Friday, Feb 12th & Saturday 13th

In our devotional Friday morning Henry shared with us from Robert Morgan's book "The Red Sea Rules". One phrase impacted me - "View your current crisis as a faith builder for the future." Little did we know we would be putting these words into practise much sooner than expected.
We had arranged our boarding passes at a local hotel on Friday only to arrive at the airport Sat morning bright and early to discover that 12 1/2" of snow in Dallas/Fort Worth is causing all sorts of travel changes. The Alberta crew will now travel home via Los Angeles and Vancouver, while we will be travelling via Miami and Toronto. Apparently Hawaii is the only State not experiencing the white stuff.

A tearful goodbye to four hard working, joyful men who were so appreciative of everything we did for them.

¡Nos vemos en el cielo Domingo, Narciso, Araldo & Amilkar.

BEFORE

The before and after pictures give you an indication of the physical work we accomplished on site but the transformation that ocurred in each of us is undescribeable.

AFTER

Wed Feb 10th & Thurs Feb 11th

Wednesday, February 10th we begin the day by cleaning up the worksite. Then the usual task of mixing concrete and building the block wall. 600 more concrete blocks arrived shortly before lunch so we began the task of hoisting them 2 at a time on the pulley sytem to the third floor. There will be some pretty sore muscles tomorrow, but it does beat shovelling snow!!

On Thursday, February 11th, Pastor Costof (on the right in the beige shirt), President of the Guatemalan Alliance Church, had lunch brought to the worksite for all of us, including Pastor Joseph Lee (in the orange shirt). It was an emotional time as he thanked the team for our service, support and love shown to the Guatemalan people. What an amazing God we serve!

Pastor Jake presented Pastor Costof with a gift of money to be used for further supplies so that the workers will be able to continue the project after we go back to Canada. (Thanks PAC for supporting our Christmas pudding sales as that was a portion of the money presented.)

At the end of the day as we headed down the stairs for the last time we glanced back over our shoulders and see what 2 weeks of awesome fellowship, hard work and service for the Lord had accomplished. Each of us will return to Canada with a bit of Guatemala in our hearts.

Tomorrow we will be going to get our boarding passes and then returning to the worksite to say our goodbyes to Domingo, Araldo, Amilkar & Narcisco. The rest of the day will be shopping at the market, packing our bags and having one last night of food, fun & fellowship with our Alberta & BC friends. HASTA LA VISTA!

Mon Feb 8th & Tues Feb 9th

Monday, February 8th

Monday we dragged ourselves back to the worksite. A few of us had aches in places we didn't know we had places. After about an hour we were back into the swing of things. Henry, Bruce & Andy mix mortar the Guatemalan way.

Gail puts the finishing touches on the block wall by filling the spaces between the blocks with mortar and tamping it down .

Tuesday, February 9th

Therese stayed out of the sun today and got the job bending rebar into 'C' shapes which would be used later on in the day to hold long lengths of rebar in the concrete blocks.

Steve and Amilkar used the power angle grinder with the 'new' extension cords we brought down to cut the concrete blocks.

Joy is chopping the sawn portions out of the blocks which were used for the last row on the wall. The 'C' shaped rebar that Therese made was used to anchor the rebar pieces together that fit into the block wall .

Jack spent most of the day hanging out over the 3rd floor removing the forms from the outer side of the building.

At 4:30pm our day is over and the Guatamalan workers say goodbye. They will stay there continuing to work for several more hours busily mixing cement to pour into the block wall. These men are so appreciative of the help they are getting from the Canadian Team. We too also receive a special blessing from them as we watch these hard working men who have such hearts for the Lord as they complete their daily routines in such primitive, but effective ways. Their humble, quiet natures are an inspiration to us all.

Sat & Sun Feb 6th & 7th

Saturday we left at 7am for a couple of days of R&R. We drove 3 hours to the camp where a few of the team had been 2 years ago working on a construction project. It was great for them to reminisce and for the rest of us to experience the Guatemalan rural way of life. The children were so appreciative of the things we gave them. It is so very hard for us to imagine this way of life and yet they are so happy and content with what little they have.

Sunday we had our own Praise & Worship Service in Las Buenas Nuevas (The Good News) Condo where we were staying. We then took a 60 km boat tour of Lake Atitlan stopping at San Pedro and San Tiago. While in these towns we were able to browse the open markets, visit the churches and again experience the life of the Guatemalan people.

What an awesome team God put together for our Guatemalan mission trip. We are able to share our stories, pray for each other and form bonds that will last a lifetime.

Friday, February 5

Today some of us went to the Oasis Orphanage at San Lucas which is sponsored by Kids Alive. Thanks to everyone who donated clothes, school supplies & toys.

