Guatemala Day 6

The early morning traffic jam was a great way to start our last work day!  







Houses were completed and the teams were quite tired.  Our farewells to Home Site 1 and Home Site 2 were very touching.  Many tears were shed by the family and by our team members.  They are grateful for the home and they asked God to bless us on our travels and for the rest of our lives.  Home Site 3 had a delightful send-off with a very extended family present.  The beautiful prayer of blessing by the grandmother for all the team members was quite moving.  With many hugs and final pictures we said our "good-byes".  

I don't have the pics from Site 3...I'll post those tomorrow.

Children's Bible School was held twice in one day.  The first was at San Lorenzo in the plaza.  Our team was fresh and ready to engage the children.  Becka had some great projects that transported well.  In the afternoon the Children's Bible School moved to The Central Park in Ciudad Vieja...Matthew Williamson met the challenge of telling a Bible story all in Spanish to the gathered children.  

The staff at the Kairos School has been most helpful and they are hoping to see us all back again in two years!

Arizona Team travel pictures

Florida and Maine groups met Wednesday evening at the edge of the Mesa for a campfire and evening meeting.

We decided to go see Monument Valley, UT, which was only an hour out of our way. Very impressive!

Monument Valley, UT

At a restaurant at Monument Valley, UT.  We had a pretty fine view for lunch, PLUS flush toilets!  A double treat!

We arrived at the South Rim right at sunset and we're all looking forward to hot showers and real beds. It's been a day packed with great sights. It went up to 105 and we were ok with the work week being over.   Some will hike into the canyon tomorrow while others rest. We hope Team Guatemala has a great sight-seeing day tomorrow!

Guatemala Day 5

We are nearing the completion of all three houses.  The teams have done so well...everyone is tired, but the spirits are high judging from the laughter and conversation outside in the courtyard.  Tonight we are sending some pictures from work site 3 which was amazingly cramped.  Because we have not included any pics from their site this week, this post will be dedicated to them.

So many blessings!
We are so proud of our mission teams and thank God for all.

Arizona update 6-25-15.

The Arizona Team's time in Black Mesa is coming to a close.

Here are some pictures of their work there:

Maddie conquers another rock!

At the revival!

Here is an update from Carol Sherman:

We've just had Navajo tacos for dinner at the Revival tent and we're heading back to Black Mesa. 

The team working on the hogan finished dry-walling and mudding the complicated ceiling and feel pretty good about what they accomplished. They're worn out, but in good spirits.

Team 2 had Kids Club duty this morning, and there was a low turn-out due to a funeral in this close-knit community.

 We helped clean at the church since our masonry chiefs were otherwise occupied. It was ok not to be working in the 104 degree sun. 

We will have breakfast at 7 tomorrow and then we head out. 

It has been a very good week!

 Travel Information Reminder:

                                              Team Arizona

 will be leaving Black Mesa Friday June 26th in the AM and will drive to Grand Canyon Village.

The group will then drive to Phoenix on Saturday June 27th, stay overnight 

and then 

fly to Boston via American Airlines Flight #307, 

departing Phoenix at 1:30PM Sunday 6/28/15.

They will rendezvous with the Guatemala Team and drive back to Bangor, arriving at All Souls at 3:30AM 6/29/15.

We are so thankful to God for the opportunities and blessings the teams have experienced.

Pray for safe travel!

Day 4 in Guatemala

The day dawned overcast and we feared there might be rain...but no...we had a beautiful day for house construction, food distribution, Bible school and Women's health class.  

The food distribution team is getting a workout carrying several heavy bags of food and cleaning supplies up and 

down some very steep hills.  

Today's deliveries were right in the city limits of Ciudad Vieja.  Again stories of 8 to 12 people sharing rental space the size of Room C (if that big) at All Souls...One family recycles paper for some of its income.  One quickly realizes that the paper is collected from the streets and anywhere else it can be scavenged.  Another family recycles bottles which gives them more money than paper.  It isn't much. 

When we asked what we might pray for after we distributed the food gifts, one woman asked for prayers to endure the troubles her family is going through right now.  She did not elaborate, but seeing her surroundings, one could fill in the blanks.  

 Each time we delivered the

supplies we invited the women and children to come to the Bible School and the Women's Health class.  What was particularly striking was seeing how the ragged and dirty kids were transformed into clean, and cleanly clothed children to attend the afternoon event. The mothers expressed their thanks and prayed for God to bless us.  

We delivered food to 6 homes today.  Even the Guatemalan children we have met are well-schooled in gracious behavior.  At the Bible school we saw children sharing crayons without prompting, looking out for siblings without prompting and all of them said, "Thank you"...again without prompting. At the work sites siblings shared paint brushes and helped one another repeatedly even as they contributed to the construction of their new home.

All of us are learning the 5 Spanish Bible School songs very, very, very well...but we have discovered that our translators are now joining in and singing with us too.  Most of them said, "We can't get the songs out of our heads! "

The construction has been moving along very quickly.  Today all three home sites got the walls studded out and all the panels to be installed, painted.  How these teams manage to play hard with the kids at the work sites and accomplish so much really quite astounding.  Even the roof trusses are installed so we are thinking that we might be wrapping up some of our construction work tomorrow...time will tell.

   The team is doing very well and evening worship, conversation and just plain fun round out our days. 

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 We keep you in our prayers....God bless us everyone!