2010 has come in with a flurry of activities that have kept us on the run. The first week found Duane and Craig in the US at our home church (Destiny) for a missionary conference. They, along with Ryan and Katie, met lots of new friends and were refreshed. They returned home with a renewed vision and energy. Thank you Destiny Church!



The day after Duane and Craig returned, I left to go home for a few days to be with my Uncle Tom (who was like my grandfather) as he went home to be with the Lord. He was 94 and his death was peaceful. My family is small, my parents have both died, so it was good to be with my 2 sisters...even under the difficult circumstances. And to spend a few days with our grandson was wonderful!



As I returned to Guatemala, I was accompanied by our friend Bob Gay and later in the day by Pastor Phil and Kent Henry. Our pastor comes each year to encourage us and this year was no exception. Kent ministered especially to our children in times of sweet worship. It was wonderful and just what we needed to start the New Year off right.



Clinics have been busy but easier with the help of Hannah who has been here since Christmas. She passed her Physician Assistant Boards in December and is waiting for all of her license paperwork to be completed before she starts working at M.D. Anderson as part of a surgical oncology team. We are very proud of her accomplishment and grateful to the Lord for keeping her during that long and difficult process.



This year will hold many changes here with the birth of our two grandchildren in February. Katie Shaw (Aaron's wife) will give birth to Catherine Anna and Katie Ann (Ryan's wife) will have a baby boy - whom they have not yet named. And the best news is that Ryan and Katie will be joining us here in Guatemala in April for a 6 month visit which will hopefully extend to a permanent move. How good is God who has blessed us with the privilege of watching our grandchildren grow up near us! It is an answer to many years of prayer for me and I am so very grateful. We see this coming year as one of change in which we see the Lord expanding our "tent pegs" in many ways and we are excited as we wait upon Him. For we know that "those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." Isaiah 40:31. And that is our prayer for you in this new year...that as you wait upon Him, that your strength would be renewed to persevere in that to which He has called you.

Almost every evening, Duane and I try to take a walk with the girls. And every evening, we ask them the same question..."What color did God paint the sky for you tonight?" The sun setting over the mountains here is always beautiful but much of the time we are too busy to see it.

My prayer for you is that you will - amid all the busy-ness of the season - see the beauty in all of the gifts that God has given you. And most importantly that you will see the greatest gift that He has given...Jesus

In the ten years that we have been here, we have celebrated Christmas only once in the US. Because we live where we do, among the indigenous poor who do not really celebrate our biggest holiday, we have carved out our own traditions to celebrate the birth of our Savior. Finding a tree is quite the process...there are lots of pine trees here but to find one small enough to fit into our house and to find the owner of the property where that tree is growing to ask him for permission to cut one of his trees is always challenging. But we have a beautiful tree this year with all of our homemade ornaments. The little girls are having so much fun anticipating "Baby Jesus' birthday party". All of our children will be here this year except for Ryan, Katie and little Jacob. Katie is getting too close to the arrival date of their new little baby boy to travel this year. We will miss them terribly! Maybe next year....


Amid all of the Christmas anticipation in our home, we continue to work in clinics and on the corn project. Yesterday we did a clinic out in San Pedro (in the Zona Reina). It was closed in early in the morning so we waited until the clouds blew away enough for us to land and saw the 70-80 people that were waiting for us. Duane flew one woman into the hospital who was full term and had a very low placenta. She will be better off delivering in the hospital and amazingly, her family was all in agreement. It is so much better to have those ladies in a place where they, hopefully, can care for those complicated births. The day before yesterday (on our "Sabbath" day) we recieved a call from a village out in that same area. They were frantic with a woman in labor whose baby was "atravesado" (sideways). Duane and I flew out quickly with the ultrasound to find a woman in active labor with the umbilical cord hanging between her legs. Oh, how I wished that Heidi were here!! We hurried her off to the hospital in Quiche where we have heard that she is fine and her baby is alive - although in the ICU.

