Christmas 2008

We hope that you all had a great Christmas.

We'd like to share a bit about what Christmas was like for us, and share some pictures of such a fun time.

We shared last year that most of the Christmas festivities happen on Christmas Eve. We love the deep tradition that New Life Children's Home has and things that must happen for Christmas to be Christmas here.

We'll start with the preparations. Church on the Rock in Lubbock, TX begins each summer collecting gifts for each of our kids. You would be amazed at what these people can stuff in a sack. I'm particularly thankful for all of the Texas Tech gear that they pack in for our kiddos. :) The church that we attend here in Guatemala finds several sponsors for our kids and they purchase gifts as well.

Once the gifts arrive, we open and check them all for sizes and the redistribute if necessary. On the 23rd we began to move gifts for our "workshop" to the dining hall to start to surround the tree. We added another pile on the 24th. If we were to put gifts out earlier it's amazing how some gifts would unwrap themselves a bit early, because "no one" touches the gifts before it's time to unwrap.

The evening of Christmas Eve is when the fun begins. Here it's call "noche buena" or "The good night". At 9pm the kids left their homes to come to the dining hall. Some of the little kids did a dance, some of the older ones played instruments, our older girls sang "O Come All Ye Faithful", and one little guys, the newest at NLCH sang "Jingle Bells" solo and a acappella, Kendon read Luke's account of the Christmas story and we had communion together. After our Christmas Eve service, we had snacks including homemade cookies, cheese, crackers, ham, sausages, apples and grapes. Apples and grapes are a must have for any Guatemalan Christmas festivity. Snacks were cleaned up, and the we began handing out presents. Once the present touches your hand you're allowed to open it. The table of little boys (there are 12 of them) was electric!

After all of the presents were opened, everyone took them back to their rooms and then came back outside for the midnight fireworks. At midnight the whole country sets off fireworks - it's the best fireworks show there is.

Christmas morning began with the traditional oatmeal pancakes and stockings that were filled with popcorn, candy, small toys....etc...

During breakfast, Lee and the Wheeler's kids began to put together the trampoline that the kids had no idea about. After breakfast the kids came out to see their new trampoline. It's only been in service for 5 days and already has a lot of miles on it. :)

Here are a few pictures from such fun days:

Just before opening presents, here are a few of the kids with the pile o presents behind them.


Lee teaching Oscar how to use his new whoopee cushin.


Anxiously awaiting to get to jump on the trampoline.


Michelle was the first to get to try out the trampoline.


Jorgito jumping on a trampoline for the first time.

Merry Christmas!

We are in the middle of Christmas activities here - we'll explain more later about the traditions of Christmas at NLCH and Guatemala. It's currently 11:40pm, Christmas Eve and we're having a small intermission or half-time if you will before blowing up fireworks at midnight. There's nothing like watching a small child experience Christmas for the first time. This past year, NLCH has received several new kiddos, it was so neat watching them receive gifts. Randy asked Lee to carry his stuff to his room because it was too heavy for him. He also asked when the next Christmas was. :)

Merry Christmas!

Lee & Staci

Catching up

It seems like we're often writing blogs to catch up. We really thought that the fall would be a bit slower and that we'd have more time for things like writing blogs. The fall has simply just been different than what the spring and summer were.

We wrote just before Thanksgiving. We enjoyed Thanksgiving here with other American missionaries. We, like most of you all enjoyed turkey, ham, dressing, broccoli rice casserole, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, homemade rolls and the list goes on and on. It was a fun day of great fellowship. The day after was fun too. In the states their were parking lot wars of "black Friday". Here it was just a normal Friday. We (us 3 missionary families at NLCH) enjoyed a day out together. We grabbed lunch at a mall food court and then played a couple of games of bowling before returning to have leftovers from our Thanksgiving feast.

On December 7 Lee left with Chad Smith (another missionary here at the home) and 7 of our older kids for a 4 day mission trip to western Guatemala and a brief crossing into Mexico. Over the 4 days they stopped at between 20 and 25 churches to share with the kids of the community and give out Christmas gifts. Another ministry called Hearts for Heaven planned the trip, as well as, collected the Christmas gifts - Lee, Chad and the kids were the hands and feet of the effort and gave out the gifts and shared a gospel message through stories with the kids.

This past Tuesday we took our middle aged girls out for their "school vacation excursion". We're really enjoying taking the kids out in small groups for a fun afternoon - not only is it something fun and out of the ordinary to do, I think they just like getting out of the home and seeing other things. This week, we took 5 girls out and went bowling. None of them had played before - and all of them complained of their arms hurting at the end of our time together :). The only bad part of the whole thing was the traffic jam of all traffic jams that we experienced on the way home. It took us over 2 hours to go just 13 miles - yuck!

Also this past week we finished our two teenage small groups for the year. We'll start those back up mid January-ish. We plan on continuing to have our group of college aged kids during the holidays. Our groups are going well, our relationship with those involved in the groups is growing, and our spanish is continually challenged.

Christmas preparations are now in full swing. It is fun to get to be a part of Christmas on this kind of scale. 50 kids, plus employees and their families = a mountain of cookies to be baked, lots of presents to be wrapped, and more excitement than you can imagine housed in a bunch of little kids.

Here are a few pics of recent events:

The second stop of the trip was a church plant in progress out in the country. A few of our kids climbed coconut trees nearby and knocked a few down to be eaten.


One of the visited churches.


Most of the visited churches were small, poor churches.


Handing out gifts.


Group shot from the trip. If you look closely, you can see the pacific ocean in the background.


*I've been trying to add other pictures, but blogspot is being weird - I'll try again later.

Another Friday Excursion

This past Friday we surprised 4 of the younger girls with an outing. Our kids have a behavior level system. If you are on a good level - you get to have privileges like the ability to go on surprise excursions.

We would love to be able to take all of them out for a fun afternoon during the break, but with 50 kids, the odds of them all being on a good enough level to go it not likely.

