On Mission to Guatemala Plus a Time of Rest and Fun

On Thursday, June 14, James and our oldest daughter, Ashley, will be leaving for 8 days on a mission trip to Purula, Guatemala.  James will be leading a group working on building a church in the village.  Another group started the church, and ours will pick up where they left off.  They hope to finish it while they are there.  Ashley is one of 3 young ladies in charge of the crafts time in VBS (others will be helping, but they have organized it, collected the supplies, and will coordinate).  They will hold VBS in 2 different area schools, and they expect to teach about 400 children.  Part of the group they are going with will hold a dental clinic, and another few will be leading a pastor's conference.  In the past many pastors have walked from all over to attend.  One has walked as long as 9 days. 

 

   The girls are making treat bags for all of the kids at VBS.  That means we have oodles and oodles of stickers, pencils, crayons, candy; Ashley has 433 bouncy balls in her bedroom right now.  Also, they are taking small toys down for the dental clinic to hand out to each child.  So we also have bags full of jump ropes, frisbees, small stuffed animals, necklaces, matchbox cars, yo-yo's, etc.  Oh, and one day in each VBS they are doing Joshua and the Battle of Jerhicho, so we also have 433 kazoos.  They are going to have them march around, then blow on their kazoos to act it out.  That should be entertaining!  The funniest thing they're taking is 800 empty toilet paper rolls.  Well, hopefully close to 200 (or more) of them have been collected by the pastor there.  Tonight they are stapling 2 together and punching holes in the top.  They will have the kids decorate them with construction paper, and stickers, tie yarn on, and wahlah....binoculars.  How, you may ask, are they going to get 600-700 toilet paper rolls down there?  Hmmmm.....We hope they'll make it.  They are going to stuff them with socks and toys, and anything else possible to save room, and to hopefully keep them from getting smashed. 

 

   Ashley is really excited.  Guatemala is very dear to her.   This is James' and her 2 nd mission trip there, and their 4th overall. 

 

Please pray for all of them....safe travel and good health. 

 

   We went this past Sunday and spent 2 nights in a cabin about 30 min. away. It sits right on  a mountain river, in a quiet and very pretty, mountain/country setting.  There was a great, big screened porch with a picnic table and chairs on the back overlooking the river.  That was our favorite part of the cabin.   The morning we were leaving, I got up before everyone else, and tiptoed out onto the patio, and sat for a while in my jammies and jacket.  It was a quiet and restful 2 days.  (The calm between the storms!)

   And, you guessed it...here are my photos!!  (For some reason on my pre-post these pictures look mosaic.  I don't know if they'll post that way, but they weren't that way orginally.)

  

The view from our cabin.

That water was COLD!!

The one above is a crawfish.  The one below--trying to catch minnows in her water shoe.

I hope the Lord gives you a time of rest and refreshment. 

 

Letitia