Hello all!
For those of you who are/where following this blog, I want to inform you that I hope to start doing frequent updates again! Sorry for the silent spell, I am pretty bad about doing things like this! But I will try my best to keep posting regularly! So, be looking for updates! God bless you!
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Friday, June 12, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Break-In
Yesterday I went to Guatemala City to drop off a friend at the airport. I stayed the night there, because it had been a long week and I didn't feel up to driving another 3 hours. So I figured I would just settle in at a friend's house, and do some work I needed to catch up on, on my computer. So this morning at about 10, I got a phone call from a friend of mine, who lives up the road from my house, saying that he passed by twice this morning and my front door was open. "Hm, weird" I thought. I thought that it might be the owners doing some work at the house or something, so I called her and asked her if she knew if someone was working there. She said no, but that she would go and check it out. About 15 minutes later I got a call from her saying that my house had been broken into, and that the door to my bedroom had been pried open with a crowbar. So, I immediately packed up and headed back to Zacapa.
At about 1 p.m. I arrived home, and slowly checked out the damage. They had taken almost everything of worth out of my bedroom.. a camera, an iPod, two cell phones, the church's projector, memory sticks, a usb port, some cash, about $250 in change I had been saving for about 3 years, some Audio Bibles (I hope they use them!), and other things that I am slowly realizing is no longer here. They also took other things, that I'm not sure WHY.. about 5 bars of soap, my half used stick of deodorant, half a tube of toothpaste, some medicine, some tools, ect. The weirdest thing is that they even went downstairs to eat some bread, and dig around in the fridge, leaving it open. They even used the bathroom (number 2!) and left it there! So it almost seems like it was a couple of them.
They also either took my dog, a German Shephard, or they let him out, so as not to bother them when they were here. So I need to find a new guard dog!
Well, the only thing that can be done now, is pray for the theif(ves) and pray that this was their last job. May God touch their hearts, through the Audio Bibles, or someway, so that they can realize that the road they are on leads to suffering, but that there is a better road, one that leads to eternal life! There is hope, even for them. For the sinners came Christ!
I want to ask all of you for your prayers. Things are getting worse and worse, and each day is getting more dangerous, but that doesn't mean that the Word of God has to stop being spread. God can protect His own, and with your prayers, He will protect us! Pray for peace in my heart, that I can always remember the verse Matthew 10:28 - Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. God is my strong tower, and even if they take my things, I pray for strength to keep on keeping on. Christ suffered a lot more than I will ever suffer! So pray for strength to hold my head up high, and keep putting one foot in front of the other, in His love and care!! Thanks so much!
At about 1 p.m. I arrived home, and slowly checked out the damage. They had taken almost everything of worth out of my bedroom.. a camera, an iPod, two cell phones, the church's projector, memory sticks, a usb port, some cash, about $250 in change I had been saving for about 3 years, some Audio Bibles (I hope they use them!), and other things that I am slowly realizing is no longer here. They also took other things, that I'm not sure WHY.. about 5 bars of soap, my half used stick of deodorant, half a tube of toothpaste, some medicine, some tools, ect. The weirdest thing is that they even went downstairs to eat some bread, and dig around in the fridge, leaving it open. They even used the bathroom (number 2!) and left it there! So it almost seems like it was a couple of them.
They also either took my dog, a German Shephard, or they let him out, so as not to bother them when they were here. So I need to find a new guard dog!Well, the only thing that can be done now, is pray for the theif(ves) and pray that this was their last job. May God touch their hearts, through the Audio Bibles, or someway, so that they can realize that the road they are on leads to suffering, but that there is a better road, one that leads to eternal life! There is hope, even for them. For the sinners came Christ!
