Saturday!

Today was a great day! We took the older ones of La Senda bowling but they decided they didn't really like it so we took them to a Chuck E. Cheese! I know crazy that they have Chuck E. Cheese here right? We had a blast though. We then took them to lunch and headed to the grocery store there in the city...it was so fun having the kids with us we had a blast! While we were there Jess and I decided to buy the kids a movie because every friday and saturday the kids get to watch a movie depending on their behavior throughout the week. So i found the movie "The Game Plan" and we decided to get that. When the kids saw we had gotten it they were so excited. So we spent the night with them watching the movie and just being there with the kids it was one of the best nights we've had here so far! I hope everyone had an amazing weekend!

Our day today!!

Today was an overall good day! We only had half a day of classes so me and Jess went to antigua where we planned to just grab some lunch walk around a little then head back to La Senda for the weekend. Well for the past 2 weeks i've been expecting a package from home so when we went to the post office today to check the mail i was very excited to find out that i had received the package but they told me that i could not get it until 3 because they were out to lunch at the moment so Jess and I went and got lunch and just hung out till 3 and went back to the post office where they told us that the package was in Guatemala City, which is about 45 min away from antigua so we found a taxi and decided to try to hurry and make it because the post office in Guatemala City is only open till 4:30 we finally made and rushed to the post office, which was still open! I was so excited! So we found the office we were supposed to go to and we were then informed that i had to have either a guatemalan id or my passport which i had neither, and my driver's licsence wouldn't suffice. So we try to coax them into giving me my box for about twenty minutes and they weren't having it so we left the post office...without my box...Needless to say we were both pretty bummed when we left and felt like we had just wasted an entire day. It wasn't until later tonight that i realized the Lord was teaching me a lesson through all this. For the past two weeks i have been so incredibly anxious to get my box and my stuff from home and i was willing to do alot for this box of "things". All the box has in it is some school supplies, shirts, and a few odd and in things mom threw in there for me. I do not need this box. Yes it'd be nice to have but is it worth stressing over? or running around like a crazy person trying to get to it? or get upset and frustrated with the people at the post office because they were doing their jobs and that interfered with me having what i wanted? no it definitely was not. I believe the Lord was showing me today not only to be patient and wait for him but to realize the importance or in this case unimportance of some things.

On the way back from guatemala city on the bus Jessica sat next to a little boy about 3 years old and his mother was beside me on the other side. Jess had some little action figures left from a couple weeks ago when we handed out the cheerios, water, and toys to the homeless. So she pulled them out and gave them to the little boy and played with him on the way back. You could tell this meant quite a bit to the mother and that she was very thankful toward Jess for the way she was handling her son. Jessica brought up another good point tonight on why we went through what we did today with my mail...What if the Lord just put us in that exact situation to put us on that bus with that mother and son to be a light to them and to show them God's love. That in itself is a million times over worth the stress and disappointment i felt today after not receiving my box.

Today was Yeny's 10th birthday we all celebrated it tonight with her! It was an amazing time to spend with the kids! I have fallen in love with these kids i don't know how i'm going to be able to leave them in only a few weeks! Tomorrow we are taking 3 of the older kids into guatemala city for bowling and lunch tomorrow we are so excited about it! we can't wait and they seem pretty excited as well! Hope everyone at home is doing well! Have a great weekend and thank you again for all the continuing love prayers and support you are sending me!

3 Weeks

Happy Wednesday! Today was a good day! I can not believe that in three weeks from today i will be back in Nashville! Classes are going by so smoothly now it's like i've been doing it forever. Steve and Pam had Jessica myself katie and david over for dinner tonight! It was really good to fellowship with everyone! My favorite part of the night now is when 7 p.m comes and we do the prayer time in the main area where devotionals are held. There is a little boy who has been coming to me during the prayer time recently and sitting with me and praying with me for the past couple times and it has touched my heart in so many ways. Seeing a child connect with the Lord on the level they have in these past few weeks is an inspiration for me. I can not wait to get home and share the stories with everyone! Have a very blessed day tomorrow!

The weekend

This weekend we got a little adventurous and hiked a volcano!! It was amazing with what we got to experience! It was an experience you only dream of getting to have and never think you'll experience first hand. Other than that we didn't do very much this weekend. The volcano trip lasted all day saturday and wore us out! We went to church today and it was amazing as usual. It actually had a great lesson that opened my eyes and is what i've decided to focus my blog on for today!

1 Corinthians 13:1-3-
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,but have not love, it profits me nothing.

This is what the Pastor started out with today. It meant alot to me because it reminded me of how no matter how frustrating things with my kids get here the main thing is just to show them love. Even if they learn nothing more than they knew before i got here it's fine as long as they see the love of God shine through me. And it's something that we all need to learn and show at home everyday of our lives to everyone we come in contact with. Our purpose is on this earth is to be a light for the Lord and show people who He is and what He has done for us and the one way we can do that is show them love and compassion no matter how hard that may be at some points in life. I just felt that laid on my heart to share with everyone! Hope all is well at home and will see everyone in just a few short weeks!

Life in Guatemala!!!

Again i've let it take too long for me to write! I'm really sorry i have not done better at keeping up with everything on my blogs! This past weekend in Antigua was great! We both just took the weekend to relax. We didn't do much at all but it was so great! On Sunday after church our ride was running a little late so we decided to just walk around to pass the time. In Antigua there are quite a few homeless people on the streets and jessica and I just don't feel comfortable giving them actual money, but we were both tired of just walking right past them and not doing anything for them. So Jess had the idea of going and buying food so we went to the grocery store and bought a box of cheerios and 2 1.5lt bottles of water and some cups and walked around and handed out water and cheerios and the thankfulness we received from these people was extremely humbling! It was an amazing experience i wanted to share with everyone!

Over the past few weeks i've been learning more and more about just letting God take control
of things and putting my faith in that everything is predestined and only helps me grow more closer to the Lord. I've been struggling with what my purpose in life is and what i want to do with the rest of my life and been trying to figure that out even before i came to La Senda but something i've learned in the past week through scripture and a song that jessica introduced me to is that our life is not our life to plan. Our life is all about serving the Lord and giving everything we have to him and following wherever he leads us. Even in my darkest times now i can just remember that and it make me feel one hundred times beter!

I hope all is well at home and am going to be home in ONE MONTH! how crazy is that seems like i just got here and now it's almost time for me to be home

This is the song that i have been listening to quite a bit over the past week that has meant alot to me! I just wanted to share with everyone!

You are my forever love

From the bottom of my heart I’ll sing to You
From the depths of who I am I love You
With everything inside I’ll run to You
‘Cause all that I’ve become I owe to You

From the bottom of my heart I’ll sing to You
From the depths of who I am I love You
With everything inside I’ll run to You
‘Cause all that I’ve become I owe to You

Nothing in this world could ever separate us
I will love You more than anyone on earth
Nothing I desire could ever satisfy me the way that You do

Thursday!

Today was a good day! In our English classes we are teaching our kids Psalms 91 they are supposed to have it memorized by the end of the school year. So we are only doing a couple verses with them but it's still amazing to watch these kids grow in their walk with God. Tomorrow is only half a day of classes because they are doing a huge Valentine's Day party with the kids at the school so we're very excited to be a part of that. Then we are headed to Antigua to show Dave and Katie around! I can't believe we only have 5 weeks left here! The time has flown by. Keep us in your prayers please as the end of the quarter approaches and we start winding things up with the kids! I hope all is well at home with everyone! See you soon!!!

Great start to a new week!

Today was a very good start to our week. We had the new couple arrive late this afternoon. Their names are Katie and David. She is 25 and he is 23. They are very young and just married a few months ago and the Lord led them here to teach till June. They are a great inspiration! