Beautiful Guatemala

Dear friends:

Today is the coldest day in the Windy city; 2 degrees below zero with a wind chill as low as 25 degrees below zero.  However, the city is into the Super bowl Frenzy:).  Everyone in Chi-town is excited that the Bears have the chance to win the 41st Super bowl.  

Today, I have also been meditating on the Bible verse found on my myspace webpage, which says:

" Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.  They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last Forever."  1 Corinthians 9:25  (NIV).

Also, another verse that comes to mind is Revelation 2:10b "Be faithful, even to the point of death and I will give you the crown of life".  As God's children, the Lord has called us to be faithful, in the mist of trials, persecutions, and testing.  GOD also uses the analogy of athletic competition, and HE tells us to run the race of our faith as an athlete, but looking forward to Eternal life, which is the only True Everlasting prize. Remember, God has called us to faithfulness, and to love Him with all our lives and souls no matter what we incur. He called us to desire to be just like Jesus and to live our life in godly fashion, as the Only One who is godly has already done.  If we have put our lives in the finished work of Jesus Christ the only Savior, and confessed HIM as our Redeemer, we know that we will win the Prize, and that our crowns will last forever!!! Crowns that we will put before the feet of the King when we go to Glory!!!

An example of faithfullnes

Pastor Antonio, Cata (his wife) and Pedrito (their son)

In the month of January, I had the opportunity of visiting a country that I love very much..... Guatemala.  I also met with one of the pastors that will be our partner in ministry in the month of April.  His name is Antonio Moxnay.  He is an example of someone who is a faithful servant of the Lord.  He and Cata, his wife, felt called to minister to the people of San Pablo in 2006, so they began to serve the LORD and their community full time.  San Pablo is an extremely poor town by Lake Atitlan in Guatemala and has numerous needs. 

Pastor Antonio, used to have a small coffee crop that was a means of income for his family, however, in 2005, Hurricane Stan destroyed their entire crop. Almost a year and half after this horrible tragedy, Antonio and Cata have had to find ways to financially support their family. Antonio sometimes works in a coffee crop, where after a 10 hour day of picking coffee, he only makes an average of Q24 Quetzales (Guatemala's currency), or $4 Dollars per day. Cata and Antonio have learned to trust that the Lord will provide for all of their needs.  Their faith was encouraging to me, and this trip to San Pablo has been a big lesson in my life about complete trust and faith in the Lord.

Because a picture often says more than a 1000 words, let me share with you a few pictures of the enormous blessing that it was for me during my visit to San Pablo.

This is the small church where pastor Antonio serves the Lord faithfully

Inside the Nazarene Church of San Pablo.  As you can see it  is nothing like churches in America.

Lord willing in April, we will be taking a group of 34 participants to help Pastor Antonio improve the conditions of the local church, where they do not even have the basics such as exterior walls

Church service in San Pablo

Pastor Antonio planted this small church in April 2006.  In the beginning of this church, he was discipling three families, and today, there is an average of 80 Christian believers that faithfully attend this church nearly everyday of the week! 

Visitation and prayer for the sick

One day, Pastor Antonio and I visited some families in San Pablo.  During our time of visitation, my heart was broken as I witnessed the impoverished conditions of the families in San Pablo. I was especially taken aback by the lack of financial and medical resources for the poor, in fact, many of these people do not even have the basic necessities of the poor found in countries like America.. 

During our visitation time I also met this beautiful little boy (above) and his mother.  Pastor Antonio translated the local language of Tzutujil to Spanish so that his mother could share with me about her son's accident.  He fell and he broke his leg, and she didn't have the finances to take him to the local medical clinic.  Because of their lack of finances, she decided to put some bandages on her son's leg, and treat the injury herself. Because he did not receive the critical care he needed, he is not able to walk unassisted. In fact, she has to regularly massage his leg just so he can get some relief from the constant pain. This situation really broke my heart, so we did all we could do, we Prayed for this beautiful child.

This is just one story of so many that I witnessed in San Pablo.  I also met a sister in the Lord who suffers incredibly from Diabetes.  Her husband sold all that they had in order to buy the expensive medicines she needed, but she has been confined to her bed for 6 months.  At that moment, I thought about how different her life would be if they had discovered her diabetes earlier, maybe she would be able to walk and not be in such pain. She asked us to pray that God would take her home to Him, and remove her from this extraordinary pain, pain from a disease that we are able to function with daily without any of these deadly side effects in most parts of the world.  It was a very difficult situation for us, but we prayed that the Lord's Will would be done in this precious woman's life. 

A late but smiley Christmas!

God provided these toys for the local children

Say cheese

It was a joy to give a small present to the Tzutujil children

Isn't she cute?

Happy Valentine's day!!