Anyway - on to the really fun stuff! Iris, Angie, Emily, and Sheila were on a great level so on Friday we went to a food court for lunch and then headed on to the Children's Museum. They loved that they got to share a pizza together and go through the museum with very few other people. We were surprised by how great and interactive it was. In addition to the information, they had activities that went along with each station.

At the end of the museum was a huge ball room. There were thousands of those small balls that are in play places like chuck-e-cheese, but instead of a huge vat of balls, there were pulley systems and other ways to collect the balls. Much like some water parks that have a huge bucket of water that spills periodically, instead of water, lots of balls fell at the sound of the alarm.

Here are a few pics from our day out:

Here Iris is learning all about static electricity.


Though we didn't see any reason to have a bubble area, we all loved making giant bubbles.


Lee is showing them how exactly to remove the "charlie horse" in the life size operation game.


After all of our hard work, the balls came raining down.


Taking a little rest at the end of our afternoon.

We hope that you all have a great Thanksgiving. We're looking forward to all of the traditional Thanksgiving foods with fellow missionaries from the states tomorrow.

Surprise Excursion!!

We've mentioned before that our kids are out of school for the equivalent of "summer break". This past Friday we surprised the little boys who are on good behavior level with an outing.

We had planned the outing, and clued in all of those who needed to know ahead of time. Our plan was to leave about 11:30, make our way to McDonald's for a happy meal lunch, and then head on to the zoo.

At 11:30 we pulled the van in front of the boys house, the 10 eligible kiddos ran outside, excited for what was to come. We told them that because of their great behavior level, there was a reward in store. So just before loading the van, the announcement of a McDonald's lunch was announced, followed by cheers. Here are a couple of pics from McDonald's :



The next part of the story is best with a little background information. The little boys are... little boys. Meal times can be really messy, loud, and sort of out of control. In the past few weeks the house parents have been talking to them about how they are animals. This was no reason for our choice of taking them to the zoo, but it lead to some teachable moments.

After eating Lee rounded up all of the kiddos and said that he had been talking to their houseparent who said that they needed to learn the difference between being animals and humans. Therefore we were going to go to the zoo to learn the difference. This announcement was also followed by cheers. Here are a few pics from the zoo:

This is just inside the gates at the zoo. The couple on the left, Edon & Dixon are here visiting the home for a couple of weeks. We have enjoyed spending time with them, and they were great help on Friday.

"Everybody be a flamingo" You can faintly see a couple of flamingo's in the background on the left.

Of all animals, most of the kids wants their picture taken with Camila, the donkey. I think she was getting a little agitated, so she decided to snack on Javier's shirt for this picture.

Christmas Cards

Yeah, we know, talking about Christmas cards in early November may be a stretch, but we're almost finished with them here. Let us clarify, the kids are almost finished with their Christmas cards.

Each of our kids have to write a homemade Christmas card to each of the sponsors each year. It's almost like a dance that begins in late summer and by early November the music has stopped, but some kids haven't finished the dance. So, the first part of November the kids have Christmas card making sessions to finish them in enough time to get them to the states before Christmas. When the kids have finished, we translate them, stuff them, seal them, weigh them... and so on.

Last year we wrote a blog about helping to translate the cards while we were on a short break from language school. We enjoyed so much reading what the kids would have to say to their sponsor. This year was was no let down, I think by far the Christmas cards from our kids are the best ones around. Last year we shared with you one funny card written by Samy for Bob. We can't remember which kid it was this year, but the card read "Merry Christmas. God bless you. I love all of my sponsors. You are my favorite sponsor. Merry Christmas." What made it even funnier is that we know that they kid had not met that sponsor.

We'll take this time to clarify a bit what a "sponsor" is for one of our kiddos. New Life Children's Home operates off of donations. One way of connecting with the ministry of NLCH is being a child sponsor. A child sponsor donates $25 per month. That money goes to pay for food, clothing, medical care, school, and anything else that you can imagine that a child would need. The goal is for each child to have 12 sponsors. If this is something you think you, your small group or Sunday school class might be interested in, please email us for more information.

Keep your browser pointed here in the next few days... Friday we will take the little boys out on a surprise excursion, you'll want to see pictures of that.

Home Dedication

Several of you who read our blog have been here within the last year. You all watched for the few days that you were here, people working on what would be the new boys home unit. On October 3, the last parts of the house were finished and later that day the boys moved in. It was electric. It was loud. It was a such a good moment. Aldolfo, the newest boy here at the home was very careful to show me (Staci) his new bedroom that he currently shares with 3 other boys. He made sure that I saw his part of the closet, and the bathroom that he would share with others. He was so proud.

This past weekend we had the dedication service for that home unit. "Casa Anthony" is the name give to the home in memory a little boy named Scott Anthony who went home to be with Jesus just 17 days after he was born. Our kids learned a dance and prepared songs to sing. Scott, the father of Scott Anthony came to share the story of Scott Anthony. Scott and his wife believed the Lord had called them to be ones to raise the money for the new boys home unit. He shared his story of how they have grown in faith of the Lord through the healing process of loosing a son. Scott Anthony was the second child of Scott and his wife. They now have 6 children. Also the mayor of Villa Nueva (our town of 1.2 million) came and spoke, as did an elder from the church that we attend here.

After the service, we had a reception and the kiddos gave tours of the house. From the kids perspective getting to "go ahead" to eat cookies was the best part of the day. It was hard for them to wait until all of the guests had been through the line.


In other news... the weather has changed a bit. "Winter" has come with a vengeance. It's quite bizarre how our bodies have become accustomed to the weather here. When it's above 80 degrees it's terribly hot, and when it's below 72 it's cold. The past few days I've had on a sweat shirt in the frigid 68 degree weather. Today one of the little boys said it was "pure winter". Our thermometer read 71 degrees.

The latest...

We last updated on Sept. 25. So much for updating weekly, huh?

Here's a glimpse of what's been going on, and hopefully we'll keep you better informed!

