To Judge or Not to Judge?

"We are judged by the face that looks back at us from the bathroom mirror. We are judged by the faces of the people we love and by the faces and lives of our children and by our dreams. Each day finds us at the junction of many roads, and we are judged as much by the roads we have not taken as by the roads we have"

~ Fredrick Buechner (1973)

This is true but sad. We as Christians should not fit into this statistic but sadly many do.

I was listening to a sermon by Dwayne Sherrif the other day and he was talking about how we are made in the image and likeness of God, our creator. And since we are made in his image and God judges so we judge BUT Pastor Dwayne went on to say that when it comes to judging we are not to judge others in any way shape or form but we are to judge what we watch on TV or movies or what we listen to. And if you are parents to judge what your children watch and listen to. We have to realize that we are different than the world. We do not have to be like the world because we are not of the world. Take a stand, make a change. Realize that what you put into your mind is what is going to come out. Stop judging others by what they wear or how they style their hair but start judging what you put into your life.

Survivor Week

11 Missionaries - 1 week - no showers...can we survive?

This week came as a suprise to all of us because we were told that the rest of the time here would consist of finishing classes and then closing down the school. They decided, like they do every year, to have us play Survivor!

So Sunday morning we were told we had four hours to get everything we would need packed (not including food) and that at noon we would leave for a villiage. They said we would be dropped off there and have to survive the week. We had to buy all of our food there but thankfully we were aloud to bring gas travel stoves and we were able to sleep in a church. When we got there on Sunday all we did was set up camp, cook, and go to sleep.

Monday we started our first ministry out reach. We choose to go door to door and share the Gospel. That day we were able to lead 6 people to the Lord (2 adults and 4 children) One lady that we lead to the Lord was extremley poor her house was one bedroom made out of dirt bricks and a dirt floor. She had a little fire in the middle and was cooking coffee and what looked like leaves from outside for dinner, we did not even see a bed. One thing that we, as Americans, never realize is how grateful we are. You never seem to realize that until you see someone who has basically absolutly nothing.

On Tuesday we choose to do childrens ministry. We worshiped with the kids, told them the story of Adam and Eve, had an altar call, and then played some games with them. There were around 15 kids that gave their lives to Christ this day!!
In the evening the church we were staying at had a service that we participated in.

Again on Wednesday we went door to door. This time there were five people that came to Christ.

On Thursday we did childrens ministry again! The story we shared this time was of the prodical son. I had the privlage of doing the altar call this day. I was able to lead around 7-10 kids to the Lord. After that we had a coloring contest with them and whoever colored the nicest got a big package of craylons (they all got little ones to take home with them).

So to answer the question at the begining can we survive? The answer is yes with some bug bites to top it off! This week was a lot of fun Im not going to lie I was a little nervous at first because we were told that we might have to kill a chicken or a pig so we could eat but thankfully we found tiendas (little market stores) that sold chicken and meats already killed, plucked, gutted, and cut! Also, it rained alot while we were there and on Thursday night as we were trying to go to bed it rained so hard that the water was coming in under the tin roof threw the sides hitting off the ceiling and on to us getting us wet so we had to move our cots into the middle of the church and pick up all of our bags and put them on chairs.

I can not believe that in about one week I will be on a plane home.

Guatemala Final Weeks

The last couple of weeks we have been learning about Church History. We started off talking about the 400 silent years and went all the way to the 1100's the first week and this week we learned about the 1200's to the 2000's.
One thing that I thought was interesting for the first half was all the Christians that got persecuted during this time. They got eatin alive or burned at the stake and many other different ways. They got killed because when the emperor wanted them to bow to him and confess him as god they would not. They believed Jesus Christ was and is the only true God. One guy that was interesting was a guy named Polycarp. When the soldiers came to his house to take him to be killed he prayed for one hour while his wife cooked the soldiers a meal. When they took him out to the lions he would not denounce Christ so they let the lions out to kill him. Well, the lions just came and sat beside him and did not eat him. So, they brought out new lions and they would not kill him. Then, they tried to burn him and two times they were unsuccessful and the wood just burnt all the way, not even burning his clothes. The whole time he was praying and when they lit the third fire he died instantly. It is very interesting to learn about how the church today started. This week we talked alot about all the different Christian Religions that were started. Like how Martin Luther stood up to the Catholic Church because he did not agree with what they were doing and what their doctrine said. Next week we will be learning about Missions history and then our final week, thats crazy to say, we will be shutting down the school painting and cleaning everything preparing it for next years students!

Today we went to the feeding center to feed the children lunch. We cooked the food - frijoles, soup, tortillas, and hard boiled eggs. after they got done eating we did worship with them and then had a clown come and do a short service/activity with them. they really enjoyed it!

Medical Trip

Hi everybody!!!

So 2-weeks ago I took a trip to the port to do a 4-day medical outreach. I was extremley nervous at first and was not sure what to expect. I ended up loving it. Through out the week we were supposed to switch positions every day, going from doctors helper to pharmacy to prayer and so on. Well I started off in the prayer area and was enjoying it, the time that I was in there we lead 2 people to the Lord. That same day I switched from prayer to pharmacy because they needed help. I ended up being in pharmacy all week long. I really enjoyed it and was able to work for the Lord, which by far is the most important of all things. That week there were about 50 people who accepted the Lord!