In other years we have had a small Christmas party for the children up in Chiminisijuan. This year we chose to use the money that we normally spend for apples and grapes (traditional Christmas food here) on food for the 60 widows that we are helping every 15 days. This along with the milk program that has almost tripled, and the families that we are helping with corn each month, is stretching out finances and our time to the max. We spend many hours each week bagging milk, beans, rice, sugar and oatmeal to give out in the weekly clinics. Craig, Tomas, Juan and Mario have spent hours walking in villages looking for families that we have seen in the clinics to assess their need. And Katie and Craig have spent so many hours organizing and getting corn out to areas of need. This week we ran out of milk with two days of clinic left in the week. We cannot really buy it locally so we prayed over the small supply that we had left, that God would multiply it as He did the loaves and fish. Amazingly, not one child left without his two week supply of milk...and we had absolutely not a drop left!! These are days when our faith is being stretched every single day! But we serve a faithful God who always supplies for our need!

Here are a few of the families that we (through the generous giving of people like you) are helping...

Ooops!

It was just brought to our attention that the Corn Blog link on our website here was not working. Please note that it is now in proper working order, and all you need to do is click on the picture to be brought to the latest news about the corn blog. Sorry about that!!

Thanksgiving....my very favorite holiday. What a great idea - a day set apart to give thanks to God for all the great gifts He has given us. Ours will be small this year. Rachel, Katie and Aaron left this morning to spend the holidays with Katie's family and Rachel will be with Hannah in Houston. Our friend Cali will join us tomorrow - and hopefully help me with the meal as all of the women have abandoned me!!

Late November and early December here in our area are the times of fiesta - first in San Andres and then here in Canilla. They are fiestas dedicated to the patron saints of each village and coincide with the end of the harvest. It is a week long celebration marked by drunkeness and sin of all kind. This year in San Andres, the witchdoctors are especially angry with the "evangelicos" who are cutting into their activities, as many who have become Christians will not participate. The municipal government typically pays a good portion toward the festivities but this year, the mayor (who is a Christian) has cut way back on contributions. The blame for the decrease is also blamed on the evangelicos - particularly the pastors. One of our good friends in San Andres came over the other night asking for prayer as his life, as well as those of his children have been threatened. His wife told us tearfully that their children have all moved out of their rooms to the backside of the house because they are afraid and cannot sleep at night. These are very real fears as with each fiesta there are often several dead at the end of the week. All of the men who have helped us on the corn project, are too afraid to go out this week, so we will resume next week. Please pray for the believers in San Andres; pray for their protection, pray that they will not be immobilized by fear; pray that the God of peace will invade their hearts and minds.

Home again...

Many months ago, the Lord began to lead me, in my quiet times with Him, to study our Hebrew roots. Jesus was a Jewish man, born of Jewish parents, in a Jewish culture. I began to understand that my Western church upbringing left me without a context to understand this man who I call my Savior. At the same time, I began to understand that Guatemala has a very different relationship with Israel than the US has. And I began to wonder how the two things were connected. My children, and my husband, thought I was a little crazy - as always. Then at the beginning of the year, out of the clear blue sky, we were offered a trip to Israel. We at first said no - that we were too busy here and we could not leave for 10 days. But as we prayed about it, we realized that this was a gift that God was offering us - and who wants to turn away a gift that the Lord hands to you?!


So, two weeks ago, Duane and I left Canilla and spent a couple of days helping Ryan (our son who lives in the US) to prepare a load of equipment which will be driven to Guatemala in December. It is mostly equipment that will help us more effectively manage the corn project - a grain bin, etc.

From Marine, we left with a group from Destiny Church and a church from Oklahoma (House of David) to arrive in Israel. Because we knew that this was a trip that the Lord had orchestrated, we felt a burden to be attentive to all that He wanted us to hear and understand. And while I am still processing much of our amazing experience there, I know a few things...

