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.