Playing with the kids in the city school

We finally were able to go back to one of the city schools in Chiquimula to play with the kids and teach them from God's Word! We had not been to this school in a while because of their test scheduling or conflicting schedules. But we went this morning and had a wonderful time!! My team lost really bad in the game we played! I love playing with them and getting them all-keyed-up and crazy for their teachers after we leave! Doesn't sound like me? I always try to get them into the games by making it competitive, but this time it back fired on me! We lost really bad! But to make everybody mad and crazy...the last attempt we had to try to win I told everybody that whoever won this one, won the whole thing! Some agreed thinking they would beat us again and others were yelling noo!! Well we WON!!! Haha! We were happy but the other team didn't seem to like me making up rules as we played....some people just are sore losers! I bet some of y'all who are reading now are even getting a little fired up huh? Haha Good stuff! We did the drama based on the Good Samaritan from the Bible! We had some of the kids act out the story as Nancy read! It was wonderful!! All the kids were laughing and participating really good! Then Nancy shared and taught about the story planting the seed in their minds and hearts! The teacher that allows us to come is a Christian and really works hard teaching these kids and trying to lead them to Christ, but with it being a public school and the fact that the principle is not a Christian, it gets tough sometimes. While Nancy was praying with the kids at the end the principle starting walking down the hall towards us, and Nancy had to cut the prayer short b/c the teacher was afraid that if the principle finds out he won't let us come back. So keep this teacher and her kids in your prayers that God will protect them and cover them with His grace and give opportunities for her to teach the kids about God's love and truth everyday!  God is good!!!

We have visitors!

We picked up three strangers, lost and all alone at the air port, this past Friday! They looked scared and confused so we took them home with us as our personal slaves to serve us and give us foot massages for the next two and a half months!! Hahaha! Kathleen, Melanie, and Ashley are here to help us out in the ministry for the next two and a half months. We are very happy to have them here and look forward to having their help and company for a little while now. Mary Kathleen is sooo excited to have other girls in the house and not just her and Brandi! She is all the time checking on them in their rooms making sure they are still there and just checking to see if they are wanting to play! She is so cute! We are very blessed to have them stay during this time because we are going to be having groups or seminars every week starting the second week of June to the first week in August!! But these girls are great workers and love to help and serve...as long as I can keep Ashley away from the guys here! Hahaha She'll be mad if she ever sees this! They are already helping with the school visits and praying in the hospital and are ready and informed about the upcoming groups and seminars! Please pray for these girls while they are here! Pray for protection....don't like having teenagers to be responsible for!! and pray for God to speak to them and show them things while they are here serving and loving on these folks in Guatemala! Imagine that...a McIntyre able to influence and be a mentor to more young people....scary huh?! Haha

We are Residents!

Well we are officially permanent residents of Guatemala. We have been in this residency process now for a year and a half! And finally this past week we both passed through the last process and paperwork and will go in a few days to pick up our passports from immigration with our residency stamps inside! The kids have already had their temporary residency stamps since February, praise the Lord, but we had to file for other things that took longer. We are very excited that the process is finally over and everything is done! But it feels weird to be permanent residence of Guatemala! Now we have our Guatemalan ID and have to get our driver's license from here now...weird! I had some of my friends here calling and congratulating us...they said that I am no longer Daniel (pronounced in the English accent) but that I am Danielle (Daniel pronounced in the Spanish accent)....Like I said, don't know if I like that or not! Haha But it sure makes things easier here not having to leave the country to keep up the visitor visa and safer being legal here as residence. We want to thank everyone who helped us in this process with your prayers and giving! I know that it's hard to understand living in the States where everything has a 1,2,3 step process to get things accomplished, but it is a work of God that this has come to be and is over! Here, they tell you one thing and mean another...or the person telling you really doesn't know and sends you on a huge rabbit chase wasting a lot of time and money! This based on our experiences and stories from others. So thank the Lord and thank all of y'all for helping us!! God is so good and faithful!!

