Last Post

I know this is very slow in coming! I really meant to finish off this blog on our last night in Cubulco. We had a busy day packing and I finally had all the tired, super excited kids tucked in bed, when the power went out! Sadly it never came on before we left the next morning. We flew home the next day and ever since then I have been meaning to post...but time keeps slipping away from me!

It was very strange to pull up this blog again. In many ways the past year seems like a blur and we have slipped back into life here. Wilf is busy working with the migrant workers, something he has done every summer for the past six years. Some of the kids have grown up a bit, but most faces look wonderfully the same. We are happy to be home again, but we thank the Lord so much for the opportunity we had to live in Cubulco. The Lord was, and continues to be very good!

Wilf has been in contact with some of the church members in Cubulco recently and they are pressing on. There is a possibility they may get a pastor in a couple of months. We pray that the Lord will provide for them.

We are thankful for the way the Lord continues to provide for us. We were able to rent this beautiful home from my aunt and uncle for the coming year. Wilf will continue working with the migrant workers-not only Mexicans, but more and more Guatemalans as well. One farm in the area employs 100 Guatemalans on two year contracts!
Thanks for joining us on our Guatemalan journey! We are so thankful for those who remembered our family in prayer. Our journey continues and we ask you to continue to pray for us! Last night we had a great service with about 60 men attending (and a few women!). The plan is to continue the work throughout the coming year-something new for the people here and for us! Please pray for strength and wisdom and the Lord's blessing on this great opportunity.
May the Lord bless you as you serve Him!

"Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless before the presence of His
glory with exceeding joy,
To God our Savior,
Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty,
Dominion and power,
Both now and forever.
Amen."
Jude 25

Father's Day...and the week before!

Sunday

Happy Father's Day!!

We are very thankful for the Dad in our home. The kids worked hard to make booklets for Wilf.

(We do have five children! Lauren was in her highchair eating her breakfast already :))

After church, we had Odilia and her two daughters over for dinner as well as two little girls that came to visit Kristen. Everyone enjoys looking at the slide shows Wilf has put together.

Saturday

Every Saturday morning, the kids and I walk to the market. The kids like to come along because I always buy them a 1 Q popsicle (less then $0.20), and they also like to ride home in a tuktuk. A tuktuk is a small, red, three wheeled vehicle that taxis people around town. It is great fun to ride in! Our tuktuk driver this past Saturday was very friendly so I dared to ask him if we could take a picture!

We were very thankful this week that we could buy a watermelon! It is very surprising, but it is often difficult to get fruit here. Cubulco does not have a lot of locally grown fruit and because the town is small and at the end of the road, not many people come to sell here. Last Saturday we didn't get any fruit, so we were pretty excited about our watermelon this week!

Lauren loves fruit! Usually I cut it into pieces for her, but this time I thought I would see how she did with a whole piece. She got very messy, but she had a marvelous time with it!

The boys found this creative way to avoid spilling on themselves :).

The kids and I had a quiet week. As I mentioned in my last post, the schools are all cancelled. We were thankful that we were permitted to have services today at least.

After all the excitement of having friends at school every day and then at home too, it is good for our own kids to learn to play together again. I'm also thankful for the opportunity to finish off our homeschooling!

Kristen had a wonderful time playing that Lauren was her "baby". She dressed her up, did her hair, got all her accessories and played with her outside. It was fun until Lauren refused to co-operate. A doll is a little more obedient!

Tuesday-Thursday

Our week seemed extra quiet because Wilf and Nate were gone from early Tuesday morning until Thursday noon. They went and visited three of the five aldean churches. Nate was excited to go along becuase he has now been to all five churches!

Just outside of the one village is this beautiful swimming hole. It gets pretty hot hiking in the mountains, so the water feels great!

One of the obreros, Juan, with his wife and kids. Their church building is right behind them.

Tomorrow we head into our last week here! It seems amazing that we are almost finished, and yet home and family seem very far away. Wilf is headed out to visit the other two aldean churches this week, accompanied by Nate and Kris. It is difficult for Wilf to say good-bye to the people he has come to know and appreciate, and it is sad for them to see him go!

We pray that they will continue faithfully in the work of the Lord.

This and That

Los Encuentros

There are a lot of villages up in the mountains around Cubulco. Some are quite small and I suppose can hardly be called a village! Los Encuentros is one such village. Three brothers and their families who live close together on a mountainside, recently approached Ken about getting a teacher for their community. Their children normally had to hike a few kilometres to the nearest school, however, during the rainy months of the year the size of a large river between them and the school makes the trip impossible. Ken hired this young man to teach the kids! He spends four days of the week there.

The trip to the village is beautiful, but rugged. After an hour in the car, it is a two hour hike, crossing several rivers. The river nearest to the village is the largest and the people have built a raft out of gourds to ferry people across. Wilf choose to swim :)


At first, the school met in one of the houses. When the rains came, members of Los Encuentros, as well as members of some of the other churches, put together their money and built this building. The government donated some desks, and they were all set!
(keep in mind that all the desks, wood, sheet metal etc. had to be carried the two hours to the village!)