On Oct.3 our kids who are in 9th grade and below finished classes for the school year. The school year here starts in mid-January and ends in October. They, like all kids, were very excited. Also, extra excitement was added for them because after classes finished they got to move into their new house! All afternoon the "big pickup" ran back and forth between sides hauling their stuff.

On Oct. 4 we went to the airport to pick up a team from First Baptist Church in Canyon, TX. It was so great to see people we knew, and it was good to know that we had them for more than a week. They, unlike most teams, did not do construction stuff, they had preplanned and then led activities for our kids everyday that they were here. The team of 13 came with 26 checked bags, and 13 carry ons. In those bags were mountains of supplies, and a few goodies for us to! For just a sampling of things they did: they taught on the fruits of the spirit, the armor of God, inner beauty, tye-dyed t-shirts, made homemade ice cream, had a "Texas night" complete with jalapeno poppers and Texas sized chocolate chip cookies and like all nights "Texas" we danced the Cotton Eyed Joe. Part of the team went with a small group of our kids to climb volcano Pacaya and the others stayed back to have the ultimate craft morning with the little ones and a "water" afternoon with a slip-n-slide. They spent lots of hours hanging out with our kids. Our kids loved it, and the team loved it.

The team left at 5am Monday morning. After returning from the airport, we both crashed.

Now that our kids are out of school the sound level during the day has increased. It's fun to hear them playing and enjoying their "summer" vacation.

We took a small hiatus from our small groups with having the team here. So tomorrow night we'll begin having not 2, but 3 small groups each week.

We'll leave you tonight with a few pictures of time that we had with the team.

A couple pics from today

We've told you that we've started having small discipleship groups in our apartment on Monday & Thursday nights. Here's a picture from tonight:


Every Thursday afternoon Staci watches Michelle for a few hours. Today, we let Michelle see the guitar, and she loved it! In fact, she got a little pouty when it was put up. She's going to be playing riffs like nobodies business in no time :)

Welcome, Aldolfo

We'd like you all to meet Aldolfo, picture below, the newest kiddo at New Life Children's Home. He joins 4 other siblings here. He's adapting quite well. The second or third day he was here I saw him and said "amigo!" (friend!) and he replied quite quickly "no mi nombre es Adolfo" or "no, my name is Aldolfo" now it's our joke and we go through the same song and dance most days. Aldolfo is 5 years old and the other little boys are really liking their new friend.

This past Thursday we took Lee's dad to the airport after he had spent a week with us. We were sad to see him go; we had such a great time with him. We left the children's home for one night with him, and then spent the rest of the week at the home. He helped out with several small construction projects, but most importantly we got some excellent time of just hanging out, talking and laughing.

Tomorrow is Guatemala's independence day. We can already see a few fireworks tonight noting the special day. Guatemala became independent from Spain in 1821. Our kids don't have school tomorrow and we'll be eating hamburgers for lunch!

This past week we had our first 2 small groups. On Mondays and Thursdays we have a group of 7 and 9 of our kids ranging in ages from 14-25. These small discipleship groups are not mandatory for the kids and we are super excited that 16 of them would choose to be involved in such a thing. Our language skills are being stretched! We are doing a 4 week series through the first part of October, we will have a team from Canyon, TX for 10 days, and then we will begin a new series.

We'll leave you tonight with a couple of pictures:

First, we have Aldolfo. What a cutie!


Here is a picture of Lee holding a lychee. A lychee is a fruit that is about the size of an apricot, but is red and is "hairy". Once you cut it open, inside is a "large, white, naked grape looking" fruit. It has a seed in the middle of it as well. It was a "hey we haven't tried it and Wesley (Lee's dad) is here, so why not" The taste was very mild - it sure didn't live up to it's outward appearance.

One Year Today!

One year ago today Felix, the hurricane, was threatening Central America and we left Amarillo on a plane bound for Guatemala City! What a year it has been! Thank you for praying for us and with us. Thank you for reading our blogs and caring about what his happening in our lives. We are so grateful.

Today is not only the anniversary of us being in Guatemala for a year, we also picked up Lee's dad, Wesley, at the airport. We've been looking forward to his visit for a while and are so excited to have him here with us for a week!

More later...

Friday Nights

In January we received a group of 4 siblings, Oscar 10, Iris 9, Randy 6, and Michelle 8 months. Now, Michelle is 15 months old, and each Friday night she spends the night with us.

Weighing less than 8 pounds, Michelle is very small for her age. What she lacks in size she makes up for in personality. We have enjoyed our Friday evenings with her. Though we see her almost everyday at some point or another, it is fun to learn what she has learned from week to week. When she started staying with us 5ish weeks ago she was perfecting the crawl. Now she's pulling up on things and crawling everywhere possible in record speed.

Here are a couple of pictures from last night:

Helllooo!!

First off, yes we're still alive. Yes, we are healthy. Yes, we still live in Guatemala. Yes, we'd still love for you to read our blog. And yes, after 2 months, here is a blog from us!

We'll start with a bulleted summary of what life has consisted of for us since we last posted:
-On July 2nd Staci's parents came and stayed with us for 10 days. We really enjoyed having them here. We especially are grateful for the work her dad did by beginning the framework for an extended roof on our maintenance shop. Staci's mom spent most of her days in our apartment sewing curtains. We love that our neighbors can no longer see in! Also, while they were here we spent a couple of nights away seeing new things for all of us. We went to Tikal in northern Guatemala. Tikal was once a large city that geologists believe people lived in until 860AD. It was then rediscovered by some Guatemalans in 1848. The University of Pennsylvania took it as a major project in the 70's and today about 20% is uncovered.

-From July 10 through the 19th we had a group from Red Lion, Pennsylvania. These guys come down twice a year each year and our kiddos love them. They're much like family around here, and we enjoyed working with them so much. They worked in our medical clinic, helping to get the facilities up to code, as well as, they also worked on our phone system.

