Sunday

Saturday Youth Service

The sign advertising the youth service. "Tamales for sale"

Our Youthful crowd... hopefully enjoying our music :)

Michelle giving her personal testimony in front of the congregation, with Taylor supportiong her.

"Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord!!"

Saturday in La Antigua

While visiting La Antigua, the girls found an interesting photo oportunity......

A Large Catholic church in Antigua. This style is common for the area.

A common street scene for this touristic type area. A father & son playing music for money in the middle of the street.

The girls and Oscar's wife, Karla with baby Emily at the restorante fountain.

Finally a moment to relax as a team with our hosts. We had a great Guatemalan lunch, and then had to hurry back to Sumpango to get ready for the evening Youth Service.

Job Complete

The completed trench. It is one meter deep and about 100 feet long. There was a lot of sweat spilled into that trench... but the ground didn't get any softer!

Our Guatemalan host, Oscar. He has made our stay more than comfortable. He is our translator, our taxi cab, and our travel guide. We will tell many stories of Oscar and his family when we return home.

Oscar telling us the history of the piece of land that we are working on. As it turns out, it was a gift from God. (was there any doubt?)

Chillin' in the room, practicing our three worship songs for the Saturday night youth service. Hey, Mrs. Marsh... Here is Wyatt in Guatemala playing Guitar! More photos of him on stage later :)

Thursday Work Day & Home Visits

Thursday: Today we did more work, digging the trench. Chris and Amy are excellent with the pic. Everyone was exhausted by noon! Then later in the day we did some home visits to the people in the congregation of Los Olivos. We split up into two groups, one of the groups is above.

EARTH QUAKE & Power Out!!

Wednesday at approximately 1:30p.m., Guatemala had a 6.8 earthquake that we felt while we were finishing lunch. It was pretty exciting after we figured out what it was. In our little village of Sumpango everything shook for about 3 seconds and was then quiet. The teens were more excited than scared, and announced that there was one more thing they could cross off of their "must experience in a lifetime" lists [earthquake].
Read the Associated Press earthquake story here

Later that night at dinner the lights went out. Not just at our hotel, but for about 25,000 residents. So, we had a candle light dinnner. Again, no fear, only excitement from the students! We all enjoyed our meal then played some games in the dark. We had a blast with a role-playing game called Mafia, a murder mystery game. Lindsey was the only one to kill us all and win!! (we were not surprised...)

Wednesday Afternoon

Wednesday afternoon Orphanage Visit: We visited La Senda orphanage in Sumpango. There were 21 children there. We played soccer with them. Showed them the evangacube. We made salvation bracelets with them. We played frizbee. We made chalk drawings too. It was great!!! Everyone wanted to stay longer.

First Work Day

Wednesday: We start with a breakfast of eggs and plantano, then we went to work at the church building site in Sumpango. We are digging a trench for the wall. The wall must start 3 meters under ground to be up to code for earthquakes.

Pictures 2

Lindsey and her new friend, Emily

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Hanging out on Oscar's 2nd floor balcony moments after arriving in Sumpango

Airport Bible study: "The Power of Prayer"

as taught by Chris D-mann

Pictures 1

Our friend Olga, who we met in the airport. She is from Honduras, living in New Orleans, and visiting Guatemala this week. She joine us in our airport bible study, and prayed with us for the people of Guatemala. Thanks to Brenda V for the use of her Spanish/English bible which helped Olga to follow along with our study.

The Arrival!!

Thank you for all the prayers. We have safely arrived in Sumpango, Guatemala. Our flights from Minneapolis to Houston and then Houston to Guatemala City were uneventful, but we were all able to have a great time together. In the airport, we were able to share a bible study and evangecube presentation with a very nice lady from Honduras, who is currently living in New Orleans, and vacationing in Guatemala. It was an excellent God moment!

On the plane Cathy was able to spend her flight time sharing with some small children travelling to visit relatives in Guatemala. Another great spontaneous God experience!

We are now resting comfortably in Oscar's truly beautiful home in Sumpango, listening to the spring rain gently falling onto our open balcony. We can see most of the city from the balcony of his home, allowing us to take in the sights and sounds of this strange and new land (new to us ).

We are preparing for an afternoon of cultural orientation, introductions and dinner with the church elders and pastors.

The students are amazed at the difference of the culture, and yet the similarities of the people and our lives. Our update time is limited today, but we all wanted to say again "thank you for your prayers, and please continue to pray for us all; Leaders, students, the people of Sumpango and of Los Olivos Church.

Tomorrow we begin work at the El Rejon church plant site about 30 minutes from where we are staying. Everyone is looking forward to getting into hanging out with 'the people' of Guatemala.

We thank you all for your encouragement.

Praises

Sunday: T-minus 1 day until Departure for Guatemala.


Praises to The One who is in control of all situations, at all times.

Friday afternoon, all three of our missing passports arrived!! Amen!

Did we ever doubt they would come... ? Well, maybe - just a little.

I never doubted God, but I began to doubt my own plan for this mission. Everything inside me turned to God and said "Okay, you are in charge. I will trust completely in you. You will choose the team members, You will teach the valuable lessons, You will write the plan and be in control.

Being humbled is a great place to be. It allows us to turn to God and trust in Him with all we are, realizing 'our' plans are not necessarily 'HIS' plans, and then realize that HIS plans are the only ones that matter.

Today is our Final meeting with students and parents, our final day to complete our packing. I (Mark) am finished with his packing 48 hours before the mission departure, perhaps a miracle in itself!

Please continue to pray for us, we will continue to update you.

Mark

Tuesday, T-minus 6 days... and counting

Welcome to our Guatemala Blog page. This is a spot we hope you can come to for current information on our June 2007 Guatemala Mission Project.

Participating in this year's project is :
Michelle Warbalo
Lindsey Goff
Taylor Havisto
Amy Holcomb
Cathy Jensen
Wyatt Marsh
Dan Demers
Chris Dallmann
and
Mark Jensen

Our mission departs the Faith church parking lot at 7:00 am, June 11. We drive to Minneapolis airport for a short flight to Houston, where we will stay overnight for some final mission training and fellowship. Tuesday Morning June 12, we depart Houston at 9:00am for a 1 1/2 hour flight to Guatemala City, Guatemala.

We will be met by Oscar (pronounced "O"-scar) one of the church elders who is currently leading up an active church planting program. From there the sky is the limit, as we are traveling to his church to serve in whatever capacity the need service done. We hope to have more details as this week progresses.

We hope to be able to update this site remotely from Sumpango, Guatemala on a daily basis, or at least call home to have one of our supporters update for us.

Please leave comments for us to encourage and bless us as we encourage and bless others.