Happy Birthday Jose Angel

Jose Angel's birthday was last Sunday, but I still wanted to get his pictures up. We got to take him out to lunchat TGI Friday's after church, and it's pretty safe to say he enjoyed his meal. He cleaned his plate, then finished off his dessert pretty quickly in addition to half of his friend's dessert.

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NLCH is a good place to spend a birthday. We were woken up at 6 by a string of firecrackers outside our window, but we've been here long enough now to understand that it's done in love, so I liked it and went right back to sleep. I got sung to by all of the kids today, a good birthday cake and cupcakes to share with them, and lots of good hugs.

I don't have the words...

I've been trying to get this up for a while, and here it is, finally... A couple of weeks ago, Domino's Pizza put on an event in the central park to raise money for NLCH. It's a great thing they do- setting up tables and selling pizza and giving a charity part of the profit. This year, they sought us out and offered us to be the beneficiaries of this year's event.

Part of the event was that they had concerts by different local artists. Some of them seemed to be pretty popular around here- others were, well... a little lacking in fan support. You'll notice in the video below that this guy had three fans for this falsetto-rap-raggae performance, two little girls and a dancing piece of rice. By the end of the song, he had the piece of rice.

We'll get a post on here soon...

We have been very busy with a team from Calvary Community Church. We'll get some more info up on the blog soon...

Discipleship Groups

For the past five weeks, Daniel and I have had discipleship groups of older teens on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. These groups have become a highlight of the week for us. On Wednesdays, we have six teens and on Thursdays seven teens and young adults. The groups are held in our apartment and I am able to cook dinner for them which has been fun. It is so nice just to be able to sit back in a relaxed atmosphere and enjoy the kids as we eat dinner together, laugh, and share what God is doing in our lives.

We are going through the book "Experiencing God" with them. A lot of the time, I have no idea what they are sharing but do not want to continually ask them to repeat themselves. Therefore, I often find myself nodding along in agreement, pretending that I understand, even though I have no idea what is being said. That is probably a very bad idea -- who knows what I am agreeing with?!

We are constantly amazed by these kids. Above is a picture of our Thursday night group washing all of the dishes. They do this every week and we have never asked them to help out. One of the Wednesday night girls comes early to help me prepare the meal, even though I never asked her to do that.

Sports Channels

When it comes down to it I realize the insignificance of this, but it still had me frustrated this past week:

Anyone who knows me very well knows that I am a pretty big sports fan. I have my favorite college teams, and favorite teams in each professional sport. I love the New York Yankees, I love the Dallas Cowboys, and I really, really love the San Antonio Spurs. I guess partly because I know basketball better than the other sports, but as much as I like my favorite teams in other sports, the Spurs top them all. This isn't anything new- I was a Spurs fan since David Robinson came along- long before any of the championships.

So you can imagine how excited I was as they made their run through the playoffs this year and made it to the finals. So far, we have done pretty well with being able to see the major sports events on TV, with the only drawback normally being that the commentary is in Spanish. We got to watch the Super Bowl, Kara got to watch her Cardinals win the World Series, and I also got to see most of the NCAA Tournament. Also considering that many of the NBA playoff games had been broadcast here, I assumed that I would have no trouble being able to watch my beloved Spurs in the finals.

I was severely disappointed to find out that whoever is in charge of ESPN and Fox Sports in Latin America thought that it would be better to show other things (like lots of soccer, of course) instead of the Finals games. For example- here is what the three channels who have broadcast the other major games had on last night when the Spurs won the championship:

• Under 21 Soccer: Czech Republic vs. Serbia
• Mexican League Baseball: Quintana Roo Tigers vs. Monterrey Sultans
• Boxing (Don't know who)

It took me until game 4 to find out that I could at least listen to the games online. So as the Spurs won last night, I was standing in our living room in front of the computer screen, not being able to see any of it, but doing my best to enjoy the moment.

I guess I had better either get used to this, or start rooting for the Czechs or Serbians.

Rebeca's 12th Birthday

We inherited a very fun responsibility while Kendon and Wendy are away -- the job of taking each child out to eat on his/her birthday. They are allowed to invite one guest and to choose the restaurant. Yesterday was Rebeca's birthday. She chose Burger King and invited her younger brother Sammy to accompany her.

We had a fun time celebrating with them and I thought I would share a few of the pictures with you.

At dinner that night, we carried on Kendon & Wendy's tradition of making the child's favorite kind of cake (luckily two of the interns took on this task; Rebeca chose an odd combination of pound cake with animal crackers), singing and giving her a present. I was pretty nervous about singing in Spanish and had to check to make sure that I knew the words before I left the kitchen with the cake.

Making the News

Some of you may have seen the headline of a strong earthquake in Guatemala today. There is no damage here, nor have we heard of any anywhere else, but we did feel it. We had just left the lunchroom, because they were serving one of our least favorite dishes, which Kara has already posted about here. No one seemed too scared, although people were coming out of the doorways of the school building to see what was happening.