-July 23rd-25 we were in Panajachel with our summer interns. This summer we had 5 super great interns. They did a variety of things throughout the summer. Some of the things that they did were working with our doctor in the clinic, helping a teacher in our school, helping to prepare meals for our kiddos in the kitchen, after school tutoring, weekly devotional groups, and countless hours of playing games. Our time in Panajachel was an end of the summer retreat. We listened to each of them about challenged, stretched and encouraged them and then we had specific prayer with each of them. We also enjoyed 2 nights of sitting by the fire telling stories and hanging out.

-July 26-Aug2 we welcomed Highland Baptist Church from Waco, TX. Neither of us had met anyone on this team before, but after spending a week with them we have several new friends. They connected with our kiddos quickly and were such hard workers. They did so many things - the biggest of which was helping us to get so much closer to getting our boys new home unit complete.

-July 30 we celebrated Lee's 30th birthday - it was a great day!

-Aug 4 most of our summer interns returned to their homes in the states. Most are getting ready to start another college semester. A couple of them are looking for jobs to start soon.

-Aug 5-8 we went with Kendon, Wendy, their son Ian and his friend Nicco toward the coast to get away for a few days before school started for Ian and Nicco.

-Aug 9-16 we had a group from First Baptist Church in Shallowater, TX here with us. Again, we didn't know anyone on the team beforehand, but enjoyed them so much. They worked on a roof extension, repaired a multitude of things, and cut up tons of tree branches. We recently had a problem with tree roots getting into our plumbing, so we had to cut down several of our trees.

Today is August 21. For all practical purposes we're finished with what we call "team season". Life will switch gears a bit as our kiddos are about to end their school year (they go from mid January to mid October). We will begin having small discipleship groups in our apartment 2 nights each week for our older kiddos. We would ask you to join with us in prayer as we are planning these groups.

Thanks for hanging with us through these last few weeks of no blogs! We're blessed to have such faithful friends and supporters.

Lee & Staci

Thanks WTAMU Wesley Foundation

We mentioned in the previous blog that a team went to camp with us. For the past several months we looked forward to the team from the WTAMU Wesley Foundation - our friends coming to see us.



We enjoyed every minute of getting to be with these guys and wished they could have stayed longer.

Below is a picture of all of the stuff they brought us - it was incredible. Some things we asked for, but they went way above and brought us all kinds of stuff. Originally we were going to call this blog "love came in a bag"... but they truth is that love came to us in the form of 6 people. We miss you guys.

*the picture that is supposed to be here will not upload "due to internal errors"... so if you will, picture a pile of goodies, including spices of many kinds, a wireless router, a basketball, t-shirts, computer speakers, cupcake baking cups (hundreds of them for various occasions), green chilies, rotel tomatoes, a book, small tools, and Roger Romex.

Campamento 2008

Along with a children's home here at New Life, a medical clinic operates 4 mornings each week and there's a school that ranges from Pre-K through 9th grade at has about 400 students in attendance.

Each year the 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students have the opportunity to go to "campamento" or camp. This past week we went to Campamento 2008. We were blessed to have a group of 6 from West Texas A&M Wesley join us...those guys are another blog.

Camp lasted for 3 days and 2 nights. It was unlike any camp that we attended in the states with a few exceptions. The cabins that we stayed in were much like what you'd expect in the states... bunk beds wall to wall. We ate meals cafeteria style - and the food was really good. They're was a large swimming pool that the kids loved. The differences: the schedule was packed beginning at 6am, and going to bed about midnight (later for some of the teachers). For these kids this 3 day camp is a big big deal, and so the teachers (who not only teach, but organize and run the camp) pack the schedule full. There were hours of games, small group times, swimming time, large group meetings, and even a dress up dinner. We'd also mention another difference for us was the heat and humidity. Here in Villa Nueva, we're in the mountains and enjoy temperate weather year around, but just 2 hours away we were very close to the pacific coast and it was hot and humid. We got out of our vehicles when we arrived and started to sweat just standing there.

Here are a few pics from camp for your enjoyment:


This is what the pickup looked like just before coming home.


All of the teachers, and adult volunteers that went to camp.


One of the games was a scavenger hunt. The list was given in about .5 font, and so they were given a magnifying glass to read the list.


Another one of the games... I'm not really sure of the exact point, but they loved it.


This is just because we like this picture. The flowers were beautiful & plentiful. There were always butterflies flying around them.

"I just set my alarm for 3:15am"

That's what Lee just said...

Tomorrow morning we leave for "Campamento"... a three day, two night camp with the 7th, 8th and 9th graders from the school here. We're excited to have a team from West Texas A&M University Wesley Foundation to go with us.

Today we had a meeting about camp - we learned what promises to be an important dance for the weekend, and got teamed up with Guatemalans. Hopefully everybody understands his/her role.

Kendon & Wendy are still in the states for a 2 week visit. So far so good here! We expect them back next week.

We'll give a camp report when we return!

*This past Sunday we went to lunch with Daniel & Kara. Little Michelle joined us as well. After lunch we headed out to the zoo - check out Daniel & Kara's blog for pictures of the fun day.

the rainy season is here...

We're West Texans. When it rains, we stare at it like we haven't seen any in months - because we haven't. Rain generally means thunderstorms and or hail. And...there's never enough of it.

Then the West Texans moved to Guatemala. We experienced the end of the rainy season last September and October. It rained most afternoons for a couple of hours...

Now, the rainy season is beginning here. Tropical Storm Alma helped the normal rainy season out a bit this past weekend. We went to Panajachel for our staff retreat where we perhaps saw 12 hours without rain over a 4 day span. We're back in Villa Nueva, where it is still raining, however, not with the great consistency of this past weekend.

About the retreat... we had a great time with our fellow coworkers. We really enjoyed hearing about the other New Life Advance International ministries in Guatemala. NLAI is in many countries, and operates very differently in each place because each culture is very different. In Guatemala, NLAI has New Life Children's Home, 2 missionary families that work in different towns, but both work with training pastors and church planting. Another woman works with street kids, helping them with schooling and feeding them. Here at New Life Children's Home there are 4 couples from the US (sadly about to be just 3, as our friends Daniel & Kara will be returning to the states at the end of June).

Tomorrow morning the kids who passed all of their classes during this last session, plus have good behavior level get to go to McDonald's for breakfast. We're looking forward to celebrating with them!

Please note to the right that we now have a phone number that we can be reached at! It operates through the internet and we have to be at home with the computer on to receive calls. Also, there is voicemail attached to the number so that we can receive messages. So with that said.... give us a shout out & keep in touch!

We'll be back on Tuesday...

Thank you all who continue to read our blogs and pray for us.

Here's a quick update as we run out the door....

Last Saturday Staci's dad and the 4 other men that were here working for a week left. We loved having them here, and miss their community.

This past week we worked on various projects & attended staff and intern meetings. All went well - we're continuing to learn to hear spanish, so those staff meetings are helpful for both keeping up with all that's going on around here and practicing our listening.

We're headed to Panajachel today. Panajachel is a small town located on Lake Atitlan in the mountains. We'll be there for 3 nights for our annual staff meeting. All of the missionaries with New Life Advance International that are in Guatemala will be there along with the president of NLAI, his wife, our speaker and his wife, and the Houston office administrator and her husband. In all there should be about 34 of us. We're looking forward to this weekend of connecting with our coworkers in other types of ministry.

Please pray for us this weekend. Pray that the Holy Spirt would manifest Himself in our times together of worship & fellowship, and that we'd be ministered to. Also, Staci tends to get carsick on the roads that we'll be taking. If you'd pray that she would be free from this, we would appreciate it .

So, we'll be back late Tuesday night, look for a blog either Tuesday or Wednesday.

Mimi's Coffeecake goes International!

My dad has been here with us this week. Because this is the end of the school year, my mom had to stay home and finish up the year with her second graders. We emailed a list of things for dad to bring with us, and he came through with everything, including my Mimi's coffeecakes.

I have lots of memories of baking with my Mimi during the weeks that we stayed with she and my granddad each summer while I was growing up. Specifically, I remember making lots of coffeecakes - and eating them too!

So in the picture below, you see Lee and I attacking one large piece of coffeecake - what you can't get a good idea of is how great that sweet bread with lots of gooey sour cream, sugar & cinnamon mix on top is!

So thanks, Mimi, for sending 3 excellent coffeecakes.

If you happen to be in the central Texas area and run into my Mimi - maybe you'll be lucky enough to get to try this delightful treat!!

A 6th Love Language?

"The Five Love Languages" by Gary Chapman is a popular book. It speaks about how we communicate love is 5 basic ways: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. In our 8 months of being here in Guatemala we have discovered that Mr. Chapman missed one important love language: the string of blackcat firecrackers.

You see - Christmas Eve, the country blew up at midnight. Seriously, it was much like a scene out of a war movie. New Year's Eve was a repeat - many firecrackers at midnight then again at 6am, 12noon, and 6pm. Mother's Day we began to hear firecracker's at 4:30. Really? The one day each year to celebrate mom's and we do that by waking them up at 4:30 with a string of blackcats. Then there are birthdays...... everyday their are birthdays, and every day we hear a string or 2 of blackcats.

This past Wednesday was by birthday, my first Guatemalan birthday. I woke up to find that Lee had left a cupcake cookbook for me to find. I love to bake. During the 6am hour our friend and coworker went through the apartment across from us, lit a string of blackcats and then threw is onto our balcony. (We live on the third floor) About the time the smoke cleared the girls set off a string downstairs. We spent the day with the group from Texas Tech Wesley & Trinity Church in Lubbock in Antigua. We were back in plenty of time for supper, and Kendon & Wendy took our duties for the evening so that we could go out to eat. Wendy called and said that before we left we needed to drive by the dining room so that she could give me some instructions about some medicine that she needed us to buy. Poor Lee, knowing the whole situation tried his best to get me to move a little quicker - after deciding that I could check email a little later we went. We showed up to a dining hall full of kids (waiting on me) with cakes (all decorated, with candles & plenty for everyone). After they sang the Guatemalan birthday songs, 2 more strings of blackcats were lit, and the candles were blown out, I was handed a whole stack of homemade birthday cards from the kiddos.

To top all of that, we got to eat Pizza Hut that night!

What a great birthday.

Here are a few pics from the day:


This is the blackcat "leftovers" on our balcony with the smoke from the second string.


This is what was left of the second string as we left for the day.

Thank you Florida State Wesley

This past Tuesday we said goodbye to a group from The Wesley Foundation at Florida State. We enjoyed having them here for just over a week. They all were so great to do whatever we needed them to do at any moment. They helped us with tree trimming, painting, building picnic tables, and running down lots of kids energy.

We realize that we've been back for a couple of weeks with little blogging, so we'll help to fill you in a bit....

The latest in Guatemala news was the possible strike by gasoline/diesel trucks. From what we understand there are specific hours that these trucks cannot drive in the capital city because of the heavy traffic. They blocked two entrances to the city one night in efforts to have their voices heard. The president sent the army out to take care of the situation. Today - there are no lines at the gas stations - everything seems to be normal.

Also, the temperatures have been a little warmer than usual - probably in the upper 80's. (We know, we know, most of you are gearing up for a hot summer, we shouldn't be complaining...) The rainy season is a bit late this year in making itself known. While it's been nice to not have to deal with the rain (and mud) we're ready for cooler afternoon temperatures & less dust.

This past Monday we celebrated our first wedding anniversary. It seems much longer than just a year, as lots has changed in the past year. We moved countless times (including moving countries), learned a new language, started new jobs, and started a marriage. That's a lot to put in one sentence, much less in one year. :) We are thankful to be settled into life here at the children's home and are very much looking forward to the next year having fewer big changes.

Tonight we'll leave you with the latest story about Sammy...

Sammy wanted to know why the group was cutting branches off the trees. I (Staci) said "well, Sammy, you get your haircut once a month, don't you? It's the same with the trees, once a year we cut their branches." Sammy said, "the trees must be sad." I asked him why so. He said, "because I don't like getting my haircut."

