Here’s a quick video of our land construction progress:
Category Archives: Guatemala
A day at the beach
Last week was Holy Week, so most schools and jobs were closed. On Saturday we decided to take advantage of the break and visit the beach for the day. The Pacific Ocean is only about 50 miles away from us, and the beach is interesting because the sand is black because of the nearby volcanos. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to us, but I think about half of Guatemala also decided to visit the beach as well.
I’ve never seen a beach as crowded as this one was! But we still had a great time together and enjoying the ocean. I still can’t believe that I forgot to take a picture of us all together, but at least I have this shot of our fresh-caught lunch!
March in Guatemala
March has been a busy month full of teaching, cooking, constructing and growing! Benjamin has moved in with us this month, and so the Brito brothers are now here together. We have a picture of our family on our website, and our home sure feels a lot fuller now!
In February we finally had received the land title and began work on digging the trench for the foundation for the wall around the perimeter of the land. This month has been full of pouring the cement and laying blocks for the outer wall. It’s been really busy and tiring! (and I’m not even doing most of the labor) But it’s so exciting to be planing and designing the house. We have a bunch of pictures of the progress on our website.
Prayer requests for April:
- Benjamin & Elias: We’re excited that God had brought them both to our home. Please pray that He would continue to form them into men of God while they’re here with us.
- Construction: Construction is exciting, but it is also intimidating with so many big decisions and problems that arise. Please pray for wisdom for our decisions and safety for our workers. Please pray for favor with our mayor for issues such as water which we still need. And please pray for financial provision.
- Us: Please pray that Yuliza and I would be able to spend the quality time together that we need as a couple as our home is now busier. Please pray that we would remain one in heart and mind.
- Please pray that Galatians 2:20 would become more and more real to us and to our boys this month: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
I love the Easter season! I remember going to a sunrise service Easter morning with my family as a child and singing sings like ”Up from the grave He arose”. I remember being amazed by the love and the power of our God. The love that God had to send His Son for us sinners, and the love that Jesus had for us to suffer and die in order to pay the penalty for our sins. And the amazing power of our Lord. He remained perfect and pure while He lived and as He died. He conquered death by rising again. He destroyed the plans of the devil. He broke the bonds of sin in our lives that held us captive. And He returned in victory to His Father’s side, where He is preparing a place for us to be with Him. What an amazing God we serve!
My prayer for you, and I ask that you pray the same for us, is that the incredible love and power for our Lord would become more and more real in your lives. Happy Easter!
Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support!
With love,
Brent and Yuliza
Construction Progress
Preparing the rebar columns
The block foundation
Reaching the ground level
Above ground
The septic hole
Chepe digging deep!
The end of March
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)
This month we’ve started a Bible study on my favorite book of the Bible, John. Of the four accounts of Jesus’s life, called the gospels, this book feels like the most personal. It goes into great detail to explain why Jesus did what He did, and it includes lots of His conversations with the people around Him. It also has some of the most memorable verses like John 3:16 and John 14:6.
I love how this book focuses on many of Jesus’s explainations about the spiritual side of life, something completely new to the people. For example, in John 3 Jesus talks to a Jewish leader, Nicodemus, about the need to be born again; not a physical birth like the first time, but a spiritual birth. In John 4 He talks with a samaritan woman about being the source of of living water of eternal life. In John 6 He explained to a crowd that we must eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have life. In John 8 Jesus explains that everyone who sins in a slave to sin, and that we are either the children of the devil or the children of God. In John 9 He gives sight to a blind man and explains spiritual blindness. His teachings are both fascinating and incredibly rich with lessons for our own lives. It’s so easy for us to be so focused on our physical lives that we forget about our spiritual lives.
Benjamin’s with us
Elias’s brother Benjamin has now moved in with us! He has been busy in January and February with a final internship required for his degree in accounting, and he was working for a company that prints food packaging labels. Some examples are the labels on two liter bottles of soda and the plastic wrappers for hotdogs. After his internship ended the company offered him a full-time position at the company to help keep track of their inventory.
He is very excited for this opportunity to start working in his field. The new job offer did mean that he wouldn’t be able to take care of the house of boys at Casa Shalom anymore, and so he decided that it was time to move out of them home. We’re excited to have him here with us now. We had a great time together during the Christmas break, and now we get to be together all the time!
We would appreciate your prayers for both Benjamin and Elias as they live with us. Please pray that God would use us to continue to form and mature these two young men as they transition into adulthood.
February in Guatemala
February has been a very exciting and busy month because the land title has been finally approved! It took 5 months for the whole process to complete which is a lot longer than we were anticipating, but we’re so grateful for the land and excited to now begin building.
We had a picnic party to celebrate the start of construction the final weekend in February. We invited all the teenage boys from Casa Shalom over to the land along with our pastor and our family and friends. It was a great time of giving thanks to God for His provision.
We also used it to talk to the boys about their hopes for the future. Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish”, and other translations say that the people “cast off restraint”. A common problem with orphans is that they have no vision for their lives. When you grow up with no parents or your parents die and you’re left alone, your hopes and dreams for the future can easily die too. Our message to the guys was that in Christ we can have a hope and a future. Like a pot in the hands of a potter, He is forming us for His purpose.
Prayer Requests for March:
- Elias: Elias is continuing his final year of high school. Please keep him in your prayers as he plans for the future.
- Benjamin: Elias’s brother Benjamin has finished his required internship in order to graduate from high school, and is now looking for a job. He is also moving out of Casa Shalom and moving in with us. Please pray for him as he transitions into this new phase of life. We’re excited to have him here with us!
- House Construction: There are a lot of details that go into building a house! I’m learning a lot as we get the project started. One issue that we’re waiting for is that we don’t have any water yet, and the new mayor hasn’t decided how much he wants to charge us to hook it up. Without water we can’t make concrete. Also pray that God provides all the finances needed to build the house.
- Us: Please pray that Yuliza and I continue to have enough time together as a couple amidst the busyness of teaching, construction and our guys.
- Please pray Colossians 4:5-6 for us: Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
Our website and blog have moved! Our name change is now complete, so our website can now be found at www.PottersHome.org. Please update your bookmarks! My email address Brent@CasaShalom.net will continue to work.
Thanks so much for all of your prayers and support for us in Guatemala! God has given us an incredible responsibility to do, and we feel honored with all the support that we receive.
Brent & Yuliza
It’s DEEEEEEP!
I’m impressed how deep the foundation needs to be and how quickly our workers dug it.
Even our nephew Jorge Pablo came to help!
Land Celebration
This weekend we had a picnic to celebrate starting construction of the house. The teen boys from Casa Shalom came over to see the land, and it was fun to spend the day together. Our pastor was able to join the celebration, and we had a great time praying and thanking God for His provision. Some of new neighbors are relatives of Yuliza, and they were generous to let us use their yard for the picnic since our piece of land is just dirt right now.
Construction has begun
We broke ground on the land today! This is a view of our land from the “road” leading to it. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but it’s very exciting that we were able to begin this morning.
The first thing that we need to do is build a cement block wall around the perimeter of the land, and then afterwards we’ll build the house inside. Here’s three of our workers starting to dig the trench. They’re Yuliza’s two brothers and a nephew.
Construction is very interesting because it’s completely manual labor. We don’t have any electricity yet, but we don’t need it, either. As an engineer I’m enjoying learning how everything is built. For instance, they use a clear hose filled with water in order to make two distant points the same height in order to make a wall straight.