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