What We Do

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We are a non-profit organization that works with pastors, churches, schools, and the local hospital in Chiquimula, Guatemala. We host training seminars for pastors, leaders, and youth from rural areas and we help supply the congregations with Biblical materials to minister to their communities. We visit several public schools to share a Biblical story and play with the kids. We also pray in the local hospital and give out toys, toiletries, and Biblical materials. Ways to Be a Part of this Ministry: Come - We need pastors and leaders to come and teach these pastors and leaders here in Guatemala. Or you could bring a group to work in the churches or schools with construction or evangelism. Financially Support - If you would like to support this ministry, please visit our website at www.eyeswideopenministries.com to donate online or send your donation to: P.O.Box 245 Florence, Alabama 35631 Make your checks payable to Eyes Wide Open Ministries. All donations are tax-deductible. Pray - Please pray we will follow God's leading in all we do.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Building a Bathroom and Digging a Hole

Well I have to say that I really enjoyed the time with our past group. Luke McIntyre and five others with him came to build a bathroom and dig a septic hole at a church in , Chiquimula. The pastor is one of our friends and also attends the pastor seminars. There were four in the group from Killen United Methodist Church and two from St. James United Methodist Church. We had a great time together. They stayed in our house and in Mme Jo's house, the nurse that is here and also our friend. We spent five days working on the bathroom and the septic hole. They also spent one morning at a school in San Juan Ermita, Chiquimula. The group played some games with the kids at the school and also did a craft with them that taught the kids about the love of God in our lives. We had a great time at the school, and the kids loved having the group spend time with them. That time also taught the kids that God does care and love them and sent some people from very far away to tell them that. Good stuff!!

Well, digging the poop hole was not so great. It had to be 13 ft. deep!!! and 4 1/2 ft. wide. And we were digging with a pick and a shovel. Good stuff! No one could move after the third day of working. And to get the water for the concrete mix, we had to carry 5 gal. containers to the creek at the bottom of the mountain and then back up to the church. The total distance was about 7/8 of a mile. KILLER!!! Our legs felt like water after just one trip. We filled up two fifty gallon drums before it was over. And the last day that we needed water, the pastor told me that it would be better to drive up the mountain in the truck and fill up the drum in the creek that crossed the road!! I then smacked him and asked why he didn't think of that before!! Haha Joking about the smack. But they did fill up a third drum using the truck. The rest of the time was spent digging and digging....and digging some more! The group worked very hard to get it finished. Luke was gave one of the workers there a "holy kiss" one day. Then from there on out, the joke between everybody was, "I need a holy kiss!" The pastor and the other worker that was with us just laughed the whole time while looking very scared and afraid for their lives! I think they were thinking something like who are these people and they are crazy! But we laughed and had a great time while digging and digging....and digging some more! At the end, the pastor and the other man both expressed how much fun they had working with the group and how they felt like we were already close friends. The other man helping, Hector, said that this was his first time working with North Americans, and he did not expect to feel so close like brothers or have such a good time. I think he didn't expect North Americans to be so crazy. Don't worry though, between Luke and me, He got a good impression on how North Americans really are. HAHA But now the people that have to walk from a far distance to go to church will be able to rest assured that there is a bathroom to use to feel more comfortable. So praise the Lord for the group's strength and hard work for the Lord. God's name was praised! And also the pastor said he was going to find one of the guys, Eddie, a lovely, beautiful, kind Guatemalan wife for him when he comes back! Eddie was acting very nervous and strange while the pastor was explaining this to us. This pastor is one of the pastors learning English with Brandi. His favorite thing to say was, "Welcome to Guatemala. Hard Work!" Good stuff! Thanks again for y'all who were a part of the group and those who were a part of helping this group glorify God in Guatemala! God bless!!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Now is the Month of Maying Where Merry Lads are Playing!! Falalalalala

Hey there good people of the Lord! We are thankful for your emails and prayers that we receive and feel everyday and throughout this past month of May. God is so faithful and continues to lead us and encourage us to stay the course and finish the race and complete the task He has given us to share the Gospel of God's grace to the people in Guatemala. Although at many times I don't feel like sharing anything or don't have a desire to continue, I have to go back and remember that I consider my life worth nothing but to do this for God, who is more than worthy and deserves all I am and all I can give. I was reading that scripture in Acts 20:24 and was strengthened and reminded of this truth. And this truth applies no matter where you are and what the calling you have received, give it all you got and watch the mighty hand of God bring glory to His name! Good stuff to experience. Ok...got a little carried away there.

We had a great month of May. The everyday scheduled things are still going good. We have the men's ministry in the village in Camotan that is still growing in the knowledge of God and as well as in numbers. There are around 32 men that come every Monday. A leader from our church in Chiquimula is leading the study, and the men love it. We were able to buy all the men a pair of boots from a donation from Alabama and another from Kentucky. The men were very excited and happy to have new boots to wear to work! We still celebrate the birthdays once a month and have a good time of fellowship after every Bible study. So keep the men there in your prayers and the leadership as well.

I also go with Mme Jo to Salfate where we are building the church, and I help translate for her clinic she has there. The people never stop expressing how her clinic has changed lives and improved their health conditions in a huge way. It is great to be able to be a part of that with Mme Jo, but she is getting to that point where she doesn't need much help with the interpreting. I have not been able to go with her for the past two weeks and only receive a few calls to help her with some difficult translation. Mme Jo and I also take people to the hospital that need more attention than is available. It is wonderful to be able to help them in this way because many of them have never been to the hospital and do not know what to do or where to go. So being there with them helps them feel better and helps them get the help they need. I also was able to help Pastor Carlos more with the construction on the church in Salfate. He is still working so hard to finish the church and have a place of worship for his congregation. It still is amazing to see someone so committed to serving and accomplishing things for the Lord! Keep him in your prayers as well.

We also had the pastor seminar training with Bryan McIntyre, A.K.A. Bone Daddy, which we have already sent out an update on, but to add to that I want to say again that God opened minds and planted His Word in many hearts and minds. The pastors left very excited and all asking when the next training seminar would take place. We are very excited and keep asking God to provide for these pastors and the training they are so hungry to receive. And other ministries have opened as a result of these training seminars. Brandi now teaches English to many of the men and I have been invited to visit their churches and the revival meetings that they have every month. We can see friendships developing and opportunities opening to work more with these villages and pastors.

We also have opened another area of the ministry here with youth in different schools. We feel like this was straight from God because we were not looking for this and did nothing to open the doors to work with the youth. We had some people come to us and ask if we would be interested in going to different schools and doing a small program or simply speak to the kids. The directors of the schools are saying that the kids are beginning to steal and break into houses. They are buying plastic guns and carrying them around like they are real. This is not unusual to see in Guatemala. Much like the crime in the States, youth that have no parents or homes are being picked out by the gangs and drug dealers to be a part of their group and used by them to do their work. Other youth are getting pregnant and having many abortions. And some are simply living on their own and are having to provide for themselves as if they were adults working and going to school to survive. So we have already visited one of these schools twice and another once. We have permission from the directors to go two times a month and have an hour to work with the kids. So we are going to have a lot of fun and, Lord willing, have a large group of youth to minister to and speak with. We both love working with kids. I feel like I can relate to them more because I am so immature. Haha. So pray often with us about this opportunity and ministry that can change many of the youth's lives. Nancy, our assistant and friend, has already put together and performed a very powerful and funny drama at one of the schools and two of the students accepted Jesus into their hearts! Praise the Lord! So we will be organizing with Nancy more programs and lessons for the students in these schools. We are very blessed to have Nancy working with us in this ministry. She is already involved with the kids ministry in our church so we are blessed and thankful to have her with us.

Now I'm sure you have already picked up that we are coming back to Guatemala. We have heard the leading of the Holy Spirit and direction to continue ministering here. We feel many things with that decision, to be honest. But we are still willing and ready to be used here to give glory to God through our lives and actions. We have the pastor seminar training that we will come back to continue, finishing the construction of churches and building new ones through the leading of God, ministering to the youth in the schools, and helping other ministries and working in whatever God opens up for us to do. With this being said, God also told us to move into a mission house here that is bigger and can be used to host the pastor training events and have small groups from the States stay with us rather than in a hotel. I did not believe it would be possible to get this house but God proved me wrong! Imagine that. I actually thought that it was impossible and ridiculous to even call about it. But later God worked everything out to His plans. Again...don't know why I get in the way or think sometimes rather than simply obey. We are happy and nervous at the same time. Bigger house means more rent and more electricity. But like I said, God is in control and has already planned this out for us in advance as to how we will stay there and use this house for His glory and the purposes He has for the house. We will be spending $225 more a month on rent to have this house and the extra utilities when the seminar training is hosted there. Using bunk beds, we can have 14 people stay in the rooms and we have three bathrooms available to these rooms for the 14 people. Three out of the four rooms will have A/C and, Lord willing, wireless internet will be available to the groups. We are taking this a little at a time, so for now that is what we are offering with the house. So this is a bigger step for us and the ministry which will require more prayer from each of you! Not just for the financial means but for our sanity at times and our strength to do this. It can be a little overwhelming at times to have groups stay at your house. It was really rough having my dad stay with us this past month! Hahaha Just joking Bones. Don't get all sensitive. And another little news is, Brandi is pregnant! So another little wonderful, precious, adorable, blessing, good looking McIntyre will be coming into the world! LOL We are excited and looking forward to being blessed with another member to our family! So guys...you can relate...pregnant wife, new born baby, new business or with me a new ministry....getting the picture!? Prayer!! Prayer!! Prayer!! Got to have it. (Don't know if that will be edited out by my wonderful wife or not.) But seriously, we have a lot of decisions and work ahead of us so please keep us in your prayers and thoughts! We greatly appreciate every one of you and know that without God using His entire body of believers, this ministry would be impossible! So thank you and feel free to ask us any questions.

We will be returning to the States on June 22nd and staying for about three to four weeks. I will attempt to have a meeting with some pastors about planning the next training seminars. If anyone wants to meet or has questions while we are there, call my parents, Bryan and Mary Cron McIntyre, at Killen United Methodist Church and they can help you get in contact with us while we're there. We love y'all and hope to see many of you in a week or so and hear from the rest of you through email. God bless!!! Remember Acts 20:24 with me!! Bye!

In the next couple of days, we will be sending a full update and pictures of the construction group that just left and of the work they completed. :) We had a lot of fun, and they were able to finish a much needed bathroom and septic tank for a church in a village! :) Thanks y'all!!!!!

Thursday, June 2, 2011

2nd Pastor Training Seminar 2011

Hello. I hope everyone is doing well. I want to thank everyone for your prayers for the seminar. I hope I can describe how your prayers greatly impacted the seminar. We had all together 16 pastors this time. There were 9 new pastors that did not participate in the first seminar. Pastor Bryan McIntyre was the teacher, and the topic of the seminar was the Five Principles of Faith. It was two and a half days of teaching. We also had the same women cooking for the pastors. Again, I think we all gained weight those two and a half days. Very good food!

Well here is where I know your prayers changed everything. It felt as if the seminar was always under spiritual attack. The morning we were to start, my translator called, who also had the truck to carry us back and forth, and told me his daughter was very sick, and he could not make it to translate. So I called another friend to see if she could do it that morning, and she said that she could translate. So she translated for the first day. We were also able to use the truck from my friend. That night we drove back to the church to have the night service and at the hour we were to start a huge rain storm came. The church started leaking water and the rain and wind were so strong that you could not hear anything being said because the church has a tin roof and open windows. So we had to leave fast because there is a place in the road were you have to drive through the water and when the rain runs down the mountain, the river grows fast and after a short period of time with strong rain no one can pass. Praise the Lord we made it back safely. The next day my friend told me she could not translate because her husbands family was going to stay with them for the weekend so she had to be at her house. I called other people and could not find anybody. So I had to translate for the rest of the seminar for my dad. So praise the Lord it went well, for all I know, and the pastors understood. We went back at night for the service, and this time there was no rain but there was a plague of insects in the church. You had to dodge and move so the flying insects wouldn't hit you, and you had to keep your mouth shut or you would get a big snack for the night! Brandi went crazy and started sweeping them out of the church, but just as fast as she swept, the clean area was covered in bugs again. So after the service, we offered the pastors to come and sleep in our house or stay at a hotel. Only two agreed to stay with us at our house. The others said after they turn the lights off the bugs would leave! But the two pastors that stayed with us had a good time with us. The final half day went well. We gave the pastors certificates for completing the study and concordances were donated to help the pastors in their studies. So all went well at the end, praise the Lord. But I have to say that I just about lost it several times and wanted to hide in a corner after all the mishaps kept coming.

God is faithful and accomplished what He desired for His pastors. They expressed many things that they had learned and many things they could use to teach their churches and villages. And I don't know about you, but I have to admire their hunger and commitment to learn. Many walked several miles every morning to get to the church in 100 degree weather, others slept on the floor in the church and had to walk 20 minutes to get to the river to take a bath, and others slept with the bugs. You have to ask yourself how many of us would have said, "Forget this! I ain't sleeping on the floor or with bugs. I won't bath in a dirty river or walk miles in this heat!" I admire those pastors and hope that y'all can see their hunger and passion through this email and maybe this will effect us all to have the same desire and commitment to God and his calling on our lives.

Dad did a great job teaching the seminar and getting the pastors to understand, seeing how he had to rely on a not so good translator the last two days. I was able to see many of the pastors listening and understanding. After they would make comments or share something with the others, then I knew they were learning and seeing new things they had not yet understood about faith. That is so rewarding and leaves you feeling so excited and ready to start seminar III. The pastors said they were already expecting to have the third training as well. So please be in prayer with us about who God will send to train His pastors in Guatemala.

Reasons Why We Can Trust God With Our Lives

This past week, the Lord lead me to Psalm 23 to comfort me and tell me some reasons why we can trust Him. I don't know about you, but sometimes, when situations arise and our circumstances look bad, the first question I ask is "God, are you sure?" Many times we are so overcome by the emotions that we feel that we can't see past them and we start to doubt if God is worthy of our trust. We start doubting God when we worry. We doubt God when we ask the opinion of others even though we might know exactly what God wants us to do. We may even be doubting God when we struggle to pray or read our Bible..."What will God show me today? or What will He ask me to do?" There are other forms of doubt of course, but I want to focus tonight more on the fact that no matter what doubts may arise in our lives or how we feel or think, God is VERY worthy of our trust.

Psalm 23 is a very familiar chapter. I learned it in Sunday School :) But sometimes the most familiar chapters and verses are just randomly quoted or read without thought because we have heard them so much. Today, I want to point out four ways that God shows us that He is faithful and worthy of our trust in Psalm 23.

1. (Verse 1) We will never be without if we am with God: As God as our Shepard, or our Leader, we will never be in want.
*In Matthew 11:28,29, Jesus calls us to come to Him when we are weak and burdened, and He will what?....Give us rest.
I don't know about you, but when I am overwhelmed about something, the thing I need most is rest. God offers that to us in the midst of our situations and emotions.
Jesus also says, come to me and take my life as your own and He will teach us what we need to know. As a teacher, I actually love to learn too :) Jesus offers us His "lessons on life". Why do we look everywhere else first to figure our our situation before we go to the Great Teacher?
Jesus finally says, His burden is light. I like that Jesus still uses the word burden here. Although the life that God gives us is light and easy, it still can appear as a burden sometime. Life is hard. But Jesus begs us to come to Him because with Him, we WILL NEVER be without - what are you needing today? Joy? Comfort? Financial provisions? Jesus tells us to come.

2. (verse 2,3, 4a) God knows how to lead us: He is not only a good Shepard (Leader), He is the best. He will NOT lead us somewhere without providing EVERYTHING we need to be there. Look at Psalm 119:105 - God's Word is the light to our life. Why? Because God made life. So He also drew us a map to make sure we don't fall off the face of the planet. Don't you just feel like sometimes you're gonna fall off the face of the planet?...you just feel as blind as a bat. Goodness gracious, OPEN YOUR BIBLE! Brandi! OPEN YOUR BIBLE!! It is our light.
The first part of verse 4 in Psalm 23 talks about "walking through the valley of the shadow of death". This tells us that sometimes, even when you are in the will of God, you will walk through valleys of death, pain, scary stuff...But we have nothing to fear because God is a faithful, comforting, and loving leader. So if your situation
looks gruesome, don't give up hope yet. Look for God and follow Him. Look in His word. Go to church. Listen to worship music. We must fill our life up with the Light of God's Word so to know where we need to be and what we need to be doing. The more of the world we have in our head, the more worldly decisions we will make out of the Lord's will.
God waits for us to follow Him, but the scary thing is, if we do not call to Him, He will allow us to to get lost. Don't look at what is around you. Focus on God. God knows how to lead us. Trust Him.

3. (verse 4b) God will NEVER leave us: I like the way the Spanish translation states this verse. It says "I will not fear anyone because Your are at my side; Your Shepard's staff comforts me again." Don't you love that? First of all, it is very specific that we do not have to fear man. Having fear of what people say about you and your family and your life is one of the fastest ways to start doubting God. Like we talked about a few weeks ago, John the Baptist came and lived out in the dessert and ate honey and people said he was crazy. Jesus came eating and had friends, and people called him a glutton and a drunkard. The opinions of others, although well-meant sometimes, can cause us to doubt what God has told us to do.
Then, the verse says that God is at our side. When I think of a Leader, many times I picture the lead chicken in the front and the chicks following close behind. But, here we see that not only does God lead us, He stays by our side. Friendship is what I picture when I read those words. Not only will God never leave us, He WANTS to be with us. We are worth so much to Him and He desires to be by our side. Deuteronomy 31:6 says "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes WITH you; He will never leave you nor forsake you." Where it says "God goes with you" it says in Spanish that "God will accompany us" Accompany us like "Oh man, I've got to go to such and such a place today...all by myself" then God says "Don't worry, I'll accompany you." Ladies! God chooses to go with us. He chooses to accompany you. He is God. He doesn't have too. But He accompanies us because He loves us.
He will not leave us! Ever!!

4. Finally, verses 5 & 6 speak of the last reason for today why we can trust God. If everyone in the world hated you and despised being around you, God would still show His kindness towards you and love you. If God called you to leave everything you have to go somewhere you've never been before, God will continue to pour out His kindness and love on you. If you made 500 terrible decisions yesterday that were out of God's will, God still loves you and shows His kindness to you and shows you mercy. We are NEVER unloved or unwanted. God loves us and wants to bless us and lavish His love on us.

There are so many other reasons why we can trust God, but the most important reason why we can trust God is because He loves us so much. God loves us and created us to live a full life and one with purpose. Will that purpose make the world happy? NO. Will that purpose make human sense? NO. But God loves us. That is reason enough to trust Him.

Trust Him. God does not fall short....EVER. Go to Him first.