Cruz Chich

This has been a really busy month with lots of visitors. As the last group left, we did too. We spent a couple of days resting with our daughter Hannah and her husband Matt in Costa Rica. It was just what we needed! Hannah had a continuing education course that she needed to take and we couldn't miss the opportunity to see them when they were so close! I am including the post that I wrote and never sent before we left. We were so thankful for all the help from the Destiny team! "In the fullness of time" was the phrase that kept going through my mind as we climbed up to Cruz Chich yesterday. Cruz Chich is a large village at the top of the mountain that I have prayed for for many years now. I have always asked that Lord to open a door into that community as we have felt that it is an area in great need. It is on the outermost edge of the township of Joyaba but closer to us here in Canilla so we often see folks from this community in our Saturday clinic here. And although it is a good sized village of about 5,ooo, it has been neglected. There is very little government help there, no government clinic, they are just now building a school, and only recently have electricity. Three weeks ago we met with the community leaders to ask if we could bring a large medical team in December. They responded that they would not only welcome the team but asked if we could start monthly clinics there. So yesterday we went for the first time with the help of the team that has been here all week from Destiny Church. I expected to see only a few patients but was surprised by the well organized reception of the community and we saw 120 people. The village is very strongly Catholic - there is only one very small congregation of evangelical Christians - so I was unsure how our request to speak to the people about salvation would be received but they were very open and receptive. We prayed with many people...planting seeds and we pray that the Lord of the harvest brings many out of the darkness into the Light! Please pray for David and Aaron as they are in the US preparing a load of equipment to be brought down in the next month or so. Joseph will go to help as well this week. They will load two tractor trailers of donated equipment and drive them to the Mexican border where our friend Martin from here in Guatemala will meet them. He will drive the loads through Mexico as we have been advised that it is not safe for us to make that trip. We are so grateful to those who have donated this equipment and have been talking and planning for months about how to make all of this happen. It is a huge undertaking to get two tractor trailers...and to get them loaded and down the road safely. We are sorry that we cannot get our blogger to put this post in paragraph format! So, you can put in the paragraphs wherever you see fit :)