I want to ask all of you for your prayers. Things are getting worse and worse, and each day is getting more dangerous, but that doesn't mean that the Word of God has to stop being spread. God can protect His own, and with your prayers, He will protect us! Pray for peace in my heart, that I can always remember the verse Matthew 10:28 - Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. God is my strong tower, and even if they take my things, I pray for strength to keep on keeping on. Christ suffered a lot more than I will ever suffer! So pray for strength to hold my head up high, and keep putting one foot in front of the other, in His love and care!! Thanks so much!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Start of Juan Ponce Church Construction
On the week of April the 13th we took the first steps on the construction of the church in Juan Ponce, Zacapa. Praise God!! We have had a great couple weeks working out there! I love learning different ways to build and I love working alongside the locals! It's awesome. And a little sunshine is always good (even though I can't go 10 seconds without sweating when it's 100+ outside!). Thank God for the time, money, and stength to start the construction! We plan on building this church in phases, as the money comes in. The church members will be starting 
some fundraising and collections to get the local community helping with the cost of constuction as well.Our church has been visiting this village for many years now, but there as not been a building to gather in. Over all these years, all of the services have been held in a variety of homes. The people in this village are very down-to-earth and level-headed people. So it will be a joy to work with and help to organize the founding of an actual church organization and body, and be a part of what God has started, and is continuing to do here in this village.
Please pray for this church, this community, for the unity amonst the village people, that God provides funds and working hands to raise up this building as a place to worship, and to bring Christ to this community! I will post again on this when there are changes.You can see pictures from the construction so far, by clicking HERE.
There is a youth group coming down in June, mostly from NC, MN, and WA (lead by Scott Niemitalo and Jay Wirkkala). They will spend a couple days working on the construction of this church as well, so that will be fun! I will update ya'll on this as things advance.
April Updates
Hey! It has been a long time since I have written in this blog, so I am going to try to catch up with a few posts. I will make different posts for different subjects.
I want to thank anyone who has been praying for me and this ministry here in Guatemala. Prayer is our most powerful tool and many times we forget to use it, or forget the power there is in prayer. So I really thank those of you who remember to take time to pray. If you want specifics, you can look at my Prayer Request post a few months back.
Check back, because within the next few days I hope to make a few posts! Thanks!
I want to thank anyone who has been praying for me and this ministry here in Guatemala. Prayer is our most powerful tool and many times we forget to use it, or forget the power there is in prayer. So I really thank those of you who remember to take time to pray. If you want specifics, you can look at my Prayer Request post a few months back.
Check back, because within the next few days I hope to make a few posts! Thanks!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Sunday School Classes
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This entry is about our Sunday School classes in the Zacapa church. I just wanted to explain to anybody who is interested, what is going on, and how you can pray for us!
Our Sunday School class is Sunday morning at 9:30. Because of the fact that most of the kids live in a village 10 minutes from the church (in car), I go and pick them up for church. So once I have gone to the village to pick them up, we get to the church around 9:30. We start with all the kids together, we sing a few songs and say a prayer.. and then we split into the two age-groups.
We split the kids up into two groups, ages 0-9, and ages 10+. I am the teacher of the kids ages 10 and up, and Lynn Wirkkala and Doris Pinales are the teachers of the younger kids.
I usually have 7-12 students each Sunday.. mostly girls. It's really tough to get the guys to come, because here it's all about being a "tough guy"! The boys usually come until they get to about 7 or 8 years old, and then they would rather stay home and shoot their sling shots, or something "men" do. So it's really a cultural thing, and we need to try to change that! So hopefully with prayer and invitations, some older boys can start coming to class too. By the way, the same problem exists with the youth too. And even with the adult men and parents! So our church really has a lack of men in general.. pray for that!
My classroom is set up with two rectangle tables pushed together, to form a box, with me and the students sitting around it. That setup has worked really well for me.
Here is what we do each Sunday: First, we start with a prayer, with everyone holding hands in a circle (to encourage unity and working together as one). After that, each kid takes turns saying his/her memory verse from the week before. Once they have all had their turn, I write the new one on the white-board. They all copy the verse into a notebook that I got for them, and they bring the notebook home to study the verse. I am hoping that by bringing the notebook every Sunday, it helps them to get into the habit of bringing something to church, and hopefully that habit will help them to bring their Bibles in a future years! Some already do bring their Bible!. After the memory verse, we do a quick review of the story/lesson we learned the week before.
