This post is going to be a little bit random, but it includes a few shots of my parents' visit, as well as some photos from around Guatemala. Enjoy!

Shopping in the market. Strawberries were less than fifty cents a pound!

Checking out the chickens..

Busy in the kitchen one morning.

At the Iglesia Bautista La Esperanza.

Going shopping near downtown Xela.

Mom & me at a restaurant in Antigua. I {heart} my mom!

Hospital Privado in Quetzaltenango, where we took Dad to have blood work done while he was here. (Doctor's orders.) See the smile on his face? That's relief that it wasn't so bad after all! ;o)

Artwork in the market.

A park in Parramos.

These are the pilas, where women come to scrub their family's clothes over stone surfaces, rinsing them with the water you see. Most homes here have their own pila, including mine. It really comes in handy for big clean-up jobs and for scrubbing stains or rinsing mops. But as for my laundry? I'm so blessed to have a washing machine! :o)

This is Oscar, our weasel - er, Dog, I mean.

This is Mom & Dad at the airport. Sad day!

Here is one of the pieces of Mayan stoneware dug up by a neighbor of ours. Many pieces of ancient Mayan artifacts are kept and preserved by the government and/or in museums, but who knows how much pottery and statuary are in the homes of the people who find them? Some of them appreciate the history and take care of it, like this fellow does. I want one!

Jocote marañón, a fruit brought up from the coast. Notice the strangely-shaped "stem"? That contains what you know as a cashew nut!

Woman in Guatemala City.

Mom and Dad arrived in Guatemala on Monday and will be with us for a little while. It is so good to see them again! With today's technology, we can talk to them from a thousand miles away or IM every day if we want, but there is just no substitute for a warm embrace or a smile in person.

My children are thoroughly enjoying their Grammy and Papa, (the younger two getting re-acquainted with them :o). We'll let them rest up from their trip and get acclimated to the altitude before we take them to do any crazy stuff!

I hope you are all seeing God's blessings today as well!

Bob and Nalani Stevenson, with Carpenters for Christ, came to stay with us a couple of nights, and what a fun time we had! While "Uncle Bob" and Daniel worked on making plans for our roof, the children and I kept "Aunt Nalani" busy.


Nalani (pronounced /Nuh-LAH-nee/) is Hawaiian. Here she is drawing us a map of the Big Island. She shared her salvation testimony with us, how she was raised Catholic, but didn't know Jesus as her Saviour until after she married and had moved away from her home state. When they returned to Hawaii some years later, they helped start an Independent Baptist Church in South Point.


She was born on the island of Kawaii, which is the one she is pointing to. South Point is located at the southern-most tip of the Big Island. Say a prayer for the church there, as they are looking for a pastor who speaks English and Spanish. Anybody want to pastor a church on a beautiful tropical island?

This couple is such a neat testimony of God's grace, and of living the Christ-life here on earth! It was a pleasure to have them in our home, even if the visit was all too brief.

...I heard that Nalani used to be a hula dancer! I'll have to get her to teach me some of those graceful hand motions next time we see each other.

I hope you all enjoyed a blessed Lord's Day. What a refreshing way to start the week, meditating on God's word and fellowshipping with other believers. We need each other! So much the more as we see these last days upon us.

Friday we all went to the Seminary with Daniel, and the children and I did school while he taught his classes. Then we all ran errands and did grocery shopping together - a rare treat! All our business in town took all day, and by the time we got home everybody was exhausted.

It was still too early to go to bed, so we had a bite to eat, then some read books, some colored, some played...


...and some just couldn't last another hour.

Poor children! It was a long, busy day.

On Friday we also "chanced" to meet up with a very nice family from Pennsylvania. They have come down to Guatemala for a family missions trip. They seem to be getting along bravely by themselves, visiting different areas of the country using the bus system.


They accepted our invitation to visit our church on the Lord's Day, and we had a good time of fellowship around God's Word, and later around the table for lunch. Does that look like a crowd, or what? With our six children, and their six children (they have three more that are married), we did make a large, lively group. What fun!

Daniel arranged to transport them to the bus station this week, and they will travel to the airport in the capitol, from whence they will fly home. What a sweet blessing it is to have met these sweet believers, and to be able to help them in some small way. It is amazing how when strangers meet and find one another to be believers in Jesus, they don't regard one another as such "strangers".

May God bless you in a special way this week!

We certainly weren't all work and no play during VBS time! We got to visit Antigua, where Shelley and I had tea with a friend of hers. The above photo was taken in the central park of Antigua.


Daniel watched the children so that she and I could do some "girl stuff" too, i.e. lunch and shopping. :o) It was fun to have my cousin and childhood friend with us again, and her week with us flew by all too quickly.


Thanks for coming, Shelley! (I know you'll read this in Nicaragua.) Can't wait 'til next time.

The last few days were a whirl of activity, and I hardly had time to post about our visitors! As I write, Daniel is driving Bro. Stansell and Jonathan to the airport in Guatemala City. They fly out around 1 p.m. today. The children are a bit somber this morning; they got up early to see them off, and miss them already.

I have to apologize for the lack of photos in this post, but I don't have access to the camera. To me, posting without pictures is like talking without my hands! So I will post pics soon.

We enjoyed their visit very much! On the Lord's Day, Bro. Stansell preached to a crowd in Xela, then at the new church in La Esperanza, and then again at the church in San Juan. He and Jonathan were a great encouragement to the people, as well as to us missionaries.

Monday we met up with another missionary family, the Wilders, and headed out to visit the ruins at Huehuetenango. The weather was perfect, and the deep blue sky and ever-changing clouds were a dramatic backdrop to the ancient Mayan structures. We explored the palacial house, a sport arena, the temple of (pagan) worship, and other ruins. The history was fascinating.

Tuesday was the day for shopping and running errands. They visited the Centro Comercial, which has some of the best touristy shopping in town. The Stansells had brought down the parts we needed to get our van repaired, and the shop was working on it. Tuesday evening was prayer meeting in San Juan.

Wednesday morning, Daniel took the Stansells and our three oldest children up to Cerro Quemado, which is a huge dormant volcano south of town. I stayed home with the younger ones. When the phone rang later, it was Daniel saying he was calling from 9500 feet above sea level! In the afternoon they shopped some more, and in the evening there was the church meeting in La Esperanza.

There were thirteen present for church last night, in spite of the rain. The preaching was great, and we were exhorted that our life is but a vapor that appeareth for a little time, then it's gone. If we want our life to count for Christ, the time to do His work is right now, because tomorrow is not promised.

On the way home, I think that message was on all of our hearts. As we approached the central park of La Esperanza, it was spontaneously decided to stop and pass out gospel tracts. Even though it was dark and wet, there were many people out, and I think most all of them received a tract.

We did the same in San Juan. There was the sense that time is running short, partly because the Stansells were to leave the next morning, but mostly because life is short, and we don't know how long we have to work!

"Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.

But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.

Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin."

James 4:14-17