- I understand that we as gentile believers and as citizens of the United States, have a responsibility to stand with Israel. As we traveled into Sderot, a town bordering the Gaza strip, we began to understand in a very small part what the people are enduring there as the Palestinians have sent missiles into their town. We worked to help a dental clinic prepare to open, with the instructions that if the sirens sounded, that we had just a few seconds to get into the bomb shelter. We understood that we had little to worry about as the missiles were usually launched at 8 in the morning or around 3 in the afternoon because those were the times when the children would be going to or leaving school. We heard stories from people who had been in the Cast Lead conflict just a few months ago, men who were immobilized because the Palestinians would shoot at them from between the legs of old women or children. So we "pray for the peace of Jerusalem" (Psalm 122:6), remembering the promise of God to Abraham as he left his home to enter the land promised to him, that "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse." (Genesis 12:3).


- I have a new and very small revelation of the unity that Christ brings (Ephesians 2:11-22) - that "His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two..." (Jew and gentile). I understand that we as believers are eager to claim for ourselves all of the promises given to the children of Abraham, but not quite as eager to take up the responsibility that we have as brothers to a people that we do not quite understand.

It is a mystery to us that in a time when our hearts are so broken by the people here in Guatemala that the Lord would choose to open our eyes to yet another area of need. The only thing that we know for sure is that there is great power in prayer. And so we will stand "in the gap" for not just this nation but for our Jewish brothers and sisters - wherever they may be.

So, we are home and trying to get back into our routine. It was an amazing trip and we are so very thankful for the opportunity that was given to us. Our family all worked together to keep things going here and did a great job! God is certainly very, very good.

Chuchitos

For the last couple of weeks I have been feeling much like the disciples must have felt when Jesus told them to feed the 4 thousand. Matthew 8 records that when Jesus said he wanted to feed everyone before they left, his disciples said, "But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?" I have said just about those exact words to the Lord a thousand times in the last couple of weeks.

We have decided to concentrate our corn project to those areas which have been hardest hit by the drought. The last two weeks have been spent sending Juan out to various villages, talking directly to people in their homes. In some villages all of the corn plants died before they could make ears. In others, the yield was much smaller than normal. And since most have just finished harvesting, they have small amounts at the moment. The biggest need will come in the next few weeks when that small supply runs out. We have begun to distribute corn on a small scale to those most in need at the moment but are preparing for a much bigger distribution in the next few months.



But aside from the corn project, the amount of "viveras" (bags of beans, rice, oatmeal, sugar, soap) that we distribute in the clinics has more than quadrupled in the last month. Children who are in our nutrition program are weighed every 2 weeks so that we can make sure they are thriving and we are finding that many are not. When I talk to parents about how the milk and protein drink are meant to supplement their diet, not to supply all that they need, I find that there is no other food in the home. Many families are eating only once or twice a day now to make the corn supply stretch and there is no money to buy other food. So they are eating only tortillas - sometimes with salt.

I could write stories all day long of families who are living in circumstances that are beyond my imagination but I will share just one with you. We always give numbers in the clinics so that we can have some semblance of order and yesterday we had over 80 people waiting. They give out numbers early (around 5am) and again around 9am for those who cannot get to town any earlier. So people wait all day - literally. One little family - mom with a 3 month old, dad with the 2 year old and another child of about 5 waited until 3pm to be seen. All the food that I brought in the morning was gone. Every time I opened the door, I would see this man standing closest to the door, with his toddler resting in his arms. He was not pushy as so many are, he just waited. It is uncommon for dads to come, so I noticed him right away. When they came in, he just told me about his child who was not eating and about his wife who did not have enough breast milk for the baby. When I asked, he told me about how poor his harvest was this year and all he had was already gone. The little boy began to whimper and the dad stood up to try to quiet him, and in that moment I realized that this little boy had not eaten all day. I stepped into the shoes of this father for one brief moment and I thought my heart would break as I thought about one of my own children going without food all day and returning to a home without food. So I walked out of the clinic to buy food for them. I bought staples and a bag of "chuchitos" (little corn and bean patties that are sold for less than a nickle). As I handed him the bag of chuchitos, a small, brief smile crossed his face and he gave one to his son who stopped crying and filled his mouth as quickly as he could. So we loaded them up with what we had, and told them to return in 2 weeks.

And so I am like the disciples, looking at this huge need and wondering, how are we going to do this? But at the same time trusting in a God who is so much bigger than the need and One whom we know is kind and compassionate and who sees the need of His children. And we trust that He will supply.