Thank you so much for your prayers and support! Here are the activities that we were involved with during the Christmas season.

Faith in Action

Our Bible study on Monday nights with street vendors, alcoholics, poor and homeless is called Faith in Action. The number of people attending continued to grow all fall, and for our final Christmas party over 220 came. It was a great night of celebrating God’s goodness together.

Los Gozosos

Los Gozosos is a wonderful orphanage that is dedicated to caring for children with special needs. Their staff works incredibly hard to raise these children to reach their potential and to love them with God’s love. It’s an honor to work with them as part of their board of directors, and it was great to spend a special day with the children.

Casa Shalom

The kids at Casa Shalom captured the hearts of Yuliza and I many years ago, and we still love to work with this great orphanage. Members of our church came with us in order to give all the staff of the home a morning off from cooking and caring for the kids. We rented a few bounce houses, played soccer and had a big meal together.  

Our Family

Christmas at our house involved a lot of food, fellowship, fireworks and lots of visits of many kids to our house. It was a fun and busy time!

Many of the kids who come to our Monday night program are street vendors, and Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve are their busiest nights of work. The central park of our town fills with people, and so these kids sell candy, fruit and fireworks all night long. As a family we like to go and spend time with them giving gifts and showing love because it can be a long and hard night for them. It’s such a blessing to see Margaret and Isabella’s hearts grow for the children as we spend time with them.

 Yuliza and I celebrated our 15th anniversary on December 26th. And now we’re preparing for the new school year which starts next week. 

A new boy named Jeremiah is about to move in with us from Casa Shalom. He turned 18 on December 27th, and we were invited to his birthday party at the orphanage. We’re still looking and praying if any other children can come and join our family before the new school year. We would greatly appreciate your prayers for his adjustment to living in our home and for direction with any new kids.

Thank you so much for your continuous prayer and support!

Brent, Yuliza, Margaret & Isabella

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello from Guatemala! Here the rainy season has recently stopped and the school year has just ended too. 

Karla has finished her first year in college studying computer science, Sharon and Anelcy finished 11th grade, and Katy finished 10th grade. In September and October Anelcy had her first experience working as a student teacher, and she loved working with her kindergarten class. Now that they’re on break from school most are working in a local clothing factory that makes men’s suits.

This is a time of the year when we’re looking and praying for new teens to join our family. We’re excited that a boy named Jeremías (Jeremiah) will be coming to join our family! He turns 18 next month, and like Sharon and Anelcy, he’ll be a senior in high school next year. We really hope that we can find another boy to join us to be a companion to Jeremiah. We’d also love to have another girl or two join our family this next year! So we ask you to join us in prayer for our family as we grow!

In our last newsletter in August, I talked about Alfonso and how he’d been in-and-out of alcohol rehabilitation centers and in-and-out of the hospital because of cirrhosis of his liver. He had run away again, and we got a call from his brothers shortly after that newsletter telling us that he passed away. He was a week away from his 25th birthday, and we are so sad about his death. We also ask that you pray for his brother Martin who also has cirrhosis of his liver and doesn’t want to change. It’s so hard to understand, and all we can do is pray.

Monday Nights

Our Monday Night Bible studies have been growing and growing. We had to move from a meeting room into the sanctuary of the church because over a hundred people are now coming! It’s a great time of singing, praying, learning and eating together. One of the most exciting things for me to see is the church congregation really grow in love and in service to our community. It’s so exciting to see people on fire for the Lord and to see that fire spread through acts of love! And our prayer times have been really powerful as we work with the poor, homeless and addicted. It’s so incredible to see people feel the love of God through our group and to see them pray for forgiveness, freedom, strength and provision.

Last Monday night I was talking and getting to know a group who had just started coming, and there was a young mother who came for the first time. I asked where she was from and how she had heard about us, and she was shy to say. And the guy sitting next to me casually said, “Oh, I met her in the dump as I was sorting through the trash, and I invited her to come tonight.” What a privilege to share God’s love with them!

One Monday night we had an outreach in the park, and we met so many different people who were passing through on their way home. One was a mother who was returning home with her 10-year-old son, Angel, after his latest treatments for leukemia. It’s been wonderful to be able to pray and support the mom during this difficult time, and the group regularly visits with Angel who is currently back in the hospital.

We are now reaching out to a group of over 30 children. Margaret loves the other girls who come and is always excitedly telling us about a new friend that she met. We’re preparing for a Christmas party in December where we hope to reach 250 people. The group is working hard to find toys and clothes so that every kid who comes can receive a present. I ask that you continue to pray for this very special ministry.

Prayer Requests

• Pray for Jeremiah as he joins our family and for other teens as we hope to grow as a family!
• Pray for our various Christmas parties throughout December as we try to show God’s love to many kids.
• Pray for the leadership of the Monday Night Bible study as we pray for God’s direction for the next year as the group continues to grow.

Thank You!

Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support for our family and ministry. In December Yuliza and I will be celebrating our 15th anniversary, and it’s such a blessing to be able to serve in Guatemala for all these years. 

Thank you so much and God bless,
Brent, Yuliza, Margaret & Isabella

Welcome Katy!

We were thrilled to have Katy join our family back in January. (Sorry… I’ve been very late sending this newsletter!) She turned 16 in May and is currently in 10th grade studying computer programming. 

Katy is a new experience for our family because she’s closer in age to Margaret than to some of our older girls, and Margaret loves having a friend!

Karla graduated from high school last fall along with four of our girls. She was accepted at a university in the city where she is majoring in computer science. In order to make it to her classes on time and avoid the crazy traffic, she has to leave the house by 4 am each morning! (I remember being frustrated with 8 am classes in college, which seems pretty silly in comparison.) Anelcy is 21 and a junior in high school, studying preschool education. And Sharon is 19 and a junior too, and she’s studying business administration.

Over the years, we’ve had many teens living with us. Some stay for years, while others are with us for just a few months. A few cases have been particularly challenging for us, especially when we see the kids make poor decisions with their lives. It can be emotionally draining for us to invest so much love, time, and energy into them. So, I want to share some encouraging stories about what some of our kids have been up to:

• We’ve known Carlos (pictured below) for about 20 years now, and he lived with us for a few years. He’s been working as a security guard at a church near our home, and he’s in charge of running the Bible studies that we have on Monday nights. It’s wonderful to work with him and to see the Lord growing his heart for the poor, the homeless, the alcoholics, and the lost.
• Karla now joins Yuliza and me in translating for the groups that visit Guatemala with Filter of Hope. It’s great to see her advance academically, but it’s really exciting to see her grow spiritually and to have deep conversations with her about how to best explain God’s love and grace to people who have never heard about it before. We’re excited to see what God is doing in and through her!
• While in high school, Lesly greatly desired to regain custody of her younger brother and sister who were living at different orphanages. So after graduating last year she left our home to live with an aunt that used to have custody of them. Lesly has been working hard at a job, and the judge returned her siblings to her and her aunt. She’s so happy to have her family together again!
• Sandra lived with us for three years, and has been working as a house mom at a different orphanage. It’s great to see her huge heart for all the children under her care, and it’s great to hear about her experiences, struggles and successes with the kids.
• Flora got married about 6 years ago, and it’s great to have her daughter Ester growing up as a friend for Isabella. An unexpected joy has been growing in a great friendship with her in-laws. But my favorite part is hearing Ester call me grandpa!

Alfonso

Back in February we got a call from Alfonso saying, “I think I’m dying!” He had lived with us for a number of years until he got tired of our rules. He returned to our home during the pandemic with his brother Martin because both knew that he needed to go to rehab in order to stop drinking. But this time Alfonso looked much worse as he had yellow skin, swollen legs, and an enlarged stomach. I took him to the hospital where he was diagnosed with cirrhosis of his liver. I made him promise to go back to rehab once he was released from the hospital. He agreed and stayed at the hospital for a few weeks as they stabilized his health, gave him multiple blood transfusions and stopped his internal bleeding. After that we moved him into a rehabilitation center where he stayed for about 3 months. Unfortunately he ran away and is living in the streets with his brothers again, and we don’t know if we’ll see him alive again.

And so we ask for your prayers for all the kids who have lived in our home over the years: Benjamin, Elias, Celia, Alejandro, Flora, Alfonso, Carlos, Karla, Ana, Julio, Sandra, Mary, Liseth, Nathaly, Anelcy, Lesly, Sharon and Katy. Also for the kids who never lived with us but are always visiting like Edwin, Jenifer, Martin, Cesar, Maria and Alexa. Please pray that they all would find rest in the love of their Heavenly Father, and that they would follow His guidance for their lives.