School in San Juan

Praise the Lord we were able to visit the school in San Juan again this past week. We haven't been back to this school since August of last year. This school can be a challenge for me because the kids are a little harder at listening and participating. The kids love Nancy and she enjoys teaching them so we usually take turns teaching this school. However, this visit was just the opposite. We arrived and the kids were very excited to see us and asked where we had been for so long and why we hadn't visited them before now. I chased some of them around and would hang them upside down or throw them up in the air until they would cry...haha! Just joking about the crying part...but I had you going there! But we did play around while waiting for the time to share. Then we played a game with them...boys against girls. And I don't think I have to tell you who won....BOYS! of course! There were a few of the guys who I reckon thought they were too cool for the game and just sat and watched...but when it got pretty intense and close to the girls winning, I notice they were pretty involved and intense themselves! Good stuff!! I use to be there, sad enough! If they could just realize that being cool is not fun and being crazy is awesome...their lives would be so much easier! Then we taught them about the Good Samaritan. But we did it by acting out the parable. We picked some guys and girls to be play the roles of the different characters in the story, but when we got ready and Nancy read the part for them to go out and act...they would run away and try to hide from me! So I ended up playing a role in every part of the drama with them. I was a priest, Levite, and a good Samaritan and at the same time...the Samaritan's donkey! But the sweet thing was that all the kids were watching and listening....quietly!!! WOW! They all stayed to listen...they all sat and watched....and no one was talking or not paying attention! It was awesome!! They were able to repeat the main points and seemed to understand what it is to be a neighbor and how to treat other people! Praise the Lord! Even the teachers were surprised! Now the next time could be a total flop!! But I am excited and happy about how things went this time! We hope to go visit another school this week and do the same lesson. God is good!! There you go...

Youth Seminar (April 27th & 28th)

We had our first youth seminar for this year, and there were 20 youth who attended. We hosted the seminar at our house all day Saturday and half a day Sunday. We started at 9 am Saturday morning with lessons in the morning and then Brandi and Nancy served a delicious spaghetti lunch. We then had more lessons in the afternoon. And Brandi and Nancy served supper again for the youth. Our local church has a youth service every Sat. night so we took these youth to that service at our church. Now most of these youth come from high up villages in the mountains and usually never come down to the cities. So they are not use to bigger places or technology...lights...sound...modern Christian music...but that did not stop them!! I was laughing soo hard during worship! I was so happy for them. When the worship music started the youth in the service all ran to the front of the stage and started dancing and clapping to the music...songs such as "I am free," or "Our God," some of our youth as well went down and were jumping and dancing! But it was so awesome! Bless their hearts, they looked more like stiff robots trying to dance because they had never done it before. They looked more like me dancing! But they didn't care!! They danced and clapped the entire worship time!! That was awesome! Normally you can't get them to participate for nothing...when they are by themselves at our house much less in front of 100 other youth! That night went awesome and they loved it!! Now this youth camp went a lot different from our youth camp when I was younger and a camper. We always stayed up really late talking and laughing and getting in trouble but when morning came around we were in trouble again because no body wanted to get up on time! The counselors would come in and get us up...my dad would take it upon himself to carry the video recorder around and record himself aggravating everybody who wouldn't get up on time...aggravating!! But with these youth...they were up before we got up!! We woke up to start getting breakfast ready and they were already up. showered, and dressed walking around and talking. I reckon next time I'll have to slip some Benadryl or Nyquil in their drinks so they'll sleep longer!! But we were able to sleep just a few minutes longer after I put some of them to sleep again with a few special techniques! Haha! After Brandi and Nancy finished with breakfast our kids helped serve the youth! They felt special and helped so much getting the food out to the youth. We taught the youth about purity Sunday morning and separated them to go further into the message. Then we were able to do another new thing with the youth...we took them to the mall here in Chiquimula to eat lunch and see the city mall. For most of them it was the first time that they ate pizza and ice cream! Can you imagine that! And it appeared that all of them liked it! Some of them even went and played some arcade games afterwards and were pretty good at it! There are some escalators in this mall...I was so upset I wasn't there to see them trying to go up for the first time but Brandi said it was great. Two of the girls refused to get on them so Brandi took them to the elevator. I would think that would be scarier to be locked up in the elevator but there you go. After everybody had eaten and played a little, we took them to the bus to go home. We had two guys from our church help teach some of the lessons...Bryan and Ruben. They are amazing guys/youth who love God and did a great job teaching the youth! And Nancy also taught a lesson. And I taught as well. Ruben and Brandi lead worship the first day and then we let the youth lead the worship the next day. They seemed to be learning and taking notes throughout the seminar and all said that they had a great time! I hope to be able to do another one with these youth by the end of the year and also go back up to Peten to those youth and teach them as well. But we are praying and seeing if all that can be possible. We had a great time and are very thankful for all the people on this end that helped us out with preparing, cooking, and teaching! And we are very thankful for your prayers and support making it possible to host these seminars! Keep these youth in your prayers!!