Film Evangelism!

Film Evangelism!

Sunday
We left for the mountains around noon and when we got there at 3 we unpacked the van and went out evangelizing and inviting people to the movie. We had about 90 people show up for the movie and by the time Jessica preached we had 30 people leave. But, 2 people accepted Christ and we were able to pray for healing for about 10-15 people.



Monday
Every morning we had class for a few hours and then left to go to another village. The village we went to this day we actually walked through during our hike. Again, we split up in our teams and went out to evangelize and invite people to the movie. We had about 40 people show up this night. The crowd was not very responsive but we did get to pray for 10-15 people as a big group.



Tuesday
This day was my favorite day. We had some different responses to the invites to the movie and one of them was "I cant go because it is a evangelistic church and i am catholic." - you have to remember that I am in Catholic Nation and they follow catholicism to the T. Well anyways when we were out inviting people it started to down pour and one family invited us into there porch area so while we were waiting for the rain to let up we took the opportunity to tell them about Jesus. They did not accept Him but we were able to plant seeds. When we started to the movie there was only about 20 people or so and by the time the movie was done we had at least 100 people crammed into the church and some outside the church because not everyone could fit (they were sitting in the aisles and all that was left was standing room.) That night we were able to lead 20 people to the Lord and pray for healing for others.



Wednesday
When we got to the village we had to sit in the van and wait because we had no idea where we were going to show the movie. There was no church in the village and if it came to it we would set up out side and pray that it did not rain. A family ended up opening up their home to us and letting us show it in there. We were able to show the first movie fine but when we went to show the second one the projector kept messing up and then someone stepped on the electrical cord so instead of a second movie Imna started to preach. Around 10 kids accepted Christ that night!

Thursday
This was the day I was supposed to preach but we got rained out and ended up leaving the village early. The reason we did that was for our safety because we had to walk down a mountain side to get there and then walk up with a stream of rushing water going between our legs and if we did that in the dark someone could have gotten really hurt. So instead we went back to our village and 2 of the other students led our neighbors to Christ.

Friday
We left for the Capitol.



Saturday
We helped out at a church for a mothers day luncheon/service. We made butterflies with the kids so they could give them to their moms.



Sunday
We went to a different church and put on dramas for the adults (it is a big church with 5 Sunday services and has about 5000 members but we only did it for 2 services) and then we put some on for the children and I preached to them, the children, after the dramas. I had the privlage of being able to lead some of them to Christ!

This Week
We prepared all week long for our medical brigade we are leaving for on Sunday
Some things we will be doing are
~checking blood pressure
~checking blood sugar
~checking weight
(so basically being a nurse)
~ assisting the doctors - they do not know any English
~passing out medication
~working in the prayer room - our way of spreading the Gospel this week!

Prayer Request
~pray for our safety to and from the village
~that no one will get sick or injured
~that the peoples hearts will be receptive to the Gospel

Guatemala

This week we prepared for our trip to the mountains for film evangelism. My team had to get the cots ready and make sure they were not broken and the tarps and rope. Thursday night I will be preaching after one of the videos, I am not sure which video yet.

The pictures are from last weeks hiking trip

Prayer requests
~Our safety in the mountains
~That the peoples hearts will be receptive to the Gospel

Hiking Trip

Hiking Trip

Sunday
We left the capital around 11 oclock and took a 3 hour drive to El Inhenio. When we got there we found a place to set up camp and waited for Pastor Santo to arrive. When he did we split up into three groups. One group did childrens ministry while the two others went and did door to door evangilisim. That day we were able to lead 5 people to the Lord.

Monday
Monday was our first day actually hiking. We lucked out because there were a ton of clouds and a cool breeze. We got to see many beautiful things. My favorite part of this day was when we were almost at the way top of the mountain and it looked like just a little hill. It was a rough first day because we found out that we were no where near prepared for the hike as we needed to be. But, that all seemed to fade away when we got to the villiage. Again when we got there we set up camp, rested for a little while and then split up like we did the day before. This time we also invited the adults to come to a service that we were doing that night. During the door to door evangilism we had one salvation. I preached this night to a bunch of guys, we had maybe one lady or two show up. I preached on how God is not to blame for things happening and how the enemy is. No one got saved but they all sat and listened. So I was able to plant seeds. J

Tuesday
This was probably the hardest day walking. The reason for that was because we were walking hills for a few hours straight with the sun directly on us with a 40-50 lb back pack on our backs. When we got to the village we were all exausted. We did not want to do anything but sleep. We did take a short nap and then we went out and went door to door sharing about Jesus and inviting people to the service that night. My group did not get to share personaly about Jesus but we did invite plenty of people to the service. Every house we went to people had machettes pulled out and holding them or leaning on them and we were not sure why but knew that we were not really welcomed. We later found out that the reason people were like that was because they had only had one other missionary group up in that village and in between that time a group of gringos (white people) came and kidnapped a lot of children and they were not sure what we were there for. But, one adult was lead to Christ and one kid. The kid blew me away because he was the only one that raised his hand and was very timid about doing it. He was in a group with other kids and raised his hand barley but when Sam looked over he raised it a little higher. Before the services this day the kids kept making a cirlce around the tents and I was the center of there attention I even tried to hide in my tent and they would move over to look at me. The oldest was about 12 and the youngest like 6 they bad part was they were all boys doing it and when Sarah asked if they liked me they all said yes. It was funny.

