Guatemala’s independence day is the 15th of September, and it’s incredibly fun to celebrate. In the days leading up to it all the schools run through the streets with torches, and I got to run with my students.
Then on the 15th there’s a huge parade with the bands of each school. Margaret loved watching the kids pass by.
We’re overflowing with corn! We’re trying to give most of it away, but there’s still enough to eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Here’s my favorite way to eat corn: grilled over a fire and then seasoned with lime juice & salt. Yummy!
Martin and Edwin are two great teens living at Casa Shalom. We just love spending time with them, and this weekend they came over to celebrate Martin’s 16th birthday. I’m excited to watch them grow and mature, and I’m excited to think that they’ll probably be here with us in the future.
We have a space on our land where we hope to build a second house as the ministry expands, and this year we planted corn in the space. I’m not much of a farmer, so it’s been a challenge to learn about all the different things needed to grow and protect the corn stalks.
They grow huge here! Some stalks are over 8 feet tall, and my neighbor’s corn is over 10 feet. Unfortunately we just had a big storm that knocked a lot of it down. The last picture is my neighbor’s field. He lost the majority of his crop from all the wind.
I’ve enjoyed the new experience, and it’s been a great way to build relationships with our new neighbors.
I’ve had the opportunity to help teach English at a school near us. It’s the Christian school that Yuli taught second grade at last year. Once a week I teach English conversation and pronunciation with the most advanced students. It’s a lot of fun! I make them memorize a lot of Scripture. 🙂
This next month we’re going to start reading “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” by C. S. Lewis together.
One evening I heard a strange sound, and I went to see what it was…
I found Elias trapped in the bathroom because the doorknob malfunctioned and got stuck in the locked position! Oops! I guess that I bought cheap doorknobs… Sorry Elias!
Goofy problems aside, it’s great to be in our new house!
The house is finished and we’re ready to move in!
The only thing that we don’t have yet is electricity. The electric company is taking a long time to install our electricity, but fortunately a neighbor is allowing us to connect to their system while needed. (I know, it’s pretty goofy. but it’ll work)
Here’s a great picture from the roof of the view behind our house. The volcano Acatenango is peaking through the back. It’s beautiful!
The kitchen sink & bathrooms are now finished, and we’re just about ready to move in! The only thing left is the electrical wiring and outlets.
The house construction continues to progress, and I can now see the end in sight!
We’ve installed the exterior doors, windows and tile flooring these last few months. 
The tank on our roof holds the water for our house. We only receive water from the municipality for a few hours a day, so the tank helps us to always have water available.
It has been wonderful this past week to have our pastor, Rick Banda and his son Luke here visiting us. Rick has been hugely instrumental in helping and guiding our ministry. He has a huge heart for reaching the lost, and has for years opened his own house to do it. Their visit has been a very fun and relaxing time for us to be together.
While here, Rick spoke with the parents of many of the children at Casa Shalom during their monthly “Visitor’s Sunday”. He shared about his own past and how God really is his Heavenly Father. He also spent a lot of time with our guys and also with Yuli’s family. The highlight of the trip was that Elias and Yuli’s brother-in-law Mauriel both decided to be baptized! It was amazing!
We also spent some time just relaxing together and enjoying each other’s company. Luke and I took the teen boys on a hike up a volcano one day. It was a lot of fun, but we were up in the clouds so there wasn’t much of a view.
And we went on a relaxing fishing trip another day in the beautiful lake Atitlan.
For me personally, the best times were the times in-between when we were driving back and forth between activities. I enjoyed and learned so much from our conversations. Rick has had years of experience of different kids growing up alongside of his own kids. Now with our own baby, this is so important to me. I want to be used by God to help and minister to these guys that the Lord has given us, but it should never be at the cost of being a bad parent to my own children. Rick’s wisdom has been incredibly helpful to us.
Rick has a very interesting blog about his time with us in Guatemala: