Lake Atitlan, Panajachel, Santiago & Zipline

This morning we woke up to some clouds to start our day. As we started off to meet the people of Santiago we were greeted with lots of smiles. The town was very busy with work, and vendors setting up for the day. Many of the people we met talked of their love for Jesus. At one point while walking, we came across 23 men mixing concrete on the ground. With 2 ladders, and several buckets they would fill the buckets up, and pass them up the ladders two stories high. Seeing this, John Slama jumped in line, and helped pass up buckets of mud. All of the workers were laughing, and had a good time with his willingness to help.

When we left to return to the Oasis, we stopped in Panajachel to experience the zip line. They strap a climbing harness around you with a pulley system. Then you take a long walk up the side of the mountain, and slide down hanging from a steel cable. It was the experience of a lifetime!

As we headed back on the road, we had a little trouble with one of the vehicles. When you have 15 guys on the road in a different country you tend to get a lot of people staring at you. As we waited for the tow truck, one of their buses (also called a chicken bus) broke down as it passed us. The sound of tire blowing was like a shotgun. So now we have 2 vehicles broke down. That is when the police arrived. After talking with them while one of the officers was carrying a machine gun, they left us to wait for the tow truck.

We arrived back late, but with all we encountered it was a very joyous day we spent sharing in Gods grace.

Some Rest & Relaxation

We are blessed to be able to spend some time today resting and enjoying some of the wonderful sights, smells and sounds of Guatemala. We had a sweet devotion time last night sharing some of the ways we have seen God work this week and how we have all been blessed by this experience. Thanks for your prayers as we travel the interesting roads of Guatemala!

Finishing Construction

Well, today is our last day of construction - most guys were up by 6:30 a.m. to complete their projects. We have had a slight change of plan and will be heading out to the lake today. We will be staying at lake Atitlan Friday night, and heading back to the Oasis on Saturday afternoon / evening. We have successfully completed all the projects we were assigned and more! We have worked hard and are looking forward to a couple of days to rest and reflect on this past week. We have experienced many new things, been touched by the girls and the people of Guatemala and seen God work in many ways.

Some thoughts about contentment

I’m very thankful for being surrounded by Godly men who exhibit so many of the godly traits that I am weak in and strive for. I’m being made aware from the Lord how much I have and take for granted and how much He needs me acknowledge that the only things that matter at all are things that are done for His Glory and for His purpose. I’m being shown that these Guatemalan people have a very unique contentedness with their lives and that is something that I want and need more of.  They find enjoyment in the most “Non-American” simple things, like just playing with sticks or flowers, running and laughing with friends, hugging big, stinky strangers from foreign countries, or just lying around. I need to find solace in just being quiet and allowing myself to meditate on the Lord or just let myself be calm and listen to the world. They don’t have hardly anything in terms of earthly assets at all but seem to have contentment with the small amount of things they have. WOW, that’s a lifelong project to work on…but it seems more palatable to start working on prioritizing life’s real and core necessities here in Guatemala. They seem to just be OK with where they happen to be in life-not necessarily striving for things that are not available to them. My prayer is that God change my heart to become a man that is not striving for things that are not of his kingdom, but instead develop a heart of contentment that finds adequacy and joy in the simple act of worshipping my Lord and humbly accepting the most important gifts that He has placed in my life, MY RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM, FAMILY, HEALTH, FRIENDS, and take care of and share the small amount of things that He has entrusted to me and my family. 

Zapote Day Care Center

Today we were gifted to visit the town of Zapote. We began our journey in our van for an hour and then transferred into four-wheel drive pickups to traverse the rough terrain and four river crossings. This area of Guatemala’s country side is quite rural as we only saw people upon occasion as they also traveled this rough road. We were struck by the local people's incredible capacity to work this land. We saw some fixing the roads or carrying huge bundles of wood. Each one on their local journey…

As we arrived at the school we were greeted by cheers of gringo, gringo’s from behind the gates. Every sweet child was smiling and cheering. What a reception… We proceeded to inside the school grounds and were greeted with hugs and playful balls bouncing around. We saw two groups of about 40 kids and had a blast working through a craft with them about how God created the world in seven days. They sat intent waiting on our every word. What a joy to spend time with these precious kids. We left handing out some candy and then tossed some we had left to the kids along the way back to the Oasis.

Our day continued with more work till around 7pm and then a hot meal of chicken, salad and rice. God is truly at work here not only with these kids but genuinely in each of us.

Lunch with girls, soccer and Gabrielson testimony

Many things were accomplished on the Green house today including one of the stairways, the metal stud walls, electrical boxes and the PVC tubing and finally the new soccer goal posts were finished. No sooner than the goal posts were set up did the girls come running out to challenge the New Hope men to play soccer. Need I say that the Oasis girls creamed the men?

One highlight today was dividing up into small groups and being invited over to one of the homes the girls lived in for lunch. The girls had fun looking at our family pictures and we enjoyed learning about their favorite school subjects, sports, and favorite bible story.

After dinner we watched a 3 minute video by Pastor John Piper on why the health, wealth and prosperity gospel is wrong and how in the throes of suffering great loss we can rely on God for strength and support and that God will see us through what ever difficult times we may go through in this life. It is often in the face of great loss that God draws us close to Him. Our God is a big picture person who understands all that we go through. Unknown to me at the time I sensed God calling me to sign up for this missions trip there was a girl in this orphanage that resembles our daughter Maria. Tim Bodkin called me over to share that with me the night the men gathered for prayer. When I arrived I was amazed how much alike this girl was from her looks, to her giggles, and to her determination to overcome her leg disability. I was equally amazed that her name was Maria. This Maria became disabled from some unknown accident. The director told me that she is very determined to learn to walk and that there is a possibility of her having surgery in South Carolina in the future. It is really amazing how God orchestrates the events in our lives and in my case brought me down to Guatemala and used this Maria to help me in the grieving process. Our God is indeed an awesome God!

Todd Gabrielson

First Day of Construction

Today we successfully completed a roofing project and an electrical wiring project. We are also underway with building 2 outdoor staircases, spraying soccer goals and some cabinets. The weather is beautiful (70 degrees and sunny), the guys are getting along great and God is knitting us together as a team. It was a hard day, we are all tired, but we are having a lot of laughs and it is a joy seeing the girls around the Oasis. We praise God for safety and for the blessing of being able to serve in this way.

Worship and Antigua

Today was a new experience for the entire team as we attended worship at the Fraternidad Christiana de Guatemala, the largest evangelical church in Central America rather than the local church in San Lucas (we'll be going there next Sunday). It was a warm, friendly body of believers and the service was very meaningful to each of us. Through our personal team interpreter from the church, we heard a message of how important it is that our children see Christ in us in the way we relate to our spouses, our friends and our children as well. We need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. As we are away from our families, this was a great message for our team to talk about during our evening devotional time. The experience also allowed us to reflect on the greatness of God and how He is the God of all humanity.

This afternoon we made a trip into Antigua, a town not too far from the Oasis. Quite a traffic jam ensued as we got stuck in a local religious parade. They happen quite often, especially during the Lenten season. It commemorates the crucifixion of Christ, so it was much like a funeral procession. Literally thousands of people participate with most of the men wearing purple robes and paying to help carry massive floats on their shoulders as penance for their sins. The team felt it was quite dark though and was at the other end of the spectrum from the grace we experienced at church this morning.

We ended our trip to Antigua spending some time shopping in the local market and had dinner at a local restaurant. Tomorrow we start construction in earnest and look forward to what God has in store for us.