Wednesday
This day was my favorite day for the view. When we got to the village we were on top of the mountain. (it was not our first mountain we were on top of but the view was amazing) if you stood on the top you could look and you were taller than all the mountains on one side. It was beautiful. God creates some beautiful things. After a short break we went out and evangilised. The first house that we went to was a Christian and you could see how Jesus changed his life. He gave glory to God for everything that he had. The rest the people just listened and let us pray for them but we were able to plant seeds and invite them to the service. This day for the kids ministry we had 80 kids and when we asked them if they knew who Jesus was or if they knew what sin was they eiteher did not answer or said no. We were able to lead about 60 kids to Christ that day. It was amazing!!

Thursday
About 1 ½ hours into this day all of the ladies were able to put there back packs on the mules/horses. We were having a hard time breathing and just very tired. We left the village at 8 a.m. and did not get to the second village until 2:30 p.m. it was a long day. The sights were beautiful and it was a more relaxing day because a lot of it was flat ground. During the preaching we had asked the captian of the futbol (soccer) team if they would be able to stop the game and he said yes after the next goal. And when they were done we called over the guys and about 25 guys came and listened to Halym (our translater) share his testimony. Because we stopped the game, with Gods help, we were able to lead 5 men to the Lord. A total of 7 adults were lead to the Lord and about 35 children.

Friday
We just headed home after a long but amazing week in the mountains!

preparing for the hike

So i dont have alot of time to write this week but i wanted to keep you updated. this week we took the whole week preparing for our trip to the mountains we prepared physically mentally and spiritually. we leave tomorrow at noon and will be back fri at 3. please pray for the 11 of us that are hiking or riding the mule, for the people we will be ministering to, and so on. on monday night i will be preaching in one of the villages so pray for me too!! well unfortunately that is all the time i have to write. I look forward to telling you all about how the week went!

Guatemala - Holy Week

The last 2 weeks have been a nice refreshing break. Monday of last week we had to go to the immigration office to renew our passports so we did not become illegal immigrants. The first day we did not have all of the information we needed so we had to go back Tuesday. That was all we did those two days. Wednesday it was my turn to preach my graded sermon. Again I had to write it off of Mark 10:1-12. I chose to preach on how God intended marriage. I titled it Is it Worth the Wait? I talked on purity and used different verses and stories in the bible to relate how God intended marriage and what man does instead. I ended it with John 8 about the adulteress woman. After I preached it Brother Kirk got up and had the class critic it, they did not have much to say but he said that I tackled a tough subject that many churches seem to neglect. He said he was going to ask Pastor Miguel who is the pastor at the church we attend if I could preach it to the youth in a few weeks. I was so excited and can not wait to share it. Also, the missionary from Mexico heard it and told me that I am def preaching it in Mexico when I go at the end of June.

This week since it is Holy Week we have the week off and get to do whatever. The four Americans that stayed at the house are taking advantage of it. We are doing absolutely nothing. We went to Antigua one day and went to the auto safari. But other than that we are lying around the house, we bought a kiddie pool and are hanging out on the patio and just relaxing. In about 2 weeks we will be taking our 6 day hike in the mountains and preaching in the villages and sharing the gospel through playing with the kids and just ministering to the people there. We will not be able to take showers that whole week ahh we are going to stink haha but, we had an introduction with that this week because our water pump broke and we had to bucket water out of the cistern and boil it because it was not pure water. And then some how manage to take showers out of buckets. Man did I learn not to take running water for advantage any more. It was a crazy week and we were so excited yesterday when the pump finally got fixed!

Since Guatemala is a Catholic Nation they celebrate Holy Week like you would not believe it. Wednesday night for Palm Wednesday they had a parade around our colony. You might think o that’s pretty cool but no in reality it was sad. First they had kids walking with palm leaves and ashes, next they had something we were not sure what it was to be exact bc we were standing on our roof thing, and last they had a sanctuary looking thing made out for mary with a statue of her on it. I guess tonight they have even a bigger parade for the death and then everything is back to normal around the city and they just forget about resurrection Sunday and leave Jesus hanging on the cross. But from what I heard from people here is that in Antigua during this weekend they have this big parade and if you are a good catholic man and you die today you can be carried around in the parade as Jesus. Speaking of the parades today it is 8 in the morning on Friday and there was just a parade. This one had people carrying a float of Jesus carrying a cross and then again of a statue of mary.

Other than that life has been pretty good here in Guatemala. We have had our scare of earthquakes the last few days just little tremors but enough to feel them and make us get out of the house. Just continue to keep me and everyone else in prayer for our safety and security. Also, continue to pray for Mexico and my trip to there at the end of June. For those of you that do not know about that God has put it on my heart to go to Mexico for a month and a half directly after here. I will be an intern for a missionary there and help her with the short-term mission teams. I will also have the opportunity to share the gospel with the young people living in her colony. I would like you to pray about financially supporting me on this trip and if you can not financially support me to pray for me and the trip. After all prayer is the best thing a missionary can get.

