Learning Every Day

Hello there. Been a while since I wrote on here but it has been very busy here and I fall asleep every night before I can even get comfortable and roll over. But that's better than not being able to fall asleep or not have a nice comfortable bed to fall asleep in. I always thank God for our awesome beds and our amazing A/C in our bedrooms every night!! You remember the man that was having seizures....I had to put him in his bed that night and saw that it was a concrete floor! So I am thankful and I do not mean that lightly. But things are going good for us. We have been very busy with the ministry and school and the clinic. Mme Jo is still doing very good and blessing a lot of lives. I still love helping her interpret to the people. When ever I get a chance to mess with the people I will tell them that the doctor said this is really bad and you only have a couple more weeks to live...after they turn white I laugh and tell them I am joking. HAHA I know...that is wrong but you have to learn to have fun no matter where you are and they eventually laugh after I convince them that I was only joking. Good stuff! But I'd like to share about two men in the village who have totally changed by the grace of God. Both these men are married to two sisters and have over 8 kids each. They use to get up before the sun rise and go off drinking and come back to eat lunch and then go back for more drinking until about 11 at night. They did not provide for their families and yelled and hit their families and caused a lot of hurt and pain for everyone. But now they have not been drinking for more the 3 months now and you should see the difference on their wives faces and the faces of their children. They seem content and actually have life back in the eyes! The men are working and helping with the kids. These guys seemed hopeless and had been drinking since who knows when but now b.c of the grace of God and his power, they are totally different and doing good now!! Praise the Lord! And another quick story...I went to visit and check on Esteban again and his grandmother. He wasn't there but his grandmother was so I sat and talked to her for a while. She was sharing that she feels soo alone b/c she has horrible arthritis in her knees and legs and can't get out to see people and no body visits her. So also said she needs food b/c no body helps her with that need either. So I wanted to see her kitchen and what she had to eat to see what I might need to take her. She had just got some beans and rice from her son and was cooking them. She had a little plate with some chilly peppers on them for seasoning. That is what they use for making their food taste good! You know...have flavor. I told her that I really liked the peppers and how they tasted. Well you know what she then did! She took what little peppers she had to flavor her food and offered them to me!! After sharing how she had no food and after I saw that she had very little food...she wanted to offer me the little bit of flavoring she had. So I took them all and ate them right there! HA JUST JOKING!! I told her NO!!! I would not take her food from her that she needed them. She agreed but look what she was going to do! I am reminded so often how good I got it and how much more I need to share and have a cheerful giving heart!! God bless her. Well we are eating in Charlie's Pizza this Sat. so pray that it goes good! I think this will be so cool and a wonderful experience for the men! Thank the Lord we are able to do this for the men's ministry! God is good!! There you go...



Daniel

Pictures of the past few weeks...

Hey everyone! Thought we would just post some pictures of some of the things we have been talking about the last few weeks...enjoy.

These are the pictures of when Daniel and Jorge went to take Esteben his medicine for the seizures he has.

These are pictures of the HUGE spider ... tarantula ... that we found in our house!! The pictures don't do it justice!

Pictures of Levi and us in a parade the school in the city put on for the school's anniversary. Levi was a bunny, and Mary Kathleen was suppose to be a flower, but she didn't want to wear her costume. :)

SPIDER!!!!!