We're back in Guatemala

Thursday night we arrived back to Guatemala. We had such a good three weeks in the states. Thanks to everyone who made time in their schedule so that we could see you.

We are enjoying a slower Saturday morning, and taking care of some business so that we will be ready to receive a group of college students from Florida State tomorrow.

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We're pansies when it comes to cold weather!

Yesterday we arrived to Missouri to spend a couple of days with good friends here. We've learned a lot being in another culture for 7 months - and yesterday we learned that we don't deal with cold weather very well any more.

At any rate, we're enjoying being with Kendall & Amy, and their cute kiddos.

We'll be back in Texas this coming Monday. For all of you in the Canyon area, we'll be at First Methodist Church in Canyon this Wednesday evening. We'll share our experiences of the past 7 months in the Searcher's classroom begining at 6:30. After that we are heading over to the Wesley Foundation to hang out for a bit.

Also, we're going to the Sunday (April 20) evening service at First Baptist Church in Canyon. We'll also stick around afterwards to hang out for a while that evening.

News from the lands much farther south..

We received an email tonight from Guatemala. Over the weekend theives stole their phone lines. 1500 users are out of phone lines, which also means internet.

We rely heavily on the internet for lots of communication, including telephone services that allow us to connect with friends & family in the states.

Of course, the cell phones are still in service, so they still have communication available.

They have been told that it will take 1 week to 3 months to replace the lines. Would you join in praying with us that those lines would be retuned in one week - and that the added stress of having to go off site to check email & such (something we all rely on) wouldn't be an issue that they have to deal with?

On another note - today we had a great time seeing some of Staci's extended family. What a joy it is to see and reconnect with family and friends.

The stars at night are big and bright ... deep in the heart of Texas!

This past Wednesday we flew into Amarillo, TX - we were met at the airport by Lee's dad. We left the airport and drove to one of our favorite mexican food restaurants - it was yummy.

We changed our original plans a bit and drove to Dallas on Thursday. Lee's Grandma Jean passed away Thursday afternoon. We stayed in Dallas for a couple of days to be with family and to celebrate Jean's life at her funeral.

Last night we drove to central Texas to spend a few days with Staci's parents.

We've enjoyed seeing friends and family, wide open spaces, driving 70 miles per hour, and even spent a little time fishing this evening after a Sunday afternoon nap.

We were thankful to get to spend a morning with Staci's parent's church and share with several people in their congregation our experiences from the past 7 months. This congregation has supported us faithfully, and we are thankful for them.

This week we're spending time in central Texas, as well as, an afternoon and evening in the Dallas area.

Thank You, La Croix UMC

This past week we had a team of 17 from La Croix UMC. They built school desks, repaired a glass cabinet, painted, lead school devotionals, repaired the food prep table in the main kitchen, and painted some more. We're thankful for all of their hardwork.

We dropped them off at the airport early this morning and found out a bit later that they are in fact still in the city. Their flight was cancelled and will be going home on various flights over the next two days. Would you join with us praying that the new iteneraries would see them home safely?

We were also blessed to have Mollie & Emily from Oregon spend their spring break here. They joined in on the work projects with the La Croix team.

Here's a picture of all 19



Lee helps to oversee all of the work projects with teams - and often helps out. This week, he was the welder.

Holy Week Continues

We promised pictures, we know, however, we haven't taken one this week. We'll steal a few from coworkers and post them when we can.

We had a sleepover in our apartment the other night. I think we both appreciate our parents and our friends' parents even more that did such things for us at that age. It went really well, but it still seemed to take quite a bit of energy to host 11 little boys. We were surprised when they all went to sleep by 11:30 - and even more suprised that they were up and ready to go at 6am!

Tomorrow will be our last afternoon of games - today's highlight was the tug-of-war in a mud pit. All members of each team were in the ditch.

During the evenings the kids are going through the "Journey to the Cross". There are 12 different stations set up that follow the gospel's account of Jesus during what we now call Holy Week. They seem to be enjoying it - you could join with us in praying that this time would be spiritually impacting.

Pictures to come....

Holy Week begins....

Yesterday at church instead of the "normal" service, they put on a production of the "Via Dolorosa" or what translates into "the painful way" It was a production that depicted the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It was a great way to begin Holy Week.

The kids do not have school this week, as with every other Holy Week. Today, thanks to the team from Lubbock that is visiting, the kids who rank well in the behavior system, about half the group, a few homeparents, and the two of us went to Auto Mariscos, a small waterpark. We had a great time, and we're very excited to report that we have no accidents of any kind. Just a few eyes that look very tired.

It's a tradition here at the children's home to have Holy Week Olympics. Each afternoon there will be a couple of hours of various games like a basketball shootout, various water relays, crab soccer tournament, 3 legged soccer, dodgeball tournament, and so on. We promise to be better about pictures so that you too can enjoy the festivities.

We mentioned having a team from Lubbock, TX earlier in the email. We are enjoying getting to know the 12 on the team, and are thankful for the help that have been and continue to be for us.

What are we doing?

So a few have asked, "now that you're at the children's home, what are you doing?"

We are learning more and more of how this children's home works and how our gifts and talents can be used here. Lee is helping to coordinate some work projects for upcoming teams, and helping to plan upcoming events for the kids. I (Staci) am helping with short term teams that are coming. specifically with the communication with team leaders - getting them the paperwork that they need and being sure that we have everything that we need on this end for teams. I'm also helping to plan a few upcoming events for the kids.

Next week, as you know, is Holy Week. The kids will not have school at all that week. It is a tradition here, to have "Holy Week Olympics" during the afternoons & sleep overs at night. What more could a kid want? So, recently we've met with small groups of kids who want to help us in dreaming up games & planning certain days. For instance, one day will be the day of food games. Ever tried make a plate of nachos by dropping the ingredients off the second floor to the plate that your team member is holding below? Or tried to eat an apple that is hanging in the air without using your hands? We'll post pictures next week.