Guatemala

Guatemala
The past couple of weeks have been really busy. 2 weeks ago we were preparing all week long for VBS.
This week we did 4 days of VBS. I only got to go to 2 days because I was sick. But since I was stuck at home I just prepared things for my team and the craft team. But the days that I did get to go were really fun. Lynnette and I were in charge of memory verse games. The kids loved to play the games. We played a balloon game where if they did not have the verse of the day they had to do something funny, like dance like a chicken or something. We played boys vs. loudest – that they really liked they screamed it at the top of there lungs. The last day we had about 15 kids or so raise there hands to accept Christ. There was this little boy one of the days who did not come over to play the game and just stood in the corner and watched. So I went over and was talking to him and then I told him that Jesus loved him and he shook his head no it was so sad. I did get him to come over and play with us though. And then the next day I was talking to another girl and she asked if we were coming back the next day and when I told her no she was all sad.

We are still preparing for our hiking trip in 3 weeks. This week we walked about ¾ of a mile with backpacks and bricks. Starting Friday we are on break for Holy Week. All the Latin students will be going home and all the Americans will be staying here. I would like to ask you to keep all of us in our prayers for our safety, especially that week.

Also, please pray for Guatemala and the people living here.

Guatemala!!

Guatemala!

This week we woke up everyday at 5:10 so we could start preparing for our backpack trip. starting monday we have to walk with our backpacks on with a brick in them so by the time we go on our trip we will already be used to carrying 35-40 pounds on our back. I could not wait till today so I could sleep in!!

Sunday when we were throwing away our left over foods the one girl in our group told us to put it in another bag first. We, the Americans, could not understand why. What she told us made me want to cry. She said the reason for putting it in a bag was so that the people digging in the garbage for food would not have to look very hard. Before we put it in the trash we prayed over it. You have to understand that here there are many homeless people that are starving to death on the streets and they will do anything for food. One of our translators was telling us that on the cold days it is not uncommon to walk the streets and find dead people on them. It is just really cool to see how God is using us in our service ministries to still help people out.

Also, this week we started to prepare for VBS which will be taking place in 2-weeks. Lynnette and I are in charge of the memory verse games. We have alot of fun games picked out. Some of those games are scripture hunt, balloon pop, and boys vs. girls loudest. And each day we are going to spoil them with candy!! The last day we are hoping to get them bigger candy to give them and we are making them little gifts from us. We are going to make booklets with the four bible verses in them and then have a little note from us on the back, I am really excited to be able to pour into their lives at such a young age!!

Guatemala

So I have already been here for two months and have got to do a lot of things.

Recap:

· Street/Door to Door ministry

· Dramas

· Feeding the homeless and children

· Construction

· Classes

· Furniture factory – made a table and five beds and little nick nacks

· Made and took school bags to children

· Cleaned the team center for the next arriving mission teams

This week was a normal no outreach week. One reason for that was we did construction all last week and because it was the third month we switched ministry jobs. I am no longer in the factory. Now I am in the kitchen. I will have to wake up at 5:30 every morning and start cooking by 6:00.

Starting on Monday everyone will have to wake up at 5 or 5:15 and start walking by 5:30. We will walk for a half hour and each week we will be adding bricks to our back packs. We are going to be preparing for our back pack hike which will be taking place at the end of April!

Once again thank you all for your prayer and support!!

Attached are some pictures of construction week

Guatemala

Construction Week

This week was a very fun but hardworking week. I did a lot of things that I never did before. We were building the Children’s Feeding Center and got to the site each day around 10:15 and left around 5:30

Monday:
The first thing we (Stephanie, Sarah, and me) did was take wood off of a cement column. And then we took wood off of a window pane that they had set the week before. Then we mixed cement and carried buckets of cement for about 2 hours or so and we made more columns and laid a floor. I started to dig out a ditch that had been laid a few years ago and then it was time to leave.

Tuesday:
I was stuck in my ditch all day long. It came up to about my knees and I had to break up and shovel the dirt out for hours. That was all I did all day long.

Wednesday:
This day we were all extremely sore. We did not want to move or do anything. We made more cement and dug out a little bit more of the ditch. Then, we collected all the broken pieces of block and moved a whole pile of dirt to another location.

Thursday:
This day was the hottest day. We were short people because we are dropping like flies. We had a girl hurt her back the other day and then another girl got a metal thing dropped on her head and had a really bad headache and left for the day. We mixed cement and helped pour it and because we did not have as many guys us few girls had to push the wheel barrow full of cement and then shovel it into buckets and lift it to the guys (me and another girl were the only ones strong enough to push the wheel barrow) because it was so hot we were splashing nasty water on each other to cool us off, we did not care how nasty it was because we were so hot.

Friday:
Again we were short people but it was not such a rough day. We left the work sight at 3:00 today. We made more cement and poured window panes. Today one of the volcano’s was smoking. (we have volcano’s where we live its pretty sweet) we made some more cement and then cleaned everything really good.