Well I'm headed to the village this morning and had just left the house when Brandi calls me and sounds upset. She asked me if I am far off or could I come back. There was a tarantula in our extra room. It was under one of her bags that she hadn't used in a long time by our computer desk. I thought that it must be pretty big if she was calling me to come back and get it. So I go back and when I pull up to the house I can see these huge hairy legs coming out of our windows on all sides of the house! Ha Just kidding. But wow the size of that spider. It was against the wall kind of crawling up and still on the floor with his legs together but stretched out in front of him. I better it was ever bit of 4.5 or 5 inches long from his legs that were stretched out to his butt. I thought that I didn't want to try and step on him or he might carry me off! Just kidding. I thought about the amount of guts and goo in that body that would get everywhere so I got the bug spray. And when I sprayed it, it started climbing the wall trying to go back towards the back door. And dang! It like tripled in size when it spread its legs out to crawl!! It was bigger than my hand when I spread out my fingers. But it eventually died. And then I went to check the old bag that it was under!! I saw another huge spider inside that started to get on my hand and without looking I threw it straight towards Brandi and the kids screaming and Brandi screamed and threw Mary Kathleen in front of her and the bag hit Mary Kathleen. HAHAHA All of that was true except there was no spider inside the bag. I was only joking but Brandi did throw poor little Mary Kathleen!! LOL It was hilarious! I said well some great protector you are mom! HAHA And she said, "No. Mary Kathleen fell forward into the bag trying to get away!" LOL! But now I feel as if I need to search my whole house to see if there are more of the human size spiders in here! Nasty!!! Helps you sleep real good at night knowing there might be more!
Another thing happened today...not so funny though. Yesterday a woman in the village came to the clinic and showed Mme Jo a hard lump on her breast that was hurting her and growing. Mme Jo told me that it felt like it was breast cancer. She also had two lymphoid glands very swollen on the same side under her arm. So today we took her to a "community health center" for the people in that area and that doctor said the same thing. She needs to get exams done to know whether it is cancer or not to see if surgery will be necessary. And these people don't have a bit of money so we are waiting ourselves to see how much this will cost. But the cost is not our concern at all right now b/c this woman has TEN kids at home and the youngest is like 2 and a half years old. She is 39 years old. She is so scared and worried about the whole thing so PLEASE pray for this woman. Her name is Santo Vasquez. We are going to the lab tomorrow to get the test done and find out the result the next day I think. So she will be away from her family probably for the first time and will have a lot more days away if it is cancer so keep her and her family in your prayers! God is in control and Praise God that there is actually a lab here in town that can check and doctors here that can operate if needed!
But we are doing good and fighting for the people here and demolishing strongholds and efforts of the enemy! God is faithful and ALL POWERFUL!!! He amazes me every day with something new and proves himself faithful to the faithful. And God sure is changing lives physically with the work through Mme Jo!! If any of y'all know her and can encourage her do so b/c there have been several women that never say anything nice not stop talking about how blessed they are to have their nurse so close and providing medicine! Well...that's all for now. God bless!!

Daniel

Stomach Nast!

Well the nasty bug has made it's rounds back to this house. Brandi has not been able to eat anything for the past five days without getting sick just 30 minutes to an hour later. And Mary Kathleen has the same problem since the beginning of the week. I on the other hand must have a slitely stronger stomach b/c I only have horrible gas. I know.....too much information exspecially for those of you who really don't know me or understand the third world country bug but those of you who know me and know of the bug....totally get me! So pray for Brandi and Mary Kathleen! Not just about their stomachs but that they can endure mine!! HAHA! Ok...I always mention how hard and brutal Brandi is to me when I am sick or hurt, well I got her today! And don't be saying anything about bless her heart non-sense...she had it coming! But she was lying on the couch not feeling good at all and trying to relax and not hurt. Levi was being the typical three year old and asking her over and over and over what was wrong and why she didn't feel good. So I yelled to him to go tell her to suck it up!! HA And he went back in there probably thinking he was saying something sweet and encouraging and said in his little sweet cute voice..."Momma, what's wrong? Momma, suck it up." LOL But she didn't respond or laugh...where is the sense of humor? But any how...we are doing good besides the loving the toilet thing. It has been raining a lot and causing the evening and nights to be rather cool! So praise the Lord for that.
I am going to be teaching Chayo from the village how to drive! HA! He wants to learn how to drive so I am going to teach him here in the city. He is soo excited and I am sooo nervous! I think as smart and intelligent as he is it will not be hard but learning in this crazy traffic will be interesting. We will start outside the city though where there is no cars. I think it will be fun! He is a really cool guy and a really good friend so I want to help him in this area. It's like he is turning 15 and going to start driving with his permit. You remember how excited you were and offered to drive everywhere. Now you try to get in the passenger seat first so you dont have to drive! But I hope we can start next weekend. Good stuff.
Well keep us in your prayers and don't just read, ask questions or comment. I always thought that only my sister and mother-in-law read these things till one group came and one of the women started talking about everything I had wrote! I got a little scared thinking about what all I have said on here but it is all good. God bless!! There you go.

Daniel

Getting Old!

Well for the past two days I have been putting grout(?) on the ceramic tile floor in the clinic at the village AND let me tell you that I never realized how bad my body is getting and that I have changed since the good old football days or even college days when me and Luke use to mow for 12 hours and then I'd go work out for 2 hours. After the first day I hurt pretty bad in my lower back and knees from having to sit on my knees on the concrete ceramic floor and fill in the cracks with the grout. But I was making it and did not DARE say anything to my compassionate wife about being sore. But after the second day of working from 8 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon on that floor, I couldnt hardly move that night, but I still didnt say anything to my sensitive wife. I cant believe how my joints and muscles hurt after doing a little job like that! I know I am aging. I just keep thinking...if I am like this now....a young scrapping healthy youngster...lol....how will I feel when I get old. And then I pictured Bones!! HAha...When his knee use to lock up or his back not work. Then I got a little better picture of the future. But we sure did have fun playing the good old football when it was happening! Still wouldnt trade it for nothing! But praise the Lord the floor is done!
Went to another city here in Guatemala today to learn how they plant beans and tomato so we can teach the men in the village so thay can grow these and eat them and sell them. Lord willing it will be a success but please Pray b/c this will deffinately push them outside their norm and make them do things that they have never done and be more patient with their work than they have ever been. Brandi make a good point the other day about this...I said I wish we could get them to see that if they would just plant the corn and wait for the 30x more to grow instead of grinding it and making several tortillas then they wouldnt always be so hungry. But she said that when you give them the little bit of corn to plant they are ALREADY hungry and feel like they can't wait three or four months for it to produce more. SO pray that the Lord's will be done and the right thing will happen with this project. But the land at this place was beautiful. They grow bananas, corn, beans, tomato, and coffee up on this mountain. It was so pretty and well managed!
And mom, we are going to take the men from the village to the city on the 21st of Aug. to eat at Charlie's Pizza and serve communion to them. They are still very excited even though there was a change of the day. They keep talking about the food and how they can't wait to eat it. I know...and this just breaks my heart...that for MOST of the men, this will be their first time to ever eat or see anything like the food there b/c it is more than tortilla and beans. We also do birthday parties one Mon. every month for the men and Chayo told me that that party was the first party and the first cake he had ever had for a Birthday and he is 29 years old. WOW! They are doing very good. I had a wife and her two kids from one of the men come to the clinic yesterday for some medicine for her kids. She said that Benedicto, her husband, is so excited about the Bible study and told her for now on leave Mondays alone b/c he is going to study the Word and learn more those days at the ministry. He is one man that knows all the memory verses and does very good! I have really seen a change in his behavior and attitude. She said that he also teaches them about the lessons and the memory verses. Dont know if that is true but look what God is doing in the lives of some of the men in this village!! If I ever get depressed or discouraged I only have to think about those men and pray for them and I feel so much better. So praise God for them and God bless them! Well...there you go.

Daniel

Don't Worry!

Hello there. I have some pictures of me and Jorge giving Esteban his medicine and I was going to get Brandi to put them on here but we never seem to be in the right place together at the right time to get that done. So I wanted to go ahead and make it known that God totally opened the door here for us to be able to get his medicine without a "prescription-a really loose term here" and get him two months supply of the medicine. He was grinning from ear to ear in the photo when we walked to his house and gave him his medicine. I have to go tomorrow to check on him b/c he didnt come to the meeting Mon. so I don't know if he is better.
But God is soo good to me. He has opened my eyes to how much I am concerned about...Jesus calls it worry in Luke 12. I have been preaching about worrying ever since God spoke to me about it. But I feel soo at peace knowing that God already knows our needs and will provide for them (Matt. 6:8). I need to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and then all the other things will come to be (Luke 12:31). It is hilarious in Luke 12 when Jesus said that if you can't do such a little insignificant thing like ADD ANOTHER HOUR TO YOUR LIFE!!! then why worry about the other things...God will take care of them. But that is how big our God is...he talked about adding time or years to our lives as if it was a tiny little effortless thing to do and NO BODY can do it here!! HA! God is big and powerful and he has my life in his hands and my needs on his mind. You know it gets really hard and difficult being away more times than others and we start really missing our families and friends. It feels like we are missing out...but we are not missing out b/c this is where God has put us and he is doing WONDERFUL things here and we are getting to see these things and experience them. So we are thankful but have to be reminded to keep focused and pray. I also read today in Luke 18 where Jesus told two parables about how important it is for us to be persistent in our prayers! So we have to keep exercising our prayer life here. But thank you for yall's prayers! We need them and feel them too! Thank you. So here we are and there you go. God bless!

Daniel