Anyway, just incase you saw the headline and were wondering about us- we're all fine here.

When is my Birthday?

The other day, I was talking with some of the little boys and ten year-old Javier (one of our newest two boys) asked me, "when is my birthday?" I thought it was a trivia question, so I played along. I said, "um ...." (paused a few seconds like I was really trying to think) and then said, "I don't know, when is it?" He looked at me with such an innocent face and replied, "I don't know." A pain shot through my heart as the realization sunk in that he really had no idea when his birthday is. I quickly told him that I didn't know but would go check the calendar and come right back and tell him. I explained the situation to Kendon and he told me that sadly, many of the children that come here, especially if they are from an indigenous background, do not know their birthdays and have never celebrated them. It was an impacting time for me to go back and tell Javier that his birthday is July 8th, to see him smile broadly and repeat the date. Oh, how much I take for granted!

This will be interesting...

Our directors, Kendon & Wendy Wheeler, left today to be on furlough for two months in the US. They gave us plenty of warning, telling us even before we arrived in the country that they were planning on doing so. I have to admit, though, that at least a small part of me thought that they were just joking and really weren't going to leave us in charge of a good deal of what goes on here. (We're not by any means in charge of it all- we have a wonderful lady on staff here who handles most of the things with the kids).

We're a little intimidated on what the next couple of months might hold for us. Thankfully, though, we've got a very good group of interns who are willing to help out wherever they can. The thing that keeps me from getting stressed about being here without the Wheelers is knowing that this place and these kids are the Lord's; He's been in charge here long before any of us came on the scene, and He doesn't ever need to leave for furlough. If he did- well, then I would be really worried...

Happy Birthday Josué

We haven't been posting about every kid's birthday (although maybe we should start doing so), but since Josué is the youngest one here, his birthday is an extra special deal. So, here he is with his cake and one of his new toys today on his 7th birthday.

Summer Interns

We're halfway through four days of an orientation with our new summer interns. We have a really good group, so it's been fun getting to know them. We have had times of worship together as well as doing things to get them ready for a summer in Guatemala and here at NLCH in particular. They will leave for 2 weeks of language school beginning on Sunday, then return to work here at the home until August.

It's a special treat for us to have Bethany Constien here as one of the summer interns. She was part of our youth group in Douglasville, and she's been very special to us for a long time. This is her first time out of the country, so I'm sure it will be a challenging but good summer for her. We love it that we get to spend a couple of months with Bethany and with all of these interns, seeking the Lord and serving these kids together.


(I'm thankful that there are a couple of guys here, too. They just didn't make it in the pictures yet.)

NLAI Central America Conference 2007

We returned yesterday from our first New Life Advance International conference for our Central American ministries. It was a wonderful time of getting to know our fellow NLAI missionaries better, as well as some good time to relax on Lake Atitlan. (Compare the picture above to the picture of the broken chair from the previous weekend, and you can get a pretty good clue of how much we enjoyed ourselves.)

Aside from the relaxation and good food, it was such an encouragement to us to hear about what the Lord is doing through New Life's ministries in Latin America and all around the world. Our president and his wife, Dave and Sue Depew, came down from Houston to spend the weekend with us (pictured left). Dave gave us a report on wonderful things that are happening with our missionaries in the middle east, Sri Lanka, India, and other places. It's a privilege to get to be part of an organization like this, and especially to serve under leadership like Dave & Sue who have been on the mission field themselves (in Thailand for many years) and who have an obvious love for the Lord and their coworkers.

We also got to hear what God is doing through our colleagues here in Guatemala. Mike & Terri McComb work with church planting and leadership development with tribal people in Nebaj, in northern Guatemala. Tony & Carrie Taylor also work in training pastors at different levels of education in Chichicastenango and the surrounding villages. Our NLAI folks in Guatemala are people of tremendous faith and courage, and we're thankful to have the opportunity to know and work with them.

Another important part of the trip was that we celebrated Kara's birthday there with everyone else. If we couldn't be home with family, there wasn't any better place that we could be (although it was a little sad that she didn't get to have the kids sing to her here).

Mega Frater

NLCH takes the kids to church each Sunday at Fraternidad Cristiana de Guatemala (or Frater), the largest church in the country. Last Sunday was the grand opening of their new building, a huge 12,000 seat sanctuary. It's pretty remarkable. On Sunday there were more than 12,000 there, as there were a lot of people standing along the walls in the back once all of the seats filled up. The crowd included the president and former president of Guatemala.

The celebration felt a little over-the-top at times (like shooting the confetti in the video above), sort of like a strange mix between being at a Billy Graham crusade, a Dallas Cowboys game, and the Republican National Convention all in one. But then again, it is quite an accomplishment considering this church started with 20 people. Anyway, we thought we would post the video so that you could see how big this place is.