What we accomplished at the construction site this week:
Laid a floor
Poured many cement columns
Laid a ton of brick
Cleaned out trenches


We did not finish the building because it is so big, they have been building it since 2007. It was a ton of fun and I really enjoyed it but, I do not think I would want to do that the rest of my life.
Friday night we feed the homeless again!

Again, thank you for your continuos prayer and support! It is greatly appreciated by both Jess and me!

I uploaded some pictures 2 are from some of the things we built for construction, one is of my room, one is of the clown/children's ministry, and just some view pictures. next week i am hoping to get more of the construction pictures up here i just did not have time to upload them to a flash drive

Week 7

Week 7

This week was a lot easier week than last week. We had class and did our service ministry jobs. At the furniture factory we built five bunkbeds – they are almost done! And class this week we were taught on prayer and fasting.

Unfortunately I do not have much to say this week. But next week we will be out doing construction all week. We are going to be continuing to build the children’s feeding center. Please keep us all in your prayers there will be at least 19 of us out there all week and this week we had a team from Ohio down building on it and one of the guys got sick because of the heat.

I would just like to thank you all for your continuous prayer and support for me while I am down here. God has definitely been growing me and teaching me many, many things. One of the ladies that is down here for only a few months has told me that she has already seen God changing me and growing me into a more effective leader/person and she has only been here for a month or less with me. It is just amazing how God is working in all of us. He is slowly by slowly making things clearer for me. Maybe not as clear as what I would like but it is slowly getting there. I am learning that I have to be patient and God will show me when He knows I am ready. Believe me it is not an easy thing waiting but I made a decision this week that while I am waiting to find out what God has in store for me I am going to serve Him with out any hesitations. I will go where ever He wants me to go and do whatever He wants me to do and when He knows it’s the right time He will show me, show me my ministry, my mission field.

This past week the kitchen crew went into the kitchen and opened one of the cupboards and found about 11 cockroaches in a hudle just chillin there. it was gross and then we sang the la cocarocha song like all week and almost everytime we went into the kitchen we found one. at least they are not getting in the food tho!!

So that is really all for this week! I am sure next week is going to be amazing and exhausting but I can not wait to share with you all about it!

Guatemala Week 5 and 6

So first off sorry I did not get a blog out to you guys last week. It was just really insane and I did not have time to type one. Then, this week was even crazier. A lot of things have been going on. Last week we just had a lot of class work. We had to write our first actual sermons and read a book and study for tests. We did not go and do any ministry work but we were being taught on how to go out and do them.

We started practicing for dramas last Friday night. I was the main person in one of them and when we put them on I got bruises and I cut my foot at on point some how and it got infected so now I get to clean it like 3 times a day and change the bandage as often as possible. Yippie!! Not J

Monday was our first day going out and doing the drama evangelism. We just went to a school and did the skits explained them to them (1^st-6^th graders) and then we had clowns come out and preach it was really cute.

Tuesday we drove 3-4 hours to a village and passed out school bags we had made and then we had the clowns come out again and they preached. The children just love the clowns!! It was sad when I was handing out the bags bc children were hiding them hoping to get 2. It was like man they need them that bad or want them that bad that they would hide them for the hope of getting two. It was only pencils and rulers and erasers and stuff like that too. Things that we in America take advantage of or lose them and are like well I got plenty.

Wed we went to central park and put on the dramas it was pretty cool. People were not as receptive as last time but we were able to lead about 5 to the Lord and plant many of seeds. I did not preach this day but this is the day I cut my foot!!

Thursday we had a ladies luncheon. The pastors wife preached and I really enjoyed it. I heard what she talked on before but it was still nice. She talked on like how everyone is beautiful and not to look in the mirror and be like eww but say how beautiful you are. It reminded me of when Lauren B talked to his beloved and when we had to make the magazine picture things at the lock-in.

Friday we went to Antigua again. We put on three dramas. The heart, four corners, and the chair. I was in the chair and the four corners. The chair I was the seductive flirt I had to wear a sign that said sexo which is sex and then I had to put it on the sinner stuck in the chair when he would not come with me and we had 3 other people try and get him off the chair a person that is friendly, a strong person, and 2 that are drug addicts or alcohol addicts. And then finally salvation comes and gets him off. The four corners I was the main character it reminded me of the life house skit there were four corners I could go to one had drugs the other had alcohol the other had vanity and the last had sex/abuse. They would all be nice to me at first and then put their signs on me and shove me away the abuse flung me on the ground and then kept hitting me. and then when I went to all four corners they came and attacked me and then jesus shoves them away and he helps me off the ground and takes my signs and puts salvation on me and we walk off together all happy. Today at the end of my skit I had to preach the second time I preached I did an altar call no one raised their hands saying they said it but I did see some guy repeat after me so we went up to him and talked to him and he was catholic then uriel asked me if I had any questions for him and my question was if he had any questions for us and then that opened up a door for us and we were able to lead him to christ!! I loved it!!