After the review, we go into the new lesson for the week. Usually, I base each lesson on a certain theme, and we cover that theme for a few weeks, using different Bible stories and verses from the Bible to help them to better understand. In the classroom I have a bunch of Bibles, so each lesson, the kids each grab one and look up the place where we are reading. Then, we go around the table, and each kid reads a verse or two, depending on the length of the story. This has REALLY helped them to open up a little, as well as learn how to use the Bible, and search for different passages.. I think that is really going to help them in the future. Even though some of the kids don't read very well, almost always they will try to push the verse out.. and once in a while there is a kid who can't read at all, which is fine! They just listen. And that is also where the visual really helps them.
After the reading of the Bible, I try to always do something hand's-on, or visual (I have a white-board in my room, so I use that to draw or to explain things). Here in Guatemala, and I believe in most parts of the world, including the US, the kids learn best through visual and hands on lessons. So I try to involve something like that in each lesson. I have used rocks, play-doe, branches, dirt, flower seeds, and a bunch of other things, just to have them touch and feel and to try to make the lesson a little more real to them. I find this is the best way to help the kids to learn.. and I think this method could be used even in the States, with great success! Kids DO learn best, hands-on. Of coarse there are always a few kids who still find it hard to pay attention and to really grasp the lesson, but I understand, seeing what kind of background and households that they come from. Most of their families really lack education, discipline, love, and Christian example. So, Lord willing, God can use us as a church to work in their lives and help them to be different, and new creations in Christ Jesus! May God work in each of their lives and hearts..
We end the class with everyone holding hands in a circle again, and this time, everyone takes their turn praying! This is where I have seen a huge change in the students. When we first started with the two different age groups, NONE of the kids in my class dared to pray out loud, saying "I don't know how", or "I can't pray". But now, PRAISE GOD, 90% of them do, and their prayers are AMAZING! Prayers for things like "help us not to fall into temptation", and "help us to be lights in school"! So they have come a long ways, in this aspect of the class.. and thank you LORD for that!
After class ends, we all go upstairs to be in the church service at 10:30.
On Monday nights of every other week, we are doing activities in the church with my class. We usually have a few songs, prayer, and then just fun stuff like games (with a Bible lesson tied in), cleanup, or whatever! The purpose is to build friendships and let them have some fun in church as well.
Every Sunday we do attendance. After about 3 months of taking attendance, whoever misses 3 Sundays or less, I take them on a special trip as a treat (we usually go to the pool, or water park.. something they NEVER do otherwise), and that encourages them to come every Sunday. So that has been great for them. Now, after almost a year of doing it this way, I know that all of the kids would come to class, whether we went on a trip like this or not, but it was a good way to get them into the rhythm of coming to church every Sunday (although it's still a little random attendance by a few). But we still do the outings because it is great for the kids to go out and enjoy some things they could never do otherwise, and it also helps to build relationships and friendships amongst their fellow church mates, on a personal and friendly level, not just on a 'at church' level. If you get what I mean.... :)
Our biggest problem with the kids is that 90% of their parents don't come to church! So we have a ton of kids, but no parents to watch them and keep them in line... at times it gets a little cRaZy! For the most part, the older class sits alright in the church service, but with the little kids, it's tough to get them to sit still.. again, understandable considering their upbringing and malnutrition. So please pray for God to work through us, and through the kids, to bring the parents to church as well! If all the parents came too, that would greatly increase the number of members in our church! It would be amazing. Lord willing, some day it will be like that!
As I mentioned in my YOUTH GROUP post, we are just starting to train and work in the youth group into teaching the Sunday School. They are all really anxious to start helping and serving the church in that way! So we had our first meeting with them last week, and laid down some ground rules and regulations. All agreed, and so we will be starting to work them into our scheduling starting this week! They will each go through a few sundays with the current teachers, learning from us how we do it, and then, Lord willing, help to teach soon! With more heads and brains, we will get all kinds of fresh ideas and energy in the classrooms, which I believe will help the kids to want to come and listen and learn! So pray for the youth and their involvement as well!
