January in Guatemala

Happy (Late) New Year!

So I’m learning how hard it is to get some quiet time to sit down a write at home now that we have a baby! I’m already slow enough at writing! The past few weeks have been so busy that I wasn’t able to send out an email in December, so here are all the updates for the past two months:

We had a great Christmas break! My mom was able to visit us in early December in order to meet our new daughter Margaret. We had a great time with her (as always), and this time she got to spend a lot more time with our guys. It was really fun to all be together, and our house sure felt full with 7 people living here! While she was visiting we also got to visit the kids at Casa Shalom, and we had a baby dedication for Margaret at our church. Yuli and I also celebrated our third wedding anniversary. We’re so grateful that God brought us together!

Elias celebrated his 22nd birthday. He’s been looking for a job now that he’s graduated high school, and he got an offer at a tech support call center which he just started at. It’s a long bus ride everyday, and it takes him about two hours to get there during rush hour. So he’s been pretty tired. He’s currently in training, and the first week he came home one night and asked, “Brent, what’s outsourcing?” (I thought it was funny because you hear so much about it in the USA) His company answers calls from Spain, and he’s learning slang, accents and customs from there. I think that it’s a good experience for him. There’s also a chance that a local computer repair store might offer him a job close by, so we’ve been praying that God would show him where the right place is.

Benjamin changed to a new job at the end of last year, and he now works in sales at a cell phone company. He works in the streets of Guatemala City selling different phone plans, which is quite different from his accounting background. He really seems to enjoy it, but my concern is that it’s commission based, and I see his attention now solely focused on how many phone plans he can sell and how much money he’ll get at the end of the month. He’s also just starting to study telemarketing in college on the weekends. I ask that you pray for him and his heart.

Edwin doesn’t actually live with us, but he’s always here anyways! We love Edwin. It’s been great watching him grow up from one of my kids to one of my friends. In early January my visa in Guatemala expired, so I had to travel to Mexico to get it renewed. Edwin came along to give me company during the trip and to get to experience a different country. Well, we didn’t understand the rules, and the passes for Guatemalans to visit Mexico had been all used up by the time we got there. So we ended up only making it about 50 feet into Mexico! But we had some great conversations during the 10 hour trip about his hopes and dreams. His older brother died last October, and his younger brother and sister depend on him a lot. It’s all been really hard on him. He could really use your prayers as he seeks God’s will for his life.

The construction on our house stopped for a few weeks around Christmas to give everyone a break. In December we stuccoed the walls and installed the drainage lines. In January we’ve poured a cement floor and are installing tiles now. I hope to record a new video this week to show the progress. The big prayer request is that we still don’t have any electricity, and I’m not sure how much longer it’s going to take because there’s still no power lines on our road.

Whew, I think that’s enough for this month.
Thank you so much for your support and prayers for Yuli, myself and the ministry with these guys. We’re grateful for all the support that we’ve received this past year, especially with the additional expenses of the guys now living with us and our new daughter. Thank you for enabling us to serve in Guatemala!

Brent & Yuliza