Thank You!

Thank you so much for your continued support for our family for so many years! Margaret is 11 and loves drawing and painting. Isabella is now 5 and loves gymnastics. Both love their pet rabbits and are very excited about their new puppy Oreo.

Thank you so much and God bless,
Brent, Yuliza, Margaret & Isabella

Lots of Graduations!

Hello from Guatemala! We’ve been very busy celebrating with our girls as 5 graduated from high school last month. Karla (19) graduated with a degree in computer programming, Lesly (19) graduated with a science degree, Mary (22) graduated with a preschool education degree, and both Liseth (21) and Ana (21) graduated with degrees in business administration. It’s been wonderful to celebrate this accomplishment with them, and it’s also been a great opportunity to meet many of their families who we invited over to our house for a party afterwards.

The most common question we get asked is, “What will they do now?” And the answer is different for each of them. Their high school degrees include a major, and they hope to get jobs related to what they studied. Many universities offer evening and weekend classes, and they all have hopes to start studying in college next year. We encourage them to continue to stay with us, in fact, that’s why we built the apartment beside our house in order to give them space to live as well as some more freedom. Some of them do have family that they’ve decided to live with. In the end we try to help them in any way possible as they move into this new stage of life.

Liseth now has a job doing office work at our pastor’s rose farm. She’s very excited to be learning what it’s like to run a real business. And Karla has gotten a job at a print shop near our house where she will be helping them to modernize their website. Our other two girls, Anelcy (20) and Sharon (19) have both finished 10th grade, and they’re working temporary jobs in a guacamole factory until school starts again in January. Mary hopes to find a teaching job for next year, but is working at the guacamole factory with Anelcy and Sharon in the mean-time.

Monday Night Bible Study

In October we were excited to restart the Bible studies on Monday nights. A mix of street vendors, street kids, shoe shiners, homeless, and alcoholics of our town attend, and our heart is to have a place where everyone feels welcomed and loved while we pursue the Lord and His will for our lives. Many people can find it intimidating to walk into a church for the first time, especially if they’re poor, less educated, or struggling with an addiction. We love bringing everyone together, learning about the Lord together, praying for each other, having dinner together, and loving each other. And the children that come love getting some time to just be a kid after a long day of work. 

Please pray for this special group. For kids like Wilson, Maria and Joselin who are selling food and candy on the street everyday. For the adults like Mario, Rebeca and Jesus who are selling fruit and collecting cardboard to provide for their families. And for guys like Carlos, Moises and Wingly who are fighting against addictions. What touches my heart the most is to see Margaret’s heart for the other kids as she is everyone’s friend, and she was the most excited to restart our meetings!

Elections

This year was an election year in Guatemala, and things got crazy. A new candidate came out of obscurity and won the election in August by a pretty big landslide solely based on promises to reduce government corruption. His inauguration isn’t until January, and the current government has been working hard at disqualifying him, his party, and the elections. As a result the general public has been protesting throughout the country. October was particularly crazy as there were blockades everywhere, including 6 different points in our town, which stopped everyone from being able to drive anywhere. It lasted many weeks, and food started to become scarce and expensive. Fortunately it was mostly peaceful but there were confrontations between the protestors, the police, and frustrated drivers. 

We were starting our Monday night Bible studies in the middle of the protests, and in order to invite people we would walk around our central park to talk, pass out coffee and pray for people. The police station is beside the park, and one night after a tense day of protests, the police chief asked our group to come and pray for all of them!

Prayer Requests

• We are in the middle of many different Christmas parties at some orphanages and communities of Chimaltenango. Our desire is to love on as many as possible and to introduce them to our loving heavenly Father.
• The new school year begins in January, and we’re getting to know some potential new girls to see if they are a good fit for our family. After so many have graduated this past year, we hope to find some new girls to help this coming year.
• We ask that you would pray for Guatemala over the next 4 weeks because everyone here is watching and waiting to see what the government does and see if there are going to be more protests.

Thank You!

Thank you so much for your continued support for our family! Margaret just turned 11 and wants to be an artist. She loves to draw and is always making new clothes for her dolls. Isabella is 4 and loves gymnastics. She has been in multiple competitions this year and has even won 1st place! Both love their pet rabbits and are excited by our ever growing bunny population.

Thank you so much and God bless,
Brent, Yuliza, Margaret & Isabella

Welcome Sharon!

We’re excited to have Sharon join our family this year! She’s 18 years old and currently in 10th grade. Our other girls are Karla (18), Lesly (19), Anelcy (20), Ana (21), Liseth (21), and Mary (21).

It’s a fun and very busy year for us to have 7 high-schoolers, and 5 of them will be graduating in October. This is the first year where everything has returned to normal after the pandemic, and it feels like the schools are trying to make up for all the lost time these past 3 years where they’ve had to study from home. So everyone has typically over 6 hours of homework a night!

We’ve enjoyed having regular visits from many kids who have lived with us in the past or have grown up in the orphanage like Carlos, Edwin, Cesar, Maria and Flora. Edwin, who’s been one of our best friends since I started to take care of him 19 years ago, got married in February. 

We’ve also had a few visitors from the United States this spring. Lilia has been visiting us for 3 months and has been involved in Bible studies with our girls, cooking and helping with Margaret’s homeschooling. And our friend Diamond came to visit and added a welcome zany energy to our family.

Margaret is now 10 and is a dedicated artist who is always drawing, painting and molding something new. And Isabella is now 4 and she’s typically worn 3 different dresses by lunchtime. They both love gymnastics and are very excited by our growing family of bunnies.

We continue to partner with our local church to translate for mission teams with Filter of Hope in the communities around our town. They donate water filters to needy families and use the opportunity for evangelism. This year we’ve translated for 7 groups, and it’s fun to have the whole family involved. Yuli is an expert translator, Margaret enjoys helping, and the girls get to improve their English. It’s been humbling to visit the families and really have no idea what they’re going through. We visited homes struggling with poverty, addiction, death of husbands and children, kidnappings and rape. Many people who look fine on the outside, but on the inside are without hope and without the knowledge of God. It has touched our hearts to listen to our girls give testimonies about how God has helped them find peace and forgiveness.

The other good news is that we finally finished paving our road and building the new apartment which provides some much needed space as the girls have been living 3 to a room. We also dug a new water line which has been a huge help in providing enough water for all of us! Here’s a video of the finished apartment: https://youtu.be/SAGRRT4mUjU.

Thank you so much for your continued support for us! Towards the end of last year our finances had been getting tight as we continued to grow as a family, and we were so honored and humbled as many of you stepped up to support and help us during that time. It was a huge blessing to us, and we’re so grateful. Thank you so much!

God bless,
Brent, Yuliza, Margaret & Isabella

Prayer Requests:

• Pray for our girls as 5 graduate and school has been very intense for all of them.
• Pray that we can help them to grow in their personal walks with the Lord.
• Pray as we plan and prepare to restart the street ministries that have been paused this year. 

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

In November we were happy to celebrate with Nathaly as she graduated from high school. Her mom was able to come to her graduation, and Nathaly has gone to live with her mother full-time and is working near their apartment.

We concluded our various ministries with Christmas parties, and the first was for the Monday night Bible study. A clown came and played games with the kids, we had a devotion and time of prayer, and enjoyed a special meal around a fire.

The breakfast ministry finished with 150 tamales for all the street vendors, shoe shiners, homeless and alcoholics in the central park of our town. I shared about difference in the reactions the wise men and King Herod had when they learned about the birth of Jesus. The wise men sought Jesus, worshipped Him and protected Him, while King Herod acted outwardly happy while secretly desiring to kill Jesus because he had no room in his heart for any other king. There was a good response and a great time of prayer afterwards.

Then we had a Christmas party with the children of the Casa Shalom orphanage last week. We had a lunch of tamales and flan, had a great game of soccer, fellowship, prayer and ice cream. Most of our girls grew up there, and we had a great group of alumni visit the orphanage with us. In fact, they paid for all the food! It was wonderful to spend time with and love on the kids.

On Christmas Eve we made tamales and then stayed up all night eating, goofing off, and shooting fireworks. On Christmas Day we went hiking in the mountains nearby to watch the sunset. (I’m sorry for all of you who have really cold weather… it’s wonderful here!) New Year’s Eve will be very similar with lots of kids arriving to stay with us, and we’ll stay up super late all over again!

