we were able to do more home visits and take them food.  I was really amazing. One lady had just given birth to a new baby the day before.  We were able to pray for her and give her and her family food. Another lady had also recently given birth and her husband had just lost his job, so they didn’t know how they were going to eat until we showed up with food for them.  We are so humbled to be used by the Lord in these circumstances.

We have had several great days here in Guatemala.  The group went to El Arado and was able to tour the construction process on the church that we are building.  Then, we went and worked at the medical clinic.  We were able to do lice treatments on the children, wash their feet, inspect them for worms and infections, and give them a new pair of shoes.  Afterwards, we took food baskets to some families in the village and shared the Gospel with them. Yesterday, we painted the new building that is under construction at our orphanage.  I’m not sure if we got more paint on the building or ourselves.  LOL.

It was a great week in Panama with the team from Lubbock Baptist Temple. The group was a tremendous pleasure to be with and we were able to get a lot done.  We visited MANNA’s nutrition center in Dolega, and several centers in David, Panama.  The bulk of the week was spent working at the orphanage in David.  We were able to tile a bathroom, put the ceiling in several rooms, move kids into a new room, assemble desks and work centers for the kids’ schooling, fix a swing set, repair plumbing and storage tanks, and love on a lot of kids.

On Sunday we were able to attend church in David and one of the group participants who is a pastor of a Spanish congregation in Tyler got to preach.  There were several people that accepted Christ and one person was baptized.  It was a great trip in so many ways.  I’m excited we were able to be used in these ways and look forward to going back again.  It has been neat to watch the kids in Panama grow up the past few years.