With school out this week for Easter, our schedule has changed a bit, and here are some of the highlights:

Clara is a girl who grew up at Casa Shalom along with her brother and sister, and Yuli use to be her teacher.  She’s now living on her own, and we’ve had her stay with us in the past.  Unfortunately Clara got pregnant last fall, and the dad doesn’t want to help out.  But we’re happy that she gave birth to a healthy girl last week, and on Friday we were able to bring her siblings over to see her and meet their new niece.

Carlos, Clara and Flora with Clara’s new baby

After the death of their mom, Clara took over the role with Flora and Carlos.  Young, unwed pregnancies are a huge problem in Guatemala, and it’s sad to see Clara in the same situation.  Earlier this year were hoping to get her enrolled in school this year because she only needs one more year to finish high school. We would appreciate your prayers for Clara and her new baby.  We’ve given her some baby supplies, and we’re praying about how else we can best help her out.

Then last weekend we had our friend and fellow missionary Elizabeth stay with us.  She works with Yuli’s sister at another orphanage called La Senda. We had a big sleep over with a bunch of Yuli’s family and enjoyed each other’s company. We also met up with Santos and José (the boys we’re sending to school) and helped them with some school projects.

Guatemala has a bunch of traditions for Holy Week, and my favorite is the foods!  On Wednesday I drove with Yuli’s dad over to his hometown of San Cristobal, Totonicapan.  It’s about 3 hours away, and every year her dad likes to visit there in order to buy a special bread from there.  This year the date fell right on his birthday, and his brother and sister and two grandkids joined us for the journey. I got to meet a bunch more family, and they gave us a wonderful lunch of ribs and Guatemalan sausages. The highlight was definitely that I got to see where they grew up, and it also let me spend a really fun day together with my father-in-law.

Yuli’s father, aunt and uncle in front of their old house

So on Thursday morning we ate the bread with hot chocolate, and lunch was a chicken and vegetable dish.  Today we had a fish dinner. It was all fabulous! But the weirdest thing I ate was a sweet syrup made with garbanzo beans. (not one of my favorites)

This weekend we’re having our buddy Edwin over again to stay with us for Easter, and then on Monday it’s back to Casa Shalom!

Can you feel the excitement???

The seasons in Guatemala are very different than in the USA. There are basically just two here: the rainy season and the dry season. The rainy season starts in May and goes until October. Because the rain and the clouds keep the temperature cooler, they call it winter. The rest of the year is called summer. So even though we’re still in the northern hemisphere, the season names are swapped!

This week is Holy Week, and the kids all get off from school for it. Also, because it’s one of the final weeks before the rainy season starts and cools the temperature down, this week is especially referred to as summer. Throughout the year, the temperature doesn’t change that much, though. (the highs during their winter average around 70 degrees, while the highs currently are around 85 degrees)

The kids at Casa Shalom were ultra excited yesterday to be starting their “summer” vacation. Some get the chance to spend the week with their family, while the rest of the children are visiting a few supporting churches in Guatemala and are also going to the beach for a few days.

I encourage you to read this page and pray for the Freed family.  They serve here in Guatemala and help orphanages all over the country, including Casa Shalom. The adoption system here is so messed up, and it’s heartbreaking to see things like this happen.

• Shyanne’s Story

Edwin turned 15 in March, and Alejandro turns 15 in May. So we brought both over to our place for the weekend to celebrate their birthdays.  Neither one has any siblings at Casa Shalom or family that visits them, and so we wanted them to have a special time with us.

If you haven’t noticed, we celebrate a lot of birthdays!  But we feel that it’s so important that each kid comes to know how special they are to God. Like David wrote in Psalm 139:13-16, He created each one of them and has a plan for each one of them.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Yuli’s family has also been such a huge help and blessing with these celebrations.  Veronica was their teacher before and enjoys hanging out with them.  And Yuli’s nephews Christian and Manuel had a great time playing soccer and goofing off with them.

