Category Archives: Guatemala

Guatemala, Month Review

October in Guatemala

October has just flown by!

We have been very busy this past month making plans with Benjamin & Elias Brito, the first two guys who will move in with us at the end of the year. We’re raising support for Elias as he will be finishing his last year of high school, and we have a newsletter which you can read here. We had guys stay at our house almost every weekend this month and I was able to stay with the boys at Casa Shalom this past weekend. God blessed our time together with many great conversations.

We still haven’t received the final land title from the municipality office where we live. It’s an election year, and so everything seems to move extra slow! But I think that it’s actually a blessing because we’ve been able to be much more focused on the boys and our ministry that will take place inside the house than on the actual house itself. So the delay has allowed us to be much more focused on building a different kind of foundation!

It’s been an incredibly wet month because a tropical storm dumped rain on us for almost two weeks, which caused many mudslides and displaced thousands of families. We’re grateful for God’s protection and relieved that the storm has passed.

Here are our blog posts for October:

Our prayer requests for November:

  • Continued prayer as we plan how the house will function, and as we talk to the guys who will live with us.
  • Prayer that we can get the land title and that God will provide the finances necessary to build the houses.
  • We will be traveling to the USA on the 17th to spend Thanksgiving with my family and return to Guatemala the first week of December.
  • We will be sending out a newsletter while in the States in order to secure funding for ourselves for this coming year.
  • Prayer that Yuliza and I have enough time together as a couple and that we always keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.

Thank you so much for your prayers for us this past month! We are very grateful for all of the prayers and support that we’ve received. It’s such an exciting time for us as we make plans to start the halfway house. And we need your prayers so that we can clearly hear God’s will.

Brent

Guatemala

School’s Out!

Martin & Julio

The school year has just finished up here in Guatemala, and now the kids have a few months of vacation before classes start back up in January.

Two kids at Casa Shalom, Martin & Julio, graduated from 6th grade, and they even get a graduation ceremony. Martin is one of the most dedicated students I have ever seen here, and so we’ve gotten permission to send him to a school near our house which is like a charter or a magnet school this coming year. In a little over a week he’ll have to take an entrance exam where only 200 out of over 1,000 are accepted. Hopefully he’ll get accepted because this school could be a great opportunity for him.

 

Guatemala, Newsletter

Newsletter – Ministering to the Brito Brothers

Benjamin & Elias 7 years ago

We’re very excited about this coming year because we have the opportunity to have two guys come and live with us: Benjamin & Elias Brito! Benjamin is 22 and he’s graduating from high school this year. He’s planning on finding a job next year and starting college classes on the weekend. Elias is 20, and next year will be his senior year of high school. We came to Guatemala to work with guys like Benjamin & Elias, and so the possibility of having them live with us is so exciting!
We will have to cover the costs of Elias’s final year of high school, and so I’ve written a newsletter to raise money to support him.

 

Guatemala

The storm continues – Updated

The tropical storm that had stopped over Guatemala was supposed to move on this past weekend, but it’s still here and might stay for a few more days. There have been over 30 deaths here, and also over 30 in our neighbor El Salvador. Yesterday a piece of road gave out taking two people with it. The news report can be seen here.

Please pray for Guatemala!

Updated Thursday 10/20:

The storm’s finally moved out and blue skies are back! Guatemala needs your continued prayers as the repair and reconstruction begins.

Guatemala

(Legally) married for 2 years now!

20111019-233956.jpgToday is our second anniversary since our civil marriage! There are two weddings in Guatemala: the civil (legal) wedding and the religious wedding. The civil wedding is normally the day before the big one, but because of our visa issues, we were legally married a little over two months before our big wedding. Our wedding website has more pictures and the full story.

That sure was a crazy time for us because we really didn’t know if or when we could be together after our wedding in December. But we did the best we could and just trusted God to do the rest. And He was so good to us! Today is a great day to remember God’s incredible love for us, and it fills us with gratitude for how He’s cared for us and brought us together.

Guatemala

Rain, rain go away…

We’ve had a tropical storm that’s stopped over Guatemala all this week that has been just pounding us with rain. I’ve heard that around 20 people have been killed by mudslides and over 10,000 have had to evacuate their homes. We’re fortunate to be ok, but Guatemala needs your prayers as this storm is supposed to stick around for a few more days.

Construction, Guatemala

House Design

We’re working hard in the architectural drawings and plans for the land construction. Here’s a drawing of the two houses that we’d like to build, and they’ll be setup like a duplex. One side will be for the guys to live in, and the other side will be for our family as well as any underage kids who might stay with us in the future. It’s pretty exciting to be able to plan every last detail of the contruction!

Guatemala

Visiting Victor

This past Sunday was the monthly visitor Sunday when the kids of Casa Shalom who have family can be visited from their family. There are kids, of course, who don’t have any family or whose family doesn’t come to visit them, which can make it a sad day for many of them. So Yuli and I try to always come to be with them. It also provides a great time to relax and chat with the children because during the week we’re busier and more focused on working with them on homework and preparing for tests.

On Sunday morning, one worker at Casa Shalom was preparing the room for the church service we have together with the families, and she saw little Victor all nicely dressed and happily playing outside. She said, “Wow, you look nice today, Victor. Why are you dressed up?”, and he said, “Because I have visitors coming to see me today!” She was surprised because although Victor has parents and brothers, they haven’t come to see him in a long time. So she asked him who was coming to see him to which Victor responded “Yuliza and Brent are!”

The worker told us this story today and it touched our hearts so deeply. We love these kids and we want to share God’s love with them. So Yuli prepares a bunch of sandwiches and snacks, and we spend the day with the kids. But it’s sometimes to see the effect or the appreciation. We’re so glad that Victor enjoys our visit, and we’ll be there at the end of this month again to visit with him!

Thanks so much for supporting us and enabling us to be here in Guatemala to serve these children.

Guatemala

Bunk beds

We got these bunk beds from a missionary working at another orphanage here in Guatemala this weekend, and Benjamin and Elias helped me put them together.  We’re excited that our house it getting ready for them to move in!