When I was growing up we knew a lady who would foster care for many children. My family would go over to her house to help with lawn work and house repair projects. So we knew them well. 
When I was about a senior in high school, my parents had all of them over to our house for Thanksgiving. I distinctly remember not being happy about it because I wanted family time as my brother was back from college, and I wanted a relaxing time of eating and watching football. But I was a good Christian boy, so I didn’t complain or share my discontent, and I remember the chaos of the meal with her trying to keep all the kids seated and not fighting.
Now I am so grateful for experiences like this which taught me to love even when I don’t want to, and taught me that Christ followers are called to serve in all times.

Ministry Highlights for 2022

• Receiving Nathaly, Anelcy & Lesly into our family this year.
• Receiving visitors for the first time since the pandemic started.
• Working as a family to translate for six different evangelism groups and meeting many new like-hearted friends.
• Starting construction on the new apartment. Here’s a video of the progress: youtu.be/XsMkIdem7q8
• Visiting our home church after not being able to for so long and spending quality time with Pastor Rick and his family. A special highlight was spending an amazing time in worship led by a couple who had just lost a child to cancer, and then I had to preach and I was so humbled as I prayed, “Lord, what can I say after that?”
• Reading through the gospel of John during our Monday Night Bible study and helping the group which does not have much schooling to learn to study the Bible for themselves. It’s also been great seeing Margaret’s heart grow for her street-vender friends and watching her joy to be with them each week.

A few months ago our finances had gotten really low, and I started to really fret about how we were going to make it to the end of the year. I would love to say that I was calmly trusting the Lord, but I was mostly just stressing out. We were so blessed to have some regular donors step up and help us through that time, and this month we received some new donors who have surprised us by their generosity. We’re so grateful and humbled!

Ministry Vision for 2023

We’re going to probably be receiving at least two more girls into our family shortly. And this is an especially important year for 5 of our girls who are starting their senior year of high school in January — from Karla, who’s been with us for over 7 years, to Lesly, who’s been with us 3 months. 

My greatest desire for this year is to help them grow in their relationship with their Heavenly Father. It’s too easy as a Christian to go through the motions or learn facts about God, but to never having a relationship with Him as a father and as a friend. Just like we can be with a famous person, we can learn facts about them or maybe meet them, but that’s not a relationship! I want each of them to be secure in their position as a child of a loving God, and then to learn to walk with Him everyday for the rest of their lives.

Thank you so much for your continued support for us!
God bless,
Brent, Yuliza, Margaret & Isabella

As the school year ends here in Guatemala, we are happy to announce that Lesly has joined our family this month, and we’re so glad to have her with us!  Nathaly has just finished her senior year and will be graduating high school next week. 

Many of the girls have gotten a job in a clothing factory to work during their vacation. In fact, you can visit Walmart and look for colorful T-shirts of the brand “Wonder Nation” to see what they are producing!

As the school year ends, we look towards January and the next year, and we need financial help. Most schools are private schools, and especially during high school where the girls have to pick a major, it’s important to have a good education in order to be able to get a good job afterwards. 

This year the costs for school have averaged $100 a month for each girl, with more expenses at the beginning of the year when we pay for enrollment, uniforms and books. And during the school year, the monthly tuition is roughly about $60 depending on the career. In our home, we budget for $2 a day for food for each of us which is $60 a month per girl. In 2022 we’ve been running short about $550 each month, and it would be wonderful to be able to cover these expenses this coming year.

I know that I’m writing to so many that are so generous with us, but maybe you know someone else who would be interested in partnering with us in raising these wonderful girls. We have a great privilege to be able to serve in Guatemala, and we love bringing girls from difficult living situations into our home and make them part of our family. It’s a unique calling that God has placed on our lives, and our hope is to help each girl to know how much their Heavenly Father loves them, to desire to seek His will for their lives, and to be mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually ready for their futures.

Many have also asked how the new apartment construction is progressing, and unfortunately we’re still waiting for the road construction to finish in order to be able to bring in the materials we need. The road construction started about 2 and a half months ago, and it looks like they need another few weeks more. The house is almost finished, but it still needs doors, windows and electricity. Hopefully we will be able to finish it by the end of the year.

Thank you for your prayers and continued support for us!
Brent, Yuliza, Margaret & Isabella