All posts by Brent

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Alex Visits

Alex in 2004

Alex came to Casa Shalom when he was about 1 year old in 2004.  Here’s a picture of him shortly after arriving at the home. His name is actually Julio Cesar Agusto, but we didn’t receive any information about him when he first came.  So he was given the name Alex, and it’s stuck ever since. He’s always been such a special kid, and I’ve always looked forward to seeing him when I would come to visit in the past.

In 2009 there was a really good chance that Alex was going to be adopted by an American, but Guatemala was going through a time of restructuring their department that handles adoptions to try to eliminate the corruption that existed.  So they stopped all adoptions for a while.  Unfortunately because of these changes (and I’m not exactly sure what happened), Alex was never adopted.

He’s grown up in at Casa Shalom ever since, and he’s now 7 and in the second grade. Alex got pretty sick back in January, and so Yuli and I visited him to pray with him and we told him that when he was better, he was going to come stay with us for a weekend.  Well, he’s now better, and we had a wonderful weekend with him!  We had so much fun together, and we were impressed with how helpful he wanted to be and help us cook and clean up after eating.  We had such a great time with him that our first thought was: when can he come stay with us again???

Here’s a few pictures from our weekend together:

Together at Casa Shalom

Alex helping make pancakes on Saturday morning

Eating lunch with Yuli’s nephew

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Visiting Celia

Celia & Anna

About a month ago I posted about trying to visit Celia, Anna & Marcelino, but they were away with their family picking coffee in a plantation for the past month.  Well they returned home on Wednesday, and so we were able to visit them on Friday.  It was so good to see them and know that they were doing alright!

We were happy to hear that they were able to start attending classes at the school near their house the day after they returned home, even though it’s already a month into the school year. We brought them bookbags and a few school supplies to make sure that they’re all ready.  And we hope to visit them again in the coming weeks and see how the school year is progressing.

They are the youngest three from a family of 9 kids, and we had a great time meeting and talking to two of the older kids and their mother.  The only school in the area stops after the sixth grade. Their older brother Daniel, who we met, graduated from the sixth grade last year and won’t be studying further.

Please pray for Celia, Anna & Marcelino.  It’s good to see them back with their family, and it’s obvious that the family is happy to be together.  But they are very poor, and they have a lot of needs.  Please pray that God would bless our visits with the family, and that He would direct us how to best help them.

Celia, Anna, Daniel, Maricio, Mom & Estella

Yuli with the kids

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Veronica’s Birthday

Today is my sister-in-law Veronica’s birthday.  She also worked at Casa Shalom with us, so some of the kids, her family, and us decided to throw her a surprise birthday party yesterday. We had four guys from Casa Shalom come and two girls from an AIDS hospice that Veronica had taught in school. Her coworker Elizabeth also helped throw the party. We had a great time, and it was cool to do something special for her after all the love and time that she’s given to the kids.

The Birthday Gang

Jaquelin, Jaquelin & Heidi

Yuli, Elizabeth, Veronica, Heidi & the Jaquelines

The cake didn’t turn out too well… oops!

Yuli and Elizabeth hanging out

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Lots of Visitors

Benjamin, Yuli, Andrea & EliasBenjamin, Yuli, Andrea & Elias

We’ve had lots of visitors over at our house this past week.

The first one, Elias, came over on Friday and stayed the night with us. He just turned 20 and is in high school. We spent lots of time with him talking about his hopes and dreams about the future.  He’s one of the guys that I first took care of when I started working at Casa Shalom, and it’s been fun to see him grow.  His high school specializes in computer programming classes, and it’s been fun for us to now have a new common interest.

The second visitor, Clara, came on Saturday night and spent all day Sunday with us.  She grew up at Casa Shalom, but is now living on her own trying to make ends meet working in a cafeteria.  She needs good influences in her life so badly. Yuli was her 3rd grade teacher a few years ago, and it was great for me to just watch Yuli and her talk for hours and hours. We’re hoping to continue to build a relationship with her.

Finally, a guy named Benjamin came over on Tuesday to stay with us until today.  He’s now 22 and still lives at the home where he helps out.  He’s Elias’s brother and was also one of the original guys that I took care of.  He recently got in a motorcycle accident and broke his arm, so he’s been recovering from it.  We had lots of conversations about Christianity and his faith, and he’s at the point where his faith and relationship with the Lord is changing. Kids grow up at the home learning about Christ, but now Benjamin is really asking deep questions he has about it all.

I forgot to take any pictures while they were all here. (oops!) But here’s a picture from Casa Shalom from last Saturday. Benjamin is on the far left, and Elias is on the far right. This week was really busy having guests stay with us almost everyday, but we’re excited to have our house open and available.  It seems like it’s been great for the kids to get away for a little while, and we’ve loved the depth of conversations that we’ve been having with them!

Guatemala

Santos & José

Santos & JoséSantos & José are brothers that Yuli and I got to know in Casa Shalom.  Their grandparents won custody of  them this past year, and so in October they returned to live with them.  They don’t have much money, but they’re so happy to be home.  Fortunately for us, they live on the outskirts of Chimaltenango, which is the same town where we live.

We’ve gotten to visit them a bunch, and it’s great to see them so content to be with their family. But we also saw that money was really tight.  They we’re looking to get them enrolled in a nearby school, but education is expensive here.  As we mentioned in our previous newsletter, we decided to help out and pay for their schooling.

We enrolled them in a nearby middle school, where Santos is in 8th grade and José is in 7th grade.  Here’s a picture of them one day after class.  It’s been so much fun for us to stay connected with them and continue to build a relationship. They also now join us for church every Sunday, and we’re just so happy to be involved in their lives. We would appreciate your prayers as we continue to work with Santos and José.

We would also appreciate your prayers as we continue to meet with other kids who have many needs.

Guatemala

Celia, Anna and Marcelino

Brent & Celia Celia, Anna and Marcelino are three siblings who used to live at Casa Shalom, but returned to live with their parents a little over a year ago. Celia is remembered by about everyone who meets her as being one of the sweetest girls ever.

Since the three returned home, my friend Matt and my sister-in-law Veronica have made a few trips last year to visit them to see how they were doing.  They had been sent to the orphanage due to poverty, and so Yuli and I decided to also go check-up on them.  Celia’s going into fourth grade, Anna into second, and Marcelino into first grade this year, and so we got them some backpacks and school supplies to get them ready for school.

We didn’t have a phone number, and they live in a small village, but we headed over a week ago in hope to see them. We were sad to find Anna home alone, and she told us that her mom and the others had been at a coffee plantation working for the past two weeks.  They were due to return the following Monday, the same day that school started. We walked with Anna over to another family member’s house and got a phone number to call and made plans to visit again in a week.

Today we hoped to return to see all of them, but no one was answering the phone these past few days.  Finally this morning before leaving we got a hold of Celia only to find out that her family had gone to a new coffee plantation, and they would be working at the plantation for about a month.

We are very concerned for Celia, Anna and Marcelino. It looks like their family is really needing money, and this is hard work that doesn’t pay very much at all.  We also don’t know if their school will take them so late in the year when they return.  Please pray for them: That God would protect them, that He would provide for their needs, and that He would give us wisdom how to best help the family.

Newsletter

Our First Newsletter

We hope that you have had a good Christmas and New Years break!

As we start this new year, we are starting a new phase of life as we start serving together in Guatemala. We have a blog athttp://www.casashalom.net/potters/ which we will be updating regularly with news updates.

The drive down from Texas to Guatemala was an experience that we’ll never forget! We are so grateful to God for His protection all the way down. The journey was about 2,000 miles, and it took us 5 days. We were blessed to not have any problems, and the car drove great. Mexico was fascinating, and we’ve posted a bunch of pictures of the journey on our blog.

After arriving on December 20th, we’ve spent a fun and relaxing time with Yuliza’s family over Christmas and the New Year holiday. Now as we’re busy getting geared up for this year. Personally, we have a bunch of items to arrange for our life in Guatemala. We’re going to apply for permanent residency for Brent, just like we had to do for Yuli in the United States. Without it, we have to leave the country every 3 months, which is obviously inconvenient. Similarly, our car needs to be imported as it also currently only has a tourist permit. We also now have to buy a bunch of necessary items that wouldn’t fit in the car to bring with us. We are blessed to be staying at Yuli’s sister and brother-in-law’s house, so the number of things we need is greatly reduced.

The children at Casa Shalom return this weekend from their Christmas vacation. Each year they are sent to stay with extended family members or with families that take them in for about a month. This allows them to enjoy a time away from the home, and also gives the workers a break to spend with their own families. The school year starts in January, so they’re soon going to be returning and preparing for the upcoming year. We’re excited to see them soon!

We are currently working to get in contact with a few children that used to live at Casa Shalom, but now have either returned to live with family members or are now adults and have moved out on their own. We had lunch today with two brothers named Santos and José. They’ve returned to live with their grandparents very close to where we are living. Schooling isn’t free here in Guatemala, and continuing their education can be hard because of the economic hardship. So we’re going to get them enrolled in a good middle school nearby. We would greatly appreciate your prayers for them and for others that we are going to be connecting with. We want to see all of them succeed in the real world, and we want to help them in any way necessary. We are also looking at houses and land for sale that we could use to start a half-way house ministry for kids coming out of orphanages.

Prayer points:

– Praise that God has brought us here to Guatemala safely.

– Prayer for Casa Shalom and all of the kids under their care.

– Prayer for the kids who have left the home, that God would provide for all their needs.

– Prayer that God would continue to direct us and guide our ministry.

We have a phone number in the United States that gets routed down to us here in Guatemala. So we can be reached at 512-551-4334, and you don’t have to worry about making an international call!

Thanks for your support and prayers!

Brent & Yuliza Potter

Blog Info

Slow Updates

I’ve finally been able to upload the last few updates, I hope that you enjoy them! Hopefully in the future I’ll have a connection to the internet so that I can update the blog more regularly.

Guatemala

Our First Anniversary

On December 26th, 2009 last year we were joined in marriage before God, our family and our friends.  We are so happy together!!!

We marvel at how God has worked to bring us together, how He provided for all of our needs with the wedding and visas, and how He has blessed our past year as we went to the US and now have returned here.  If you haven’t seen our wedding website, you should check it out!

We also spent time planning and praying for this next year. We would appreciate your prayers also as we get adjusted to our new life here and get into ministry.  We know that God has great plans for us and we’re excited to be used by Him to share His love with others!