Since last year when we visited the orphanage the school has been completed. This is an example of one of the classrooms.

Helen (our host missionary) took this opportunity to visit the orphanage for the first time since returning to Guatemala from Vancouver. They are here on another 2 year assignment. The children were full of hugs for her. Therese's suckers went over very well. Tanya (in front) ate part of hers and then hid it behind her back. She remarked "Yo no tengo!" (I don't have one). She was trying to trick us into giving her another one. It worked. They are such happy children, inspite of all the past hurts they have experienced.

Most of the men went to the worksite today and started laying the cement blocks for the third storey walls. It was a VERY hot day on the rooftop which was evidenced by their sunburns.

We are fortunate to be able to have the weekend off for some R&R. We would appreciate prayer as we venture out into the rural areas of Guatemala. We will be visiting a camp that some of Alberta team helped build a few years ago. They are excited to be able to share with us some of their past adventures as they reminisce. This will also give us a chance to shop in the open air markets and distribute more of the toys to the local children.

Thursday, February 4th

Araldo, one of the Guatemalan National workers loves to joke around and have his picture taken. It is amazing how we are able to communicate with them using hand signals and the bit of Spanish we do know - thank you Julie for our Spanish lessons.

This one is for you Michele. If the picture was taken up closer you would notice Steve as a redneck with a racoon mask (sunburn).










The children were overjoyed with the toys we gave them. Gracias, gracias, gracias they said. They love getting their pictures taken and then giggle when shown the results.






A picture is worth a thousand words!!! The men on the ground loaded the bricks on a platform and the women provided the power to raise them three storeys up (well at least for a few loads).

Tuesday, Feb 2nd & Wednesday, Feb 3rd

Therese teaching Carlos French and he teaching her Spanish was enjoyed by both of them. Carlos is the son of the President of the Alliance in Guatemala, Pastor Castof. He has been helping out and translating on the work site between his University classes.

A lot of materials needed to be hoisted three stories up so a rudimentary pulley system was hooked up and pails of rock and sand made their way up to be unloaded for use in cement mixing and mortar. A hot and heavy job but well done by our diligent, hot and sweaty team.

See Gail in the swing of things out on the street, making sure the pails go where they are suppose to. She also took time to hand out toys with little Bible messages to the children who passed by.

Therese and Joy were shoveling and sifting sand so that the finer sand could be used for mortar while the other part is used for cement.

Perched on his two by four over a 25 foot drop, Amilcar, ties grande and pequeno rebar squares to the upright columns which will eventually support the roof of the third floor.

At the end of the day Wed., this is the view across the roof top. Tomorrow we will continue the work when the bricks and cement blocks arrrive manana en la manana.

We are here! Day 1 and Day 2

We are all here and in good spirits. Flights went well and arrival delayed by only one hour. Nicely settled into the dormitory above the Chinese Alliance Church. We visited a Guatemalan church yesterday where the service was translated to English so we appreciated that. We gave out the small toys to the children there.

Spent the afternoon in Antiqua which is a most beautiful old city. Then we had Chinese supper at a nearby restaurant and came back to hit the sack and catch up on sleep to be ready to work

We were so pleased to see the progress that has been made on the building in the last year. It has really taken shape and is now possible to see what a great place it will be for the national Guatemalan Alliance pastors and leaders to work from and advance the work of God and the Alliance in this country.

Today we did a lot of cleaning and organizing at the worksite, building saw horses, rebar bending station, setting up a pulley system, sweeping and getting rid of garbage. In the afternoon we began to move ahead with the work that will be done during this time. Rebar bending by Bruce and Larry produced over 100 forms, Gail and Therese shovelled a lot of gravel and Gail helped to send it on it's way to the third floor by the pulley system. Shanon swept, cleaned and straightened nails (and rested sore back quite a lot).

So now we are winding down for the evening and glad to be able to get on the internet and sent some info off to you. Thanks PAC for trusting us to represent you in this wonderful city. We enjoyed meeting many of the same workers on the job site as we worked with last year but also had the hard reality of finding out that one of the men who we so appreciated last year has fallen back into drugs and alcohol and so has abandoned his family.

Keep praying for your Pac team! Blessings on all of you!

10 more sleeps

Are we getting excited?? Are we packed?? Our basement looks like a mini MCC with clothes lined up in sizes 2-adult - jeans, t-shirts, hoodies, pj's, etc. Thank you to all who have so generously donated articles of clothing, school supplies and tools. Just found out today that Transport Canada has lifted the ban on carry-on luggage for people travelling to or through the States. We are now able to take our AMM backpacks as carry-on and not have to pack them in our luggage. PTL.

The only unfinished business we seem to be waiting on is for Therese and Bob's daughter to have her baby before Jan 29th so Therese can see her first grandchild before she goes.