We are also currently ripping down all the old stucco from the walls of the sunday school room in the basement of the church. It has been repainted about 30 times over the years, and now each time it is painted, the paint starts peeling and falling off within a few weeks, and the stucco was slowly falling off too.. So we decided to take it all off (it's a tough job!), and then re-stucco the walls, and repaint, to create a fresh, new atmosphere for the kids.
We also hope to use the freshly re-done room for youth group, and HOPEFULLY furnish it with some decent chairs and maybe even a couch, to make it more embracing and homey :o) It will be great to have a room set aside for the youth like that, were we can have a white board for teaching, a tac-board for announcements and schedules, and tables for gatherings and meetings or whatever. I can't wait!
So, there you have it! That's where we are at with the kids in our church. Thanks for caring and reading until the end of this huge post! Please pray for the kids, that God would really work in their hearts to help them understand, behave, and WANT to keep coming and learning, and even work in the church in the near future! It's a blessing to work with them, and I love them all to pieces.. gracias.
.
This entry is about our Sunday School classes in the Zacapa church. I just wanted to explain to anybody who is interested, what is going on, and how you can pray for us!
Our Sunday School class is Sunday morning at 9:30. Because of the fact that most of the kids live in a village 10 minutes from the church (in car), I go and pick them up for church. So once I have gone to the village to pick them up, we get to the church around 9:30. We start with all the kids together, we sing a few songs and say a prayer.. and then we split into the two age-groups.
We split the kids up into two groups, ages 0-9, and ages 10+. I am the teacher of the kids ages 10 and up, and Lynn Wirkkala and Doris Pinales are the teachers of the younger kids.
I usually have 7-12 students each Sunday.. mostly girls. It's really tough to get the guys to come, because here it's all about being a "tough guy"! The boys usually come until they get to about 7 or 8 years old, and then they would rather stay home and shoot their sling shots, or something "men" do. So it's really a cultural thing, and we need to try to change that! So hopefully with prayer and invitations, some older boys can start coming to class too. By the way, the same problem exists with the youth too. And even with the adult men and parents! So our church really has a lack of men in general.. pray for that!
My classroom is set up with two rectangle tables pushed together, to form a box, with me and the students sitting around it. That setup has worked really well for me.
Here is what we do each Sunday: First, we start with a prayer, with everyone holding hands in a circle (to encourage unity and working together as one). After that, each kid takes turns saying his/her memory verse from the week before. Once they have all had their turn, I write the new one on the white-board. They all copy the verse into a notebook that I got for them, and they bring the notebook home to study the verse. I am hoping that by bringing the notebook every Sunday, it helps them to get into the habit of bringing something to church, and hopefully that habit will help them to bring their Bibles in a future years! Some already do bring their Bible!. After the memory verse, we do a quick review of the story/lesson we learned the week before.
After the review, we go into the new lesson for the week. Usually, I base each lesson on a certain theme, and we cover that theme for a few weeks, using different Bible stories and verses from the Bible to help them to better understand. In the classroom I have a bunch of Bibles, so each lesson, the kids each grab one and look up the place where we are reading. Then, we go around the table, and each kid reads a verse or two, depending on the length of the story. This has REALLY helped them to open up a little, as well as learn how to use the Bible, and search for different passages.. I think that is really going to help them in the future. Even though some of the kids don't read very well, almost always they will try to push the verse out.. and once in a while there is a kid who can't read at all, which is fine! They just listen. And that is also where the visual really helps them.