I preached on mark 10:1 (the reason I did that was bc for the rest of the time down here we have to preach from certain parts and he gave me mark 10:1-12 and those are the only versus I can start a sermon on. We can go to other versus but he is teaching us to work with certain ones so we a can learn how to tear apart scripture and really dig into it) Mark 10:1 says “then He arose from there and came to the region of Judea by the otherside of the Jordan. And multitudes gathered to Him again, and as He was accustomed, He taught them again.”

I stressed the again part and how you don’t go to someone a second time a 3^rd time or even a 4^th time if you did not agree with what they said the first time

Then I used John 6:51 “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever and the bread that I shall give is My flesh which I shall give the life of the world.”

I went into saying how everyday we do things that give us death. We go them again and again, over and over again but Jesus said I am the living bread. I went on to ask a question and that was Why do we keep going to other things when we can go straight to the one who can set us free? Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but through me . So why choose another way when Jesus is the ONLY way? And then I went in to an altar call!!

So that is really all this week we had about 15 people come to Christ and were able to plant many many seeds

Guatemala Week 4

This week was more of a laid back week. We had class and worked in the factory (well my team did jessica cooked) in class this week we learned about world religions. The religions we learned about were

· Jehovah Witnesses

· Mormons

· Catholics

· Hinduism

· Muslims

I was so excited because for the past year I have been wanting to learn about other religions. It was very interesting to know some of the things others believe. A lot of the religions are worked based and belief Jesus was only a prophet. And if I were to write everything that I learned this week the blog would be like 20 pages. We did watch a movie based on a true story and it was about this christian lady who is married to a muslim. The title of the movie is Not With Out My Daughter. It was a really good movie and you will prob cry if you watch it but it taught me things I did not know about the muslim religion.

In the factory I started building a table. We did not get very far we only got the table top done and that was because we could not get the table saw or jointer to work the way we wanted to. So that was really all I worked on this week. And we have an order for 14 bunk beds they do not need them til april so my group will not be the ones to finish them but we will be the ones to start them.

In spanish class this week I had to learn a song and sing it in front of everyone. I was so nervous but thankfully I had a song that I knew in english. My song was this is the air I breathe. //Tu eres mi respirar//

Dios tu presencia

Vive en mi

//Tu eres mi pan Senor//

Dios tus palabras

Fluyen en mi

//Y yo te anhelo, Senor

Estoy perdido sin ti//

(repeat all)

//Perdido Sin ti//

//Te anhelo Senor//

It was really fun learning it and I learned almost everyone elses too!

I want to share this lil story/quote/poem thing that was shared with us this week.

Its entitled Don’t bother me

Don’t bother me with souls to save, I have my own agenda. There’s school to do and sports to play, important things to attend.

Don’t bother me with my friend at work, he has his own religion, I don’t have time to change his mind. He will make his own decision.

Don’t bother me with that little girl, that little girl on the street. She’s much too young to understand the Savior she can meet.

Don’t bother me with the sounds I hear, the sounds of people shrieking. I wonder who they are, who are these victims.

Don’t bother me with who they are because I really don’t want the blame. Because its my friend at work and that little girl, who from hell screams my name

But, don’t bother me.

Esekiel 3:18 says “When I say to a wicked man, ‘you will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.”

We need to remember why we are here on this earth. We may not be responsible for the whole world but we are responsible for who is brought into our lives. I just felt like sharing that little bit with you all.

this week we will be practicing dramas so the following week we will be going out and doing street dramas at the college in parks on the streets and so on I am excited for that.

That’s all for this week!

Guatemala Week 3

Week 3 Guatemala

On Sunday I prepared my devotional. I talked on 2 different verses Eph 6:19-20 and Hebrews 13:5a-6. Basically God put on my heart to share about us going out and starting our week of Evangelism. I talked on why we are going out, our fears, and stuff like that.

Monday was the big day! I woke up and was really nervous because I had never gone out witnessing before and to have to do it in Spanish was intimidating. I had no idea what to expect. I liked going out but I felt because I did not know Spanish very well that I was not doing my best. Now do not get me wrong I loved being able to share about Jesus but the whole language barrier thing kinda scared me J The one thing that I loved the most about this day was when my group was able to minister to two older teenage girls, whom of which accepted Jesus. It brightened up my day to know that even though I had difficulties with the language I was still able to help lead them to Christ. That day was an amazing day my group got to lead 11 people to the Lord and all the other two groups lead 6 to the Lord.

Tues was an amazing day. We went witnessing in Central Park. The first group of two we went up to already knew Jesus as their Lord and Savior. The lady Sam started to talk to accepted Jesus. You could just see the difference in her face. When we asked her where Jesus was now she looked up with this big smile on her face and said in “mi corazon” – “my heart” We gave her a bible even though she could not read bc she told us that her husband could read. We happened to look over at her when we were witnessing to our next lady and she had found someone to read it to her. Another thing that was really cool about this lady was that when we left the factory on tues we saw her walking to her house and we had witnessed to her over a 30 min drive away and she lived in the same vacinity as us. God totally had that one planned out J haha. The next lady that we got to witness to was homeless and she just look so depressed and just blah and after we talked to her for a while we asked her if she wanted to accept Jesus and she did. We gave her a bible and she was like thank you thank you and she flipped through it and said she really liked it. Both of those ladies looked so lost, sad, and upset before and man the change in their face when they accepted Jesus was amazing.

