Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Guatemala, part 2

Here's another installment of the Guatemala pictures. I'll have at least two more.
Here's a couple of the guys in this mototaxi. I rode this a couple of times. They are a lot of fun. I rode something similar when I went to Peru.
Another plate of Guatemalan joy. This is seafood. We were far from the coast but this was really great.
Here is a couple I saw selling these woven clothes and materials in the market. I ended up buying some things from them. They were what they call napkins to wrap their tortillas in but they can be used as tablecloths or placemats. They have some really beautiful things there.
Here's me with my friend's family. They are family of a Guatemalan friend that I know here in St. Joe. It's a small world. I had their contact info and was able to visit them a few times and that was nice.
Here is a Tortilleria, or a place where they make tortillas.

This first picture is me with Pastor David to my left and Rony (our guide and driver) to my right. Both of these guys were great.
Here is our team, from left to right, James, Bradshaw, me, Brandon, Jordan, Rony and Adam.
These next couple of pictures are of some buildings in downtown Santa Cruz.
This is one of my favorite pics from the trip and it shows part of the City Hall and the main Catholic Church there.
Bananas, these were very sweet like the ones we had in Ecuador.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

recent pics and Guatemala pics, part 1

Here are some recent pictures and some pictures from the Guatemala trip. Sorry it has taken a while to get these Guatemala ones on.
These first two pics were taken at the Rangers-Royals game the other night, a game that my Rangers won 2-0. The 2nd picture here is of Josh Hamilton.

I had this little visitor come to the church office earlier this week.
Well, it's been a month since I left for Guatemala. We had a great trip. We mostly did evangelism but a few other projects as well. We worked with kids, did some touring and I did a Sunday school training. We mainly worked with a local church there that was a ton of help.
This picture was taken of the city from the top of our hotel. We went to Santa Cruz del Quiche.
This is a street scene in Santa Cruz.
Another one taken from the top of the hotel of a foggy morning. Things like this and many other things reminded me of Ecuador.
Here's some ladies walking down the street, carrying things on their heads. We saw a lot of this and that was quite interesting.
This and the rest of the pictures were taken in a area on the edge of town called El Ensueno. This is an area that the church we are working with are hoping to start a church. There used to be a church that met there but then closed. The church we worked with has been going out there for a kid's project and we helped with that, did some visitation and had a couple of evangelistic meetings out there. I ask you to pray for the church we worked with as they continue in their work and pray especially for Barrio El Ensueno.
Here is a picture of some kids taken during our project w/ the kids.
This is a plate of pure Guatemalan joy. Guatemalan food is fairly similar to Mexican food and I'm talking real Mexican food, not Tex-Mex. It is still unique from Mexican, though. It is different from Ecuadorian. We ate very well on this trip. What is shown here is grilled meat, tortillas, black beans, guacamole, and a baked potato w/ cheese. We ended up making tacos w/ the various ingredients. I think this is the best meal I had while there.
Here's a guy going off to work in the fields or returning from there.
Now, if you ladies think you have it rough cooking- just look at this. This lady was cooking on a comal over coals. She was cooking some handmade tortillas and frying fish.
Here is a cornfield. Corn is the main staple in Guatemala and we saw cornfields everywhere and we ate a ton of delicious corn tortillas.
Well, I guess this is all for now. I still have quite a few Guatemala pics to put on, so stay posted for those and keep praying for the ministry here and in Guatemala.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

recent cell phone pics-May- July

Following are some random pictures taken on my cell phone over the last couple of months. I hope you enjoy them. As I post these, I wanted to let you all know that we had the baptism service today and it went really well. We had a lot of visitors and it was a very special time. Thanks for your prayers. Just pray that God will continue to bless us.
This was taken at Evan's bday celebration at our church.
Here was Evan's first fishing trip. Too bad we didn't catch anything that day.
Didn't catch anything that day but was able to see this beautiful sunset.
This was taken at Arthur Bryant's in Kansas City. It is the best KC bbq that I have had yet. If you are in the KC area, it is well worth your time to go there. There's also a local place here in St. Joe, called Spanky & Buckwheat's that is well worth a visit as well.
Evan is beginning to use his spoon.
Evan got in a fight with some food and the food won.
This was taken of the San Diego Chicken, who came to a local game of the St. Joe Mustangs- a local college wood bat team. This was the first year for the Mustangs and they had a good year. I ended up going to three games.
I took this one of Evan and it came out kind of distorted and interesting-looking.
Here's Evan and Christine.
This was taken on Evan's first camping trip. We went a few weeks ago w/ my in-laws and had a great time. I got to go fishing as well and did all right.
Here is Evan getting out of the space under the sink. He was crawling up in there one day and I got this picture. As you can imagine, he likes to get into everything.
Here's the little guy. He is such a happy boy.
Here he is with a couple of other kids at church.
I got this picture the other day of a storm that was moving in. It was really beautiful to see.
I took this one of Evan on the swing the other day when we went to the park.
Well, I guess this is all for now. I hope to start getting some Guatemala pics on in the next couple of days.

Thursday, July 09, 2009

back from Guatemala

This is just a short note to let you all know that I've made it back from Guatemala. I've actually been back a few days. We had a great trip and I really want to thank you all for praying for our time there. I will have to post some pics and let you all know more about it later on. For now, I just had some videos that I wanted to post. These were all taken before my trip. I hope you enjoy them.




As I close I want to ask you to pray for the church that we worked with in Guatemala. Pray that they will continue to reach out to their community. The name of their church is Pueblo de Dios. Pray for Pastor David DeJesus and his family as well. They are wanting to start a new church in an area called El Ensueno on the edge of town and I ask you to pray for them in that as well. Pray for the 6 folks that made decisions to follow Christ during our time there. We also ask you to pray for others that are still considering decisions to follow Christ. I guess this is all for now but I will share pics and more details from the trip later on.