After the reading of the Bible, I try to always do something hand's-on, or visual (I have a white-board in my room, so I use that to draw or to explain things). Here in Guatemala, and I believe in most parts of the world, including the US, the kids learn best through visual and hands on lessons. So I try to involve something like that in each lesson. I have used rocks, play-doe, branches, dirt, flower seeds, and a bunch of other things, just to have them touch and feel and to try to make the lesson a little more real to them. I find this is the best way to help the kids to learn.. and I think this method could be used even in the States, with great success! Kids DO learn best, hands-on. Of coarse there are always a few kids who still find it hard to pay attention and to really grasp the lesson, but I understand, seeing what kind of background and households that they come from. Most of their families really lack education, discipline, love, and Christian example. So, Lord willing, God can use us as a church to work in their lives and help them to be different, and new creations in Christ Jesus! May God work in each of their lives and hearts..
We end the class with everyone holding hands in a circle again, and this time, everyone takes their turn praying! This is where I have seen a huge change in the students. When we first started with the two different age groups, NONE of the kids in my class dared to pray out loud, saying "I don't know how", or "I can't pray". But now, PRAISE GOD, 90% of them do, and their prayers are AMAZING! Prayers for things like "help us not to fall into temptation", and "help us to be lights in school"! So they have come a long ways, in this aspect of the class.. and thank you LORD for that!
After class ends, we all go upstairs to be in the church service at 10:30.
On Monday nights of every other week, we are doing activities in the church with my class. We usually have a few songs, prayer, and then just fun stuff like games (with a Bible lesson tied in), cleanup, or whatever! The purpose is to build friendships and let them have some fun in church as well.
Every Sunday we do attendance. After about 3 months of taking attendance, whoever misses 3 Sundays or less, I take them on a special trip as a treat (we usually go to the pool, or water park.. something they NEVER do otherwise), and that encourages them to come every Sunday. So that has been great for them. Now, after almost a year of doing it this way, I know that all of the kids would come to class, whether we went on a trip like this or not, but it was a good way to get them into the rhythm of coming to church every Sunday (although it's still a little random attendance by a few). But we still do the outings because it is great for the kids to go out and enjoy some things they could never do otherwise, and it also helps to build relationships and friendships amongst their fellow church mates, on a personal and friendly level, not just on a 'at church' level. If you get what I mean.... :)
Our biggest problem with the kids is that 90% of their parents don't come to church! So we have a ton of kids, but no parents to watch them and keep them in line... at times it gets a little cRaZy! For the most part, the older class sits alright in the church service, but with the little kids, it's tough to get them to sit still.. again, understandable considering their upbringing and malnutrition. So please pray for God to work through us, and through the kids, to bring the parents to church as well! If all the parents came too, that would greatly increase the number of members in our church! It would be amazing. Lord willing, some day it will be like that!As I mentioned in my YOUTH GROUP post, we are just starting to train and work in the youth group into teaching the Sunday School. They are all really anxious to start helping and serving the church in that way! So we had our first meeting with them last week, and laid down some ground rules and regulations. All agreed, and so we will be starting to work them into our scheduling starting this week! They will each go through a few sundays with the current teachers, learning from us how we do it, and then, Lord willing, help to teach soon! With more heads and brains, we will get all kinds of fresh ideas and energy in the classrooms, which I believe will help the kids to want to come and listen and learn! So pray for the youth and their involvement as well!
We are also currently ripping down all the old stucco from the walls of the sunday school room in the basement of the church. It has been repainted about 30 times over the years, and now each time it is painted, the paint starts peeling and falling off within a few weeks, and the stucco was slowly falling off too.. So we decided to take it all off (it's a tough job!), and then re-stucco the walls, and repaint, to create a fresh, new atmosphere for the kids.We also hope to use the freshly re-done room for youth group, and HOPEFULLY furnish it with some decent chairs and maybe even a couch, to make it more embracing and homey :o) It will be great to have a room set aside for the youth like that, were we can have a white board for teaching, a tac-board for announcements and schedules, and tables for gatherings and meetings or whatever. I can't wait!
So, there you have it! That's where we are at with the kids in our church. Thanks for caring and reading until the end of this huge post! Please pray for the kids, that God would really work in their hearts to help them understand, behave, and WANT to keep coming and learning, and even work in the church in the near future! It's a blessing to work with them, and I love them all to pieces.. gracias.
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