Since I am the leader/coordinator this month Bill (our campus coordinator) had me pick four people to preach in the park. My first thought was sweet I do not have to do it I will pick 4 other people. Then as I was praying about whom to pick I felt God saying no you are going to preach and you are going to be the first one to preach because I want you to show them that even though you are nervous you can do it. So I went first and I just preached for a few minutes and did not get a response but I was able to pray for some guy. (You see we only had a few minutes to prepare something and they have to be short bc or else the people will leave) Then the others went and one girl named sara blew me away. She is from Guatemala and was being used as a translator. She is only 17 years old and has one of the biggest passions for God and what He has called her to do (missionary.) I love it!!!!!!! She ended up crying when she got done because she was able to translate a sermon and she did it perfectly. When Jessica was preaching this guy came up and wanted her to pray for everyone. She did that and then the guy was getting a bunch of people to hear her preach and she was able to preach to 25-30 people. That day we were able to lead 7 people to Christ.

On our way back home Joel had gotten pulled over. Joel starts to get all mad and is like he has no reason to pull me over. Thankfully joel is fluent in Spanish, he has lived here w/ his parents for 18 years. The first thing that he asks us is do we have our passports or copies of them and we were like no (we were in his truck bc the van broke down the truck has ohio plates not Guatemala plates) we had sara (the only non American in the truck) translate for us so we knew what was going on. Long story short was they wanted to impound us and the truck bc he did not have the original papers for them just copies and they were in his moms name. They pulled us over bc we were Americans and they thought they could lie to us and get us to give them money. They let us go but we were pulled over for like 15 min. That day was very exciting and interesting.

Wed was my fav day. We got to go to the largest public college in Guatemala and witness! The girl that God put on my heart went to a satanic church. I shared part of my testimony with her and we prob talked to her for like 30 min telling her that Jesus could feel the gap in her life and be the missing piece in her puzzle. That she did not have to feel empty and the even though drugs and guys could make her feel nice and what not that was only while she was high and stuff and that Christ could make please her the rest of her life. She was really interested in my testimony, I related to her in parts for the fact that for a whole summer I was around drugs like 24/7 and doing thing w/ guys. She may have been interested in it for the wrong reasons but she understood for the right and we were able to lead her to Christ. Her name is Diana and is only 18 years old. I would love it if you could just pray for her bc she was in to a lot of stuff and it is going to be tough for her. This whole going out and witnessing thing seems to be getting easier and easier. I really enjoyed going out today. There was this other group were as soon as we asked them if they wanted to accept Jesus one guy was like Si – yes. He could not wait to accept Him the whole time he was so intentially listening you could just see him soaking up what we were saying. I LOVE IT!! Today was my favorite day because we were able to reach out to our generation and we were able to make a dent in their lives and though we may just have planted lots of seeds someone else is going to harvest them! We had a total of 7 lives changed around for Christ today!!

Thurs wow thurs was an interesting day. We went to Antigua today and were only able to preach to people that spoke english. Sam and I were by ourselves so we went away from everyone else we did not want to talk to the same people that everyone else did. People were not very receptive we had one lady once she found out what we wanted to talk to her about back up waving her arms saying no no no no she acted as if we were going to curse her or something. Then this American couple was like we are kinda doing the market thing right now but is there anything else you would like to talk about. We were there for like 3 hours and were only able to witness to 2 people who by the way were together. We were sorta able to witness to one guy but he knew everything about the bible and said don’t preach to a guy who tried jesus and returned him to the store. It was felt like he was just hurt by his brother and others in his fam he had told us they all knew christ and that his brother quit his job didn’t go to school and just sat in his room reading his bible. He would not let us share our testimony or anything and did not want to hear anything about the bible but I was able to share a story and hopefully what sam and I said to him made him think. We talked to him for about 20 min or so and when we asked him his name he was like why so you can pray for me he was like if you God is so powerful then He will know who I am so just tell Him the guy who bought it and returned it. We only had one salvation the whole day and that was another group but we did get to plant seeds and we got to pray for like 4-5 other missionary groups that we saw so we like that and one of them we got to pray for healing for one of the team members bc she woke up w a fever.

So we were supposed to go out and finish up our last day of evangelism on fri but the van was still broken so we just had a normal day instead. It was nice because four of us Americans all had really bad upset stomaches. At night we got to go and feed the homeless o man was it sad. My group got to help make the food. When we were out giving it away there were homeless kids and their parents were to consumed with drugs to really care about their welfare. The youngest baby was 3 months old and we saw a 2 year old 4 year old and prob like a 7 year old. Those were the ones that we got to pray for at least. But it was really sad to see them not having a home we just wanted to take them and take care of them but well we could not really do that.

