Pastor Seminar in July

When you invite Mark Adams to do a seminar you know you are going to have a good time! This is the guy my mom doesn't like dad being with because he is a bad influence on HIM! Pretty bad huh?! But we had a great time and so did all the pastors! The seminar was on July 5-7. There were 14 pastors this time and one of them was a first time pastor. Mark taught on "The Calling of a Pastor." This was a very personal and intimate topic. Many pastors shared personal stories and experiences of hard times and testings in their calling and their service as pastor. It was very interesting to hear their recounts of when they were called to be pastors. One of them had a dream while off working that two men came to his house and when he came home they told him they had to talk to him. Then they started telling him that God sent them to tell them He was calling him to preach. Then when he got home he saw the exact same two men that were in his dream waiting for him at his house. He told them that he already had seen them and knew why they were there. The men were confused and asked how that could be because they had never seen him before. He told them about the dream and they confirmed the calling with the word that God sent them to tell him. That's really awesome!! Another told a story about the difficulties of being a pastor where there is no means of financial support in the villages. At one time in their lives they had absolutely nothing to eat and were getting worried, but they kept their eyes on God and knew He was faithful. That night after not eating and crying from worry they woke up the next morning to find a huge pile of corn in the corner of their house. There are some really large ants here in Guatemala that had moved into their house that night and carried over 50 lbs of corn to the house. They were able to cook the corn and eat for a while. Wow!
Mark also shared with them about the responsibilities of being a pastor. Many of them were very attentive and making comments during this session. From what I could see and observe, the pastors were very pleased and encouraged throughout the seminar! There were many comments and expressions of thanks to Mark for coming and teaching them and refocusing them in their calling and responsibilities. Praise the Lord, we did not have any stand up and say that now they know they had not been called by God and were going to stop serving in the church as pastor. Hahaha. I actually had that in the back of my mind! But after hearing their testimonies of how they were called, it was very obvious that God has His hand and calling on them. Thank you for your prayers for the seminar! Please continue to pray for them as they grow and understand more about their calling and responsibilities.
Mark also was able to go to the church on the rock in Salfate and preach at the Sunday night service. Pastor Carlos invited Mark to deliver the message that night. Mark taught on the love we as Christians should show to all the people we come in contact with, even when it is the hardest person to love. He went through many examples of how it is difficult to love some folks and how we miss out on the opportunity to show God's love to others. Many had that look of conviction on their face and were very determined to be that church of love for the community at the close of the service.
Brandi, Nancy, and Ashley cooked the food this time for the pastors at the seminar!! That took a lot of work and time! I was very impressed at how awesome everything tasted and it was all on time! Brandi said they made almost 600 tortillas for the pastors!!! That is a ton of tortillas! And they were still wanting more tortillas! Hahaha But for many of the pastors, this is the only time they get really good food that has, for example, meat with it and vegetables. Normally they eat tortillas and beans and, if they have a little more money, rice. So praise God that they ate good and were very pleased with the girls cooking.

Praise God for His working in the lives of these pastors!! I have already seen and heard a difference in their lives and churches since they started coming and learning more from the seminars! God is soo good and faithful!! And thank you to the pastors who come and teach and the churches that send them! It would be very, very difficult without them!! And thank you to those who support us to make these seminars possible for the pastors!! God bless!!!  Daniel

Youth Seminar in June

We had our first youth seminar on June 23 and 24. They came on a Saturday morning and most left Sunday afternoon and the others left Monday morning. We had such an awesome time with them. We had 19 youth come from five different churches and areas. We had seven different teaching sessions. These were the youth who want to become leaders and teachers in their church. We had several different speakers who all did a wonderful job! Ashley Grissom from Alabama, who is staying with us right now for three months, taught on the importance of the Bible, Brandi and I taught on prayer, another young guy from our church, Bryan, taught on worship, Lester, also from our church, taught on Faith, Nancy Perez taught on evangelism, Josh Byrd, our missionary friend here in Chiquimula, taught on Obedience, and I spoke lastly on Success through obedience. Melanie Batchelor, who is also from Alabama staying with us for a month, did all the games with the youth between the sessions. We had another friend from our church, Julio, come and translate for Ashley. Julio and Brandi also lead worship with the youth throughout the day. On Saturday night we took the youth to our church in Chuiqumula to the youth service so they could be with other youth and have a good time with them. For some of the youth this was the first time leaving their village so that was really neat for them to go somewhere new and join in with other youth worshiping God.
Well I had too much fun with them! I hate it for the other pastors here because now all I want to do are more youth seminars! It was like I fit in perfect with the kids! I can't figure out why?? HA! They begged us to fill up the above ground concrete pool in our back yard so they could swim...so of course we did and they were able to swim the last day for a couple of hours before they had to leave. I joined them in playing what was suppose to be volleyball and was on the girls team...we girls rocked!!! I would start laughing and jumping up and down yelling like a girl when we got points and gave everybody high fives. They all died laughing and thought I was even more weird than before! But I was having a great time! I spoke to them while taking them back to the bus to go home and they all shared with me the things they learned and how they were going to go back to their villages more prepared and ready to grow deeper and closer to God. Hearing their person view and what each one learned was really encouraging for us...knowing that they actually listened and learned a little something! Brandi and the girls actually cooked the breakfast and supper for them. So they worked really hard getting them fed and full. We are so grateful to God for allowing us to have our first youth seminar and for the seminar going so great! We are very thankful to our supporters who help us have these seminars through their financial support and prayers! After paying to get them here and back home, feeding them, and providing a place to stay, we spend around $250 to $300. So without y'alls help we could not do this. Please keep these youth in your prayers and also pray that we will have the opportunity to have another youth seminar before the year is up! We are having a pastors seminar the first weekend in July so please pray for us and the pastors as we learn more about the calling and responsibilities of pastors. We love y'all very much and are very excited about what God is doing in the ministry and our family!! God bless!!