The students!

Cheese Making

A few days ago, Wilf and I went over to Odilia's house (a lady in our church) to make mountain cheese. Mountain cheese is really delicious with tortillas! Wilf and I are hoping to buy some of the enzyme tablets needed to make it and try our hand at it when we get home!

In the picture above, Wilf and Odilia are warming the cheese with their hands to consolidate it.

Squeezing out the whey.

Kneading in the salt! Wilf is now an expert :)

Ryan came along and played with Odilia's granddaughter.

Odilia and her family are fairly well off (compared to most people here). However, her husband drinks a lot and her children don't show much interest in church.

Centro de Educacion

Another project Ken started is the after-school Bible program-or Centro de Educacion, as it is called here. Our kids have been going three three days a week since the beginning of June. They really loved it! For three hours, they would do singing, crafts, and games.

Unfortunately, all schools and educational programs have been cancelled until July 1st becuase of the influenza pandemic! We are so disappointed. It means that our last two weeks here will be pretty quiet!

Kristen's friend from school also came to the Bible program!

Ken hired three teachers to run the program. Vilma (pictured above with Kris) is the "lady in charge"...I'm not sure what her official title is :)

We were very sad that the schools were cancelled because it meant the kids had no playmates for the next two weeks! So far though, Kris's friends have been dropping by almost every day and a large group of Nate's classmates stopped by yesterday as well. I suspect our trampoline is a BIG draw....

Although she isn't fluent, Kris manages to get by quite well with these girls! Nate and Brad rarely speak Spanish and seem to know only words used during a soccer game! :) We suspect they know more than they let on!

Pool time

The pool is very warm right now and we make it over there almost every afternoon to cool off before dinner. The kids can stay in for hours! It is great to see them improving so much.

Ryan loves his waterwings and I love to watch him swim!

Above he is preparing for a dive....

And away he goes!

And so the days fill up and pass by! We are thankful to the Lord as well for the class Wilf taught the obreros over the past three days. It was a really great opportunity to talk about the future of their churches and their plans to continue on and further their work. Wilf has plans to visit all the aldeas once more in the next two weeks and the kids and I plan to finish up our school!

Please continue to pray for our family and the work here!

Good-bye Nico and Lia!

After living and working here for almost ten years, Nico and Lia have moved back to Canada. The last few weeks have been very busy for them! They've had many visits from people very sad to see them leave. They were so busy that I don't even have a chance to take a good picture of Nico and Lia together! However, the kids are also very important, and we did get some pictures of them :). The church organized a good-bye service for Nico and Lia. Of course they served tamales!

Early Saturday morning, the ladies meet at Froilan and Rosa's house (a wonderful couple! Froilan is an obrero for the church), and got to work. They made 400 tamales!!

I don't know the whole process, but I know it takes a LOT of time. I asked one of the ladies if she enjoyed making them and she said that she doesn't usually, but she made these joyfully, from her heart, for Nico and Lia.

After they wrapped the cornflour and chicken mixture in the banana leaves, they are ready to cook them!

They carefully stack this large pot full, add a bit of water, and let it cook for hours.

Nate loves to help out in this part of the process!

Froilan and Rosa invited the missionary families to join them all for lunch. It was really delicious, and very kind of them when they were all so busy! Rosa and her daughter working in their kitchen. Both are very godly ladies and we are so thankful for their faithful service in the church.

Lia's mom has spent a lot of time with Lia and Nico in Cubulco. In fact, we think, that with all her visits over the years (some visits were rather lengthy), she may have spent more time here then I have! As a result, she is well know and loved by many people in town as well!

Maria came from her new job in the city to say good-bye.

My only contribution to all the work the ladies were doing was to help with the dishes. They have a very different method of doing dishes though and I suspect that Maria was laughing at me the whole time....

That evening, the church was full! Many people came from the aldeas, as well as from town.

Nico and Lia have worked faithfully here for almost ten years, and it is difficult and sad for people to see them leave.

Monday evening, they left for the city and today they flew home!

We also, were sad to see them go, but thankful for the year that we could work here together. May God bless them as they continue to serve Him!

A Look at Our Week

It is difficult to believe another week is finished! Here's some pictures to give you an idea of what we did this week :)

Kristen and Ellen are continually "moving" around the yard. They make new houses every day. Here they are enjoying afternoon tea.
Lauren is sometimes allowed to play as well....if she behaves :)



Ryan loves the sandbox!

Monday morning we went to the city. We had driven about an hour when the traffic came to a dead stop. A large truck had rolled over and caught fire about three miles up the road. The fellow in front of us estimated it would take several hours before traffic would move again. Once, in the the fall, Wilf had taken an alternate route into the city with Nico. We decided to try it! We had to backtrack about fifteen minutes, then we had an adventure! Most of the road was paved (sort of!), but other parts were pretty rough. Thankfully we drive a 4x4 truck!

We saw this dead python along the road. Pretty exciting stuff for the kids!

The scenery was very beautiful and it was really neat to see some new mountains for a change. Even though it took us longer to get to the city, we all agreed we were thankful for the opportunity to see new things!

We arrived at Seteca (the seminary we stay at while in the city) just as they were starting up a soccer game. It was really fun to watch!

The next day we went to the zoo...again! It is very inexpensive to get into the zoo and it is a lovely park. We don't know of any other park land in the city! We brought along a picnic lunch and enjoyed the morning.

We don't have any photos of the dentist visits, multiple shopping trips or other errands we did in the city! Wednesday, we went to a restaurant that has an awesome aquarium in it. God has certainly made a lot of beautiful underwater creatures.

It ws really neat because they had a tube where you can stand and see the fish all around you!

Ryan's all ready to go swimming with the fish!

Wednesday afternoon we headed home! It was a really nice drive home too-even though we lost the cooler lid somewhere along the way. Thankfully it didn't rain (which is does almost every afternoon!), and thankfully the kids didn't get car sick (which they do almost every trip!).

The last hour of the drive is especially twisty. We make our way up one mountain range and down the other side. The road is paved (which we are very thankful for!), but the drop off is rather close. I tried my best to give you an idea....

The Lord willing, that is our last trip to the city until we fly home! Seems hard to believe in some ways. We thank the Lord for safety once again and pray for God's grace to finish our time here well!

Sunday Service

This past Sunday was a special day for our church. We had a Presbyterian pastor come and preach for us! This is the first time the church has had a pastor preach for over a year.

We had a special service including profession of faith, a baptism and celebration of the Lord's supper!
Wilf has been teaching a profession of faith class to these three ladies for most of our time here. It has been a great blessing for the ladies and for Wilf! He had the privilege of being a part of their public profession of faith. The two ladies standing are sisters and the elderly lady is their mother. Please keep these ladies in your prayers. The mother is a widow, but the two younger ladies both have very dificult marriages.

These ladies (along with another sister, who is already a member of our church) have asked Wilf if they could continue meeting, but use the time now to go and speak with their neighbours about Christ. Of course Wilf was only too happy to accompany them!

The Pastor speaking about baptism before he baptizes the little girl.

To celebrate the Lord's supper, everyone makes a circle around the table.

After the service, we had lunch together. Some ladies from the church had gotten up at six in the morning to prepare the soup. Of course we had it with tortillas!

Marcella was one of those helpful ladies. I thought this was a great picture of her because the people here rarely smile for the camera. She liked it too and asked for a copy :)

It was a real blessing to have the Pastor with us for the day. There is a possibility that he will be returning here in the fall to be the pastor of this church for a couple of years. We are excited about this and are praying for the Lord's leading.

Dia de Madre

Mother's Day is a big holiday here. My kids made it pretty special for me! The week before Mother's Day, Nate and Kris spent a lot of time in the closet making me cards and presents. Nathan made me this beautiful card and even wrote me a poem.

Just after six o'clock Sunday morning, I heard someone banging the pans in the kitchen. I quickly realized what was going on and gently encouraged Wilf to go out and tell Kris it was too early to begin making breakfast! She managed to wait until seven o'clock, then she brought me a meal that she had made totally on her own. It was wonderful!

Kids on a low budget have to be creative! I was really impressed with the things the kids made for me. I was especially thankful to see them do all these things without any prompting from me or Dad. A friend wrote me to me recently expressing how thankful she was to be a mother and the joy she had in raising her children and supporting her husband. And although most days run very far from smoothly, I would whole heartedly agree! This year in Guat. has given me time to think about my task as a wife and mother. I have not been able to be very involved in the work here because of the language barrier. But I can find a lot of joy and fulfillment by supporting and encouraging Wilf in his work and by being a "joyful mother of children. Praise the Lord!"

On Monday, the village of Pichal had a big celebration for Dia de Madre. Wilf headed out first thing in the morning with Nico, little Nico, Ellen, Nate, Kris and Brad. This was Brad's first big hike and he did great!! The hike only takes about an hour, but some parts of it are pretty steep!


The arrival of the rainy season makes the hiking a lot messier, but it also makes it a lot more beautiful.
A big part of the celebration was a soccer tournament!

The soccer field is a bit challenging. I suppose they are happy that the majority of the field is flat-considering all the mountains surrounding them! After the soccer tournament, a lunch was served up the moutain side at the village school. Our group left shortly after the lunch but the festivies continued for the rest of the day.
The kids crossing the bridge on the way back home. It is interesting because we just started the rainy season so the river is still really low. The fertile river bank is all planted with corn. The river looks totally different from when I saw it last!
It has been good to experience the different holidays and how they are celebrated in another country. I think Father's Day is the only one left....:)