Today was nice bc we got to go cook food and feed children. We did that from 7-11 while we were there me and lynette were playin soccer and she fell in a whole and did something w her ankle and still can not walk on it. Then just went shopping. We went to a knock off of Wal-Mart – they had Wal-Mart tags but it was not called Wal-Mart and then we went to the mall to eat there mall is amazing they have three that are all connected the one we were in was 3 stories high. We just went to the food court though I got pollo campero!! Mmmmm my fav fast food here!!!

sorry that it is so long we had an amazing week and i just did not want to leave anything out

guatemala week 2

I am starting to get used to everything down here. There are definitely still somethings that I miss from the states like not finding any cockroaches thankfully we have not found any in a while :-) and I miss a constantly hot shower you see they have these water heaters that are used as shower heads and it turns on with certain amounts of pressure and if you have to much water coming through it wont be warm bc it is going through to fast and if there is not enough it will turn off and the water pressure keeps changing through out the whole shower, and I really miss being able to flush toilet paper down the toilet (their plumbing can not handle the paper) but other than those few things I am enjoying myself

I got some news after I blogged last time. Instead of having 9 girls w/ one bathroom we are now having 8 girls w/ 2 bathrooms – Thank You Jesus!! The reason for that is one of the girls decided she wanted to leave last sat she is from a village in the mountains and the villages here the ladies rarely ever leave them. so she missed it to much. Another reason is because we were supposed to have 2 guys from Mexico coming, they were going to come late, they are still coming but only for a month so they are not moving in with us.

I got a new roommate this week hopefully Sam (my other roomy from Indiana) and I wont scare her away. Her name is Imna and she is from Nicaragua.

On Sunday night we went to a dirt bike trail and set of fireworks/bombs (they were not really fireworks bc they don’t go in the air they just sort of explode) well these ones were so big we had to go away from houses and cars bc we would shatter the glass but we set off all the car alarms around us when they went off.

I had a meeting with the director and found out that I am the outreach coordinator for the month of January I am in charge of street evangelism. I have to grade my fellow classmates on different things like if they are doing what they are supposed to, their attitude about it, and if they show up to everything on time. Also, I am in charge of planning devotionals for Monday and I get to teach them. I chose to keep one for me to do and give one to another girl to do. I would not have minded doing both of them but I prayed about it and felt like I should let her do one. Since mine is before we go out and do our first day of evangelism I chose to talk on not being afraid of sharing the gospel and stuff like that. I am exited for next week we are going out Mon - Fri preaching the gospel on the streets. One day we are hoping to go to a children’s hospital and preach to the children.

So the other day Sam, Sarah, and I went shopping for one of our classmates birthday and every two feet you here some one hollering something at Sam and I it made me laugh I knew we were going to get comments from people but it was like at every block we had guys saying hola or hello and wanna be my friend or they were honking horns or stopping in the cars and saying hello beautiful. It was funny.

today we went to help build a childrens feeding center...man was it alot of work but it was fun i never did any construction before today. we still have a ton to do w it and it will not be done with our team but its still going to be awesome!

First week in Guatemala

So my first week in Guatemala has been very fun. I have had my missing home moments and missing all of my friends and church but i know that I am here for a reason and I just can not wait to see how God is going to use me these next six months!

Unfortunately i left my journal back at the place i am staying so this blog is going to be from memory!

We did not get to our home until 11:30 at night so we had a long day of traveling!
when i woke up the next morning i was greeted by some fireworks and roosters crowing at 6:30 in the morning. The first day we did not do much we walked to the store and bought some food and that was about it.

on sunday we went to church. we knew about 5 of the songs they sang like 10 and the sermon was translated in english for us so i was very grateful for that.

mon - fri is going to be all mixed together bc i can not remember what happened on what day!!

• i cooked breakfast one of the days and woke up to find 2 cockroaches on the counter! that was gross
• another day there was a dead one on the bathroom floor
• the girls sink is leaking and the hot water just started to work and the toilit was broken. and did i forget to mention we have one bathroom for 9 girls haha that will be interesting.
• we packaged bags for all the little school aged children and we will deliver them in a few weeks.
• i am in the furniture factory for the first 2 months. we have not done much in there yet we took apart a bed and took it next door to put it in another room and we found termite holes so we had to stain/finish some of the wood and prob on mon we will put it back together. i got to smooth wood with this machine and then i got to use a circular saw for the first time. we will make little projects we can take home and then some bigger projects we can not like a table.
• we had to read nehemiah for 5 days - once each day and right a paragraph for each day on what we learned for working together as a team. some of the things that stuck out to me were - there is no i in team, set your differences aside, and a few others but i can not rem right now!!
  
• we started reading a book called God Chasers i forget the author but its about chasing God - go figure haha! i am enjoying the book so far and then at the end of each chapter we have to write a summary of how we are chasing God
• we have to memorize five versus from romans - they are the road to salvation verses - in spanish and english so when we go to street evangelisim we know them
• and we have to have our testimonies put into 2 paragraphs and we will make them into a track for us to hand out when we are in the streets or the colleges and where ever else we go
• we went to the zoo this week - they have alot of different animals but i can not rem their names.
  

there is alot more things that have been happening like in my life and how God is already speakin to me and its only been a week. so i am looking forward to see where God is going to take me these next 6 months



If you would still like to support me while i am here you can send the money to my sister or give it to her and she will take care of it my address is 1119 Maine Ave Aliquippa Pa 15001 - either address it to luann cubbage or salena cubbage both will get to her!!

I am going to try to blog each week to keep everyone updated!! and i promise next time i will remember my journal!!


Love Luann