Of course we are still adjusting to our 3rd place to live in 10 months. We are really enjoying our apartment here - it's quickly becoming our home. We'd ask that you'd continue to pray with us - not only for the adjustment of living in our new place, but the adjustment of working here as well.

A few of you already heard that we will be in the states in April. This is true - for various reasons we are making a short trip to Texas. We will post a schedule of places that we'll be on the blog in a week or so in hopes of seeing as many of you as possible.

Home, Sweet Home

We're writing from the children's home. We've written from here a few times over the past few months, but each of those times were only visits. Tomorrow we're not going back to Antigua, tomorrow we will not be attending language school because we finished!

This past Thursday we finished language school. Friday through today we attended a conference for missionaries in Guatemala. When the conference ended today we packed up, said adios to our host family and came to Villa Nueva.

We're super excited to be in our apartment. We still have a few things that we need to do to really live in the apartment,like getting dishes to eat off of and cups to drink out of. Those are minor details though.

4 more days!

4 more days of school is all we lack! You haven´t misread any of our previous posts. We had indeed planned on staying for 2 more weeks, however, we have decided to change our plans a bit. This Friday we will not attend school so that we can attend a conference with other missionaries. Both of us have been taught all of the spanish grammar, and at this point another week of school wouldn´t be that advantageous. By no means does that mean we are speaking great spanish, we speak decently, and using it more will help to better it. Thanks for praying for us as we´ve journied through language school. We´d ask you to pray for our last week of school and for us as we begin living at the children´s home.

Living in a different culture has provided many funny situations for us. The most recent of which was when we took Harvey, Lee´s current teacher and Staci´s former teacher out to lunch as a way of saying thanks for his help with our language skills. The food arrived to the table, and Harvey asked Lee if he´d like to pray. Lee begins the prayer by saying ¨Dios gracias para este dia¨ As soon as Lee said that Harvey interjects and says ¨por¨ meaning Lee should have said ¨Dios gracias por este dia¨ Harvey...always a teacher had to make sure that Lee´s prayer was gramatically perfect. For those of you who don´t know spanish both ¨por¨and ¨para¨translate to ¨for¨. There are specific reasons and situations for using one or the other. I don´t think either of us with misuse ¨por¨ in this situation again.

Becoming home...

This weekend we are spending a 4 day weekend at the children's home working our our apartment so that when we move here (in 3 weeks!) we will be able to move right into our apartment.

On Friday we headed out with Kendon and Wendy who graciously drove us around the city and lent us great wisdom and advice along the way. Before 2pm we had purchased a bed, a couch, loveseat and chair set, and a small dining room table that is now our coffee table. (Right now, Don, a retired high school shop teacher is here, he chopped the legs right off of that table and it now sits in between our living room furniture.) Daniel & Kara met us for a late lunch and then took us to Pricemart (much like a Sam's) where we picked up a few more things.

Saturday morning Lee left with Elmer, an employee here and Pablo a teenager who lives here to retrieve our furniture. A couple hours later they returned with all of the living room furniture in tow. They were also gracias to help Lee get it all up into our 3rd story apartment.

After the furniture was in place, we were able to borrow a vehicle and made our way to Hiper Paiz (much like a Wal-Mart) and found things like shower curtains, silverware, cleaning supplies, and a few kitchen essentials. There are still a few things that we need to get like plates, cups and a microwave - that will happen with time. It is such a good feeling to have accomplished all we did this weekend.

The Lord was really gracious to give us time with people who could haul us around and who knew what they were doing. We believe that we got great deals on the stuff that we purchased, and even have money left within our budget to purchase things that we still need.

Right now we're in the dry season which means a lot of dust, add that to the construction dust (we're the first people to live in our apartment) and you get one dusty place. Thanks to the use of Daniel & Kara's vacuum cleaner and several passes with the mop we're mostly dust free. We had time today to put stuff into cabinets - in short, we're excited to be here in 3 weeks.

This morning at church they celebrated their 29th anniversary. Upwards of 15,000 people joined together to celebrate such an event. They invited Marcos Witt, a big name in Latin countries to lead worship and preach. Afterwards we went to celebrate Esdras' birthday and enjoyed a yummy meal from Taco Bell.

So, tomorrow we leave to go back to Antigua and will finish out our last 3 weeks of school.

Sunday evening...

Thanks for the comment, Mital, we did have a fun little excursion this weekend!

This morning we met up with our friends Pat & Bill who are serving with an organization called Youth With a Mission (YWAM) for a couple of years. They live just a bit outside of Antigua and attend a small church about 2 kilometers from Antigua.

Now before you all laugh at the less than a mile a way adventure, let me just say that people around here consider 2 kilometers quite a distance. We've had several conversations with our host family about this topic - there kids attend a school that is between 1 and 2 kilometers away. When the new school year started a few weeks ago there was much discussion in the house about the bus routes and how one of the kids had to get up an extra 30 minutes early to catch the bus to take him 1 kilometer. We've tried to explain how we west Texans would drive 4 hours for a drink of water. We realize that is stretching it a bit as well, but our concept of distance and time is much different than ours. One night I told them that on several occasions my sister and I would each drive about an hour so that we could meet for dinner. They couldn't imagine doing that - both my sister and I just considered it a treat.

Ok, back to the days activities - we met up with Pat & Bill and had planned on taking a 5 minute bus ride to the church. There is a lot of construction going on right now, so we ended up walking to the church. It was a great walk, and nice to see new things. The church was small, and we'd describe the service as typical Guatemalan. Pat & Bill took us to see the YWAM base that we had heard about for sometime and then we came back and ate some delicious italian food for lunch.

We are looking forward to our last 4 weeks of school - it's hard to believe that we only have 4 weeks left! This Thursday we are planning on going back to the home and making a few purchases this weekend that will begin to make the apartment that we will live in our home. We'd ask you to pray for wisdom about our purchases, and that we could simply attain the things that we need.

Sorry in the delay of post in recent days, however, after many weeks of language school there just aren't too many new things to report on.

A week and a half ago we spent the weekend in Panajachel on Lake Atitlan. It was a nice break from Antigua. We had heard weather reports that said we should have had a cold and dreary weekend - instead, we got sunburns! There isn't too much to do in Panajachel. We enjoyed walking around the small town and along the shoreline of the lake. It was a great time away from the norm.

For sometime Lee has been wanting to climb Volcano Agua - a volcano that is just south of Antigua. Many travel agencies offer this trip, for a price of course, however, one day the local gym announced they would be taking a trip for about the half the cost so Lee signed up. This past Saturday morning Lee left the house at 6am part of a group of 36 people from various countries. After climbing to the top, the group cooked lunch in the crater, spent a few hours in the crater and then returned. He got back to the house about 7pm. Lee said that there wasn't anything quite like sharing your testimony in the crater of a volcano. He had a great day.

Staci spent the day hanging out with a couple of girls from the language school - and enjoyed a more low key day.

Thank you for continuing to pray with us and for us - we'd ask you to pray for those who we still have a chance to witness to in Antigua during our last few weeks of language school.

New Kiddos!

Today we received an email letting us know about 4 new siblings that were received into the children's home. You can go to the blog of our friends Daniel & Kara to see pictures.

8 weeks remaining - of language school, that is. Both of us have just about covered all of the grammar. We're looking forward to having several weeks to reinforce grammar rules that we did not learn very well the first time through, learning local slang words and expressions.

Today was the first day for us to spend with our new teachers. It's like a breath of fresh air to change teachers - it always gives us a new energy. Also, because each teacher teaches differently, it seems like each teacher brings something new to the table. Staci will for sure change again in 4 weeks because her current teacher has been reserved by a future student. Lee has the opportunity to change as well, but the teacher that Lee has now is spoken of as being one of the best, so he may choose to stay with him.

Anthony, the spring intern at the children's home has been studying in Antigua for 2 weeks - and will be here another 2 or 3 weeks before moving to the home. We've enjoyed getting to know him, and sharing meals together on Sundays.

We'd ask you to join with us for praying for our perseverance through language school. We're both begining to feel a little burned out.

The last time we wrote we were awaiting the arrival of Lee's mom and cousin. The did indeed arrive, we had a great time with them, and they have made it home safely.

We spent frist day and a half of their visit at the children's home. We wanted them to see where we will spend our next year and a half. Then on Sunday we left Villa Nueva for Antigua. Lee and I started classes on Wednesday so that we could spend Monday and Tuesday with Lee's mom and cousin, Cheri & Johny. On Monday we hiked Volcano Pacaya - this is an active volcano that we can see smoke during the day and the glow of red lava at night from the children's home. It was such a neat experience - one that we'd like to repeat someday. Tuesday we spent the morning at a coffee farm - Lee and I have been there before, however, it is coffee harvesting season - so it was a treat to get to see the havest in full swing. During the afternoons we walked around the city, looked at ruins, shopped a bit, a talked a lot. We were so thankful to see faces that we knew.

Wednesday we began our classes again - we're more than halfway through our projected time in language studies, and much more than halfway through the grammar. We'd ask for your prayers for our last stretch of school that will last until mid-March.

Here are a few pics from our time with Cheri & Johny:


This is Lee on the side of Volcano Pacaya - this is the highest point they'd let us go because of the volcanos activity. If you look closely you can see the glow of lava behind his left shoulder and above his head.


Just behind us and to the left looks like there is a ledge of sorts on the volcano - this is the highest point they let us go, and this is a vent that we can see glow red from the children's home each night.


All harvesting is done by hand at the coffee farm that we visited. Cheri, Johny and Lee pitched in and helped a bit with the harvesting.

Candle Light Dinner...

Happy Friday afternoon to you all.

We'd first like to say thanks for praying for Kara, she is feeling better. We'd ask you to pray for a full return of health to her body and that she'd be free from sickness.

We're having wind here that could rival a West Texas wind in the spring time. It's even dusty - a little taste of home, I suppose. On Wednesday night just before supper the electricity went out, we heard because of the strong winds this happened. So, we got candles out and had a candle light supper. The littlest guys thought it was way fun - even the older ones liked the change in pace. The electricity returned about 3 and a half hours later - after they were already in bed.

Yesterday we picked up a group from Pennsylvania from the airport. It was great to see those guys, the kids were super excited for their arrival as well. A funny little story of our trip to the airport... Two vehicles had to go because of the size of the group so we followed Daniel. Daniel was so kind to keep us in his sights as we don't know the roads yet. At one point a bus was in the lane to the left of us and we were in the far right lane. He decided it was his turn to be where we were, so he came over before we could get well enough out of his way we had a slight meeting of vehicles - the side of his bus to the driver's side mirror. Praise the Lord there is no damage, of course he didn't stop. We didn't stop either being able to see that nothing big happened.

That pretty much covers the happenings of the past few days...we're anxiously awaiting the arrival of Lee's mom and a cousin tonight - we just looked at the website and they look to be ontime right now.

Happy New Year!!

We hope that you have enjoyed the holidays with your family and that you are looking foward to a great 2008.

The past few days have continued to be really enjoyable here at the home. We've had lots of time to play with the kiddos, playing soccer and knockout have been some of their favorites. They are also enjoying playing with the new puppy.

For New Year's Eve we watched movies and ate cookies with the kids. Much like Christmas Eve at midnight the skies lit up with fireworks for a good 20 minutes. A small church meets next door and they were up until atleast 2:15 this morning.

For New Years we had a special lunch of turkey, rice, green beans and brownies. We were especially grateful to a few people who attend the same church as we do here that donated turkeys and cokes for lunch today.

We are very much looking foward to the arrival of Lee's mom and cousin and also a mission team from Pennsylvania. The group from Pennsylvania comes twice each year - the kids (and us) are looking foward to spending time with them.

We'd ask you all to join in praying for healing for our friend and co-worker, Kara, who is dealing with pneumonia for the second time in 3 months.

We are grateful to each of you that continue support and pray for us.