Edwin and his sister Jennifer joined us for Christmas, so we had 4 staying with us for the holiday. Christmas is celebrated very differently here in Guatemala compared to the United States. I think that the majority of Americans sing “Silent Night” by candlelight. But here they celebrate Jesus’ birth with LOTS of fireworks! At dusk on Christmas Eve people build small fires in front of their houses and sit around it to chat. At midnight the skies light up and group trembles as an impressive number of fireworks are lit. Then hugs are given to everyone in sight, and everyone goes inside to eat tamales. Afterwards people stay up to talk and goof off until they’re too tired to stay awake any longer. Christmas day they just sleep in then eat more tamales!
Yuli’s family is fabulous, and they had all of us over for the celebration. It touches my heart so deeply that we invited these guys to stay with us because they didn’t have a place to go, and her family welcomes them over and they quickly feel part of the family. I’m so grateful to my in-laws for their love and generosity. New Year’s Eve is just a week away, and everyone’s been invited back again!
A ferris wheel was setup in the center of town that we visited this evening:
Celia and her family came over to our house today for a Christmas party. We’ve been able to visit them at their house through out the year, and we felt that it was time to bring them over to our house. Some fellow workers from Casa Shalom also came to see how the kids were doing, and it was so much fun to have everyone together!
One lady who came to see Celia and her family is Beatriz. She is one of the sweetest ladies that I know! She has children and grandchildren in the United States, and could easily be there with them. But instead she works as a house mother at Casa Shalom and cares for the children. She was Celia’s house mom for years, and so she was excited to come over to see how she’s doing.
Beatriz is also the one who found out about and enrolled Elias in his high school. And she’s working with Benjamin trying to look for employment once he finishes his final high school class. So she was excited to visit us and see how they were doing. Finally, she’s a great friend for my wife, and we’ve been very blessed to have her in our lives!
Elias moved out of Casa Shalom to now live with us! Already almost two weeks have passed, but we’ve been really busy getting him moved in and adjusting to the changes. So I’m finally writing about it. We’re so excited to have him here with us, but even though he’s an adult it feels like a big responsibility.
His Brother Benjamin is also staying with us for the Christmas holiday. All the kids at Casa Shalom leave to stay with different families for Christmas in order to give the workers a chance to visit their own families. So Benjamin is staying with us, and it’s a lot of fun to have him here with his brother!
We’ve been in the USA for the past three weeks, and now we’re back home in Guatemala. It’s been great to get a chance to visit my family and has really been refreshing! It has also been a lot of fun to have Yuli’s niece Heidy travel with us.
Elias, the first of the guys, will be moving in with us on Monday. We’re very excited to have him come live with us, but it will be a busy time of adjustment. We also need to find a desk and a dresser for him.
We’ll be talking to the other two guys, Benjamin and Cesar, these next few weeks and making plans with them.
Christmas is coming, and we hope to have Edwin and his sister Jennifer stay with us for a few days to celebrate together.
Our second wedding anniversary is on the 26th, and we’re going to get away for a little while to celebrate. Pray that we continue to spend the needed time together as a couple as our house gets more crowded!
We would like to be fully funded for this coming year as more guys come to live with us.
We also have a December newsletter that you can read here.
Thank you so much for your prayers for us this past month! We are very grateful for all of the prayers and support that we’ve received. It’s such an exciting time for us as we start the halfway house. And we need your prayers so that we can clearly hear God’s will.
We’re now back in Guatemala after a wonderful visit with my family and friends. It was a great time to relax and spend quality time together. And it was so much fun to have Heidy join us and to be able to share my family with her.
But it’s good to be back home, and we’re now preparing for our new house guests that will be arriving very soon! We had a surprise when we arrived that the dirt road in front of our house was all torn up and is in the process of getting paved! It will be a nice change, but we won’t be able to get our car to the house for probably another week.
Martin just finished sixth grade (as mentioned in this post) and now will begin junior high. We live close to a very good public school which is like a magnet or charter school in the United States, and we have a niece and a nephew that go to it. Martin is an incredibly bright guy and a very hard worker, and he hopes to also attend there. So he stayed with us for a weekend two weeks ago in order to study and prepare for the entrance exam which he took the Monday before we traveled to the USA. The exam was very difficult, and very few pass it. But we hope that Martin gets the opportunity. In this picture he is studying hard with Yuli’s sister Veronica at our house.
Update:
We just got his results back, and Martin didn’t pass the exam. He’s very disappointed in not getting into the school, but he can still go to the regular school with the rest of the kids from Casa Shalom.
Three weeks ago we were able to celebrate with Cesar and his family as he graduated from high school. He arrived at Casa Shalom over six years ago with his brother and sister, and it’s been fun watching him grow up. He was studying the basics of a car mechanic, and he now hopes to continue his education as a mechanic and soon start college classes for mechanical engineering.
Update:
A month ago we were making the plans for which of the guys were going to come live with us this coming year, and Cesar wanted to stay at the orphanage in order to be near his brother and sister. We just found out that they’re now probably going to have to leave the orphanage at the end of the year and return to live with their father. Please pray for Cesar as he decides what to do because his father lives in a very mountainous and remote part of Guatemala where it’s difficult to continue his education.
We’ve hoped to bring Yuliza’s niece Heidy with us the US when we go to spend Thanksgiving with my family. Her visa interview at the US embassy was this morning and she was approved! It will be a lot of fun to have her go with us, and she is incredibly excited to have the opportunity.
The results of the election was exactly what we were expecting with the former general winning the elections with about 54% of the votes due to his promises to combat the rising violence due to gangs and drug trafficking. The breakdown of the results was interesting because he easily won in every city, while his opposition won in all the rural areas because of his promises of many more social programs to help the poor farmers of the country. Otto will be sworn in as president on January 15th next year.
The presidential election run-off is held tomorrow. The country has been covered in campaign ads for 8 or 9 months now, and it’s exciting that it’s finally arrived. Here are the two candidates:
The big issue this election is security. Gang violence has been on the rise, and drug cartels have been moving down from Mexico. So please take some time to pray for Guatemala: that these elections would be held safely, and that our new president will do a good job leading the country.