Most of the children at Casa Shalom are not “true” orphans because they still have some connection to their family. But they are at the home because of poverty, abandonment, or death of their parents.  So the last Sunday of every month is visitor Sunday where their families can come see them.  We have a short church service in the morning, and then they spend time together, typically eating a picnic lunch that their families brought them.  It’s a great way to keep the kids connected to their families.

Unfortunately, this day is not so fun for the kids who don’t have any family or whose family doesn’t come to visit. We’ve made a decision to come every visiter Sunday to hang out with those kids.  Yuli makes a bunch of sandwiches for them and we play games together all afternoon.  Here’s a picture from this Sunday.

Our message to them is simple: “No matter if it feels like everyone who should love you has abandoned you, God hasn’t forgotten you or abandoned you. He loves you and cares for you, and He sent us to show His love for you.”

We enjoyed having Alex stay with us last month that we brought him back with us this past weekend to stay with us. Here’s a picture of him playing with our nephew Jorge Pablo on Saturday.

We would appreciate you praying for Alex as he gets sick very frequently.  He’s gone through a bunch of tests to make sure that he’s ok, and so far they haven’t found anything wrong with him.  They’re also concerned because he hasn’t grown at all in the past year. It’s a little harder to know because he has no parental history.

Alex is such a joy to have in our house with us, and it’s a blessing to get to minister to kids like him!

After our trip to the Mexican border and two trips to the DMV, we were finally able to receive our Guatemalan license plates on Friday!

These last two days I had to return to Guatemala’s border with Mexico in order to visit the customs office to submit the paperwork to import our car.  There always seems to be weird complications here whenever we have to apply for things like this, and I sometimes get confused with the Spanish technical terms that I don’t understand.  So I was a little nervous about the whole trip.  But fortunately we were able to finish everything and the application was accepted.  Now we just have to visit an office in Guatemala City to pick up the new license plates next week.

Benjamin joined me for the trip, and we had a great time talking all along the 5 hour drive to the border.  He’s been spending more and more time with us lately, and this was another chance to have some great conversations with him. We talked about past memories and adventures, the faithfulness of God through everything, and our hopes for the future. He’s quickly becoming one of my best friends (although I’ve already known him for 7 years) and I look forward to each chance that we get to spend together.

My first introduction to being a missionary in Guatemala was working with Tom and Elizabeth Allan at their ministry called Hearts for the Children.  I learned so much as I lived with them and worked beside them.  I think that the most important thing that I learned from them was a truly God-given love for the people of Guatemala and a desire to help the Guatemalans in whatever way necessary in order to share the love of Christ with them.  This summer will be 10 years since I first came here and started working with the Allans, and it was great to be at their new church dedication on Sunday.  Ever since I started working with them they’ve had their church services under a tent, but they’ve been praying for many years for a permanent church building.  So it was a great blessing to praise God for the building and asking Him to bless their ministry through it.

About a month has pasted since our last visit to see Celia, Ana Lidia and Marcelino, and so we returned to see how they were doing.  We spent Saturday talking to the family, looking at all that they’re learning in school, eating a lunch that Yuli had prepared for everyone, and giving them some clothes.  Yuli’s family gathered together a bunch of old shirts and dresses that her niece use to wear but has outgrown.  The girls, including their older sister Estela, were very excited to get them!

We’re praying a lot that God guide us about how to best help them. We enjoy spending time with the kids a lot, and time always flies by when we’re with them.  They live in a remote area, and so their school is very small.  Each teacher teaches two grades, and so Celia in fourth is in the same room as her brother Marcelino who’s in first grade.  Celia loves math, and she’s frustrated that all that she’s learned this year is how to write the ordinal numbers (first, second, third…).  So we’re going to look for a good math book to give her so she can continue to learn on her own. The other difficulty is that the standard of living was much nicer at Casa Shalom than it is there with her family.  The block house behind us in the pictures is a two-room house that her family is building, and they currently live in a bamboo house.  It’s hard for kids to get use to using outhouses again!  We’re praying about what’s best for the whole family and how we can help.

Ana Lidia’s excited about her new shirt

Celia & Ana looking at a dress

Hanging out with Brent

Hanging out with Yuli