Ashley and Julio teaching on the importance of the Bible

Daniel teaching on Prayer

Bryan teaching on Worship

Games

Nancy teaching on Evangelism 

Lester teaching on Faith

Josh teaching on Obedience

Worship

Games

Notes

Games (Daniel and Josh having more fun than the youth)

Each youth shared what they learned

Prayer ministry

Hey Everyone!!  Daniel and I were doing our devotion this morning, and we were talking about how the Lord works and He gives us gifts of the Spirit and talents for His glory (1 Corinthians 12).  He also leads His people to do specific things, and that is when Daniel asked me if I had wrote a blog about a ministry that God has laid on our hearts, which is not anything new, but it is to go pray for people in the hospitals.  Well, although we are just beginning, a group of girls and I have gone around a few times praying for children and adults in the hospitals.  In the few times that we have went, God has already begun to show us how prayer is "powerful and effective"(James 5:16).  The first time we went, there were several babies that were very sick.  One specific baby was fighting a very high fever, and as we asked if we could pray for the baby, the momma kind of looked at us like "whatever".  She clearly did not want us to pray for her son.  After a moment of waiting, she did let us, and we prayed for him and the momma, and then went to the next child.  The next day, when we went back, the same boy was sitting up in bed and looked much better.  We went over to ask the mother how the baby was doing, and she said, with a HUGE smile on her face, that the fever had broken, and he was getting much better! Praise the Lord!  But what really wowed me was that when I said, "Praise the Lord!", she too said, "Yes, praise the Lord!".  Although she had been hesitant the day before, she was very sure that God had healed her son!  What a great experience!!
Another story is one of a little girl that had not used the bathroom for several days because of blockage.  She had to have surgery, but after the surgery, she continued to get worse instead of better.  It was so bad, the doctor himself was saying that they were all fighting for her life.  Again, we visited her several times to pray for her and for the mother, and the last time we went to see her, she was doing very bad.  The doctor was with her, and he said that she was still fighting, and she had been there for 18 days.  I did not pray for her there because the doctor was with her, but I did pray outside the room for them. Five days later, when Jessica Byrd and I went to visit again, the nurses didn't even know who we were talking about.  The girl had been released two days after I had visited her when the doctor said she had been fighting for her life.  The nurses looked through some papers, and another nurse walked up and said that she "just got better".  Praise the Lord!  The girl's mother had been struggling with depression and thought about killing herself if the girl had died too, so God saved both of their lives!!
I wanted to share these two stories today for a couple of reasons.  One reason is because I wanted to testify to the power of God, and another reason is to encourage you to do what you feel God is laying on your heart to do.  Obey His voice so you can experience His power first hand.  We have prayed for several other children and women as well, but we have no idea what God is doing in their lives.  God is encouraging us though to continue to do what He has called us to do no matter if we never see what the purpose is or not. Obey His Word.
So, God has told me to go and pray for the people in the hospital, and that is what we are starting to do.  Please pray for God to continue to lead us to the right people and that He continues to use us to show others His power and love.
Brandi

God's Provision!

God did something AWESOME for us yesterday, and although He always provides for all of our needs and shows us His love and mercy every day, there are just some things He does that just WOW you!
Praise the Lord, we have never been without! NEVER!  God has always provided for us at just the right time.  Right now though, we are going through a season with our finances that requires a little more faith than usual, which is good.  We all need those seasons,  or we would never learn how much God truly does provide for our EVERY need.  Yesterday morning, before church, Daniel and I were talking about how Jesus told the disciples in John 14 "whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.  And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."  We were talking about how sometimes we just ask God to help us make it through the hard times, and we don't ask Him for the specific things we need because we don't want to burden God or something.  When in these verses, Jesus tells us that we can ask for anything in His name...why? To bring GLORY to God!  
So, last night, I had the opportunity to speak at a church for the first time in Guatemala (the church on the ROCK), and man was I  nervous.  I have taught here and led small house Bible studies, but I have never spoke at a church.  Remembering Jesus's words in John though, I asked for God to speak through my inadequate Spanish, and Praise the Lord, God was gloried!  But what truly WOWED us was that at one part in the service, the congregation took up a love offering of vegetables, sugar, oil, and other foods for someone, and we thought is was for a poor family in the village.  After I spoke though, the pastor tells us that the offering was for us because God had told him that He wanted the congregation to show us His love and provision for us.  THE FOOD WAS FOR US!  This is a very poor church, but they were obedient to what God told them to do!  It broke our hearts and humbled us and made us realize even more that God will always provide for us and He wants to provide for us because He loves us.  

Ask God for the "greater things".  He loves us so much!  Obey His commands, like Jesus continues to talk about in John 14:15, 23, and 24, and show God how much you love Him in return.  He will never "leave you as orphans" (vs 18).

House in San Jacinto

Welp...we finally finished the house in one of the villages close by. We have been in construction for a little over two weeks. This is the house and family that

we met last year in Nov. and felt lead to build them a new house after their house was in danger of falling after the raining season left. Josh and Jessica Byrd came to serve in Guatemala this past Feb. and the Lord opened the door through their ministry to pay for the house. Josh and I worked with three other pastors who are our friends on this project. We also had help from a few other men that lived close to the house. Julio is the man who we are building the house for and he helped also. I got to say, I had no idea how exhausted I would be from working on the house. And I know Brandi has been working just as hard at home with the three kids. But praise God He accomplished His purpose and will for this family. It has been the hottest this year the two weeks we take

to build the house. The temperature has always been right at or over 100 F. Rough stuff, and we came out of it with a couple of bruises and cuts, just Josh and me. The other guys are just fine! But we are still walking and breathing Praise the Lord. They would say that we are accident prone and would laugh all the time. One time after I fell backing out of the house where all the material was stored and Julio's mom started laughing I picked up a block and broke it over her head!! Just joking. But I am thankful that God watched over us while we provided them with entertainment. I don't reckon we are use to walking and building a house on the side of a mountain. It would have been nice to have a bulldozer to level everything out flat. Haha So I wanted to thank everyone for their prayers for this project. The house and all the other expenses came to be right under $2,000.00!  If any one is interested in sponsoring another family with a house there are plenty of folks who have no house at all and others like Julio who need help due to weather or just simply that the mud and sticks used to build the house are not holding anymore. I'm not the expert in construction but I know that God can do anything and we want to be ready when He leads and directs us, even in doing construction. So pray that the house doesn't fall and hurt anyone! Haha Just joking! Thank you and Praise God!!!

It's Hot!!

Well it is 2:30 pm and it is 106 F outside! And it feels worse in the house because there is a slight breeze outside. If I could figure out how to strap a fan to by body and carry it everywhere I went...that would ROCK!! Sometimes all I want to do is go sit in the car or go somewhere in the car to sit in the A/C but with gas being over $5 a gallon that won't work either! I went to the capital yesterday and spent a little over $75 just getting there and back and it is only 100 miles away. But Guatemala is very mountainous and hard to drive with the road conditions. The rain is suppose to be here already, but it hasn't come yet. Brandi and I both have our own fan at night blowing on us. Sometimes I don't know how we are able to breathe. But still manage to sweat like crazy and have to wake up to flip the wet pillow to the other side a couple of times. It would be great if one of them icebergs could float down here and land in our back yard!! Can you tell I'm hot??? Later

Women's Seminar Pictures

First Eyes Wide Open Women Seminar:  April 19th & 20th, 2012 - Thank you ALL for your prayers and support!  God is working in the lives of these precious women and He is using them to do great things in Guatemala!

Worshiping before the classes

Pastor Jendrick and Pastora Claudia from Casa del Alfarero leading worship

Teaching about why we are loved by God

Special diner

Night worship

Dinora Leytan leading a class on Believing that We were Born for Big Things

Prayer time

We were able to give out certificates, flowers, and presents. The presents were donated by Casa del Alfarero

Presentation of flowers and certificates

Hanging out after dinner

Beautiful! Pastora Mary from Salfate church (The church on the Rock!)

The certificates their name, the meaning of their name, and a verse

Precious Anacleta! She could out quote anyone on Bible verses!  Taught to her by the Lord because she cannot read. 

Sidia, who lost her husband this past year. He was a Pastor that was in the wreck with 10 other pastors coming back from a Revival. 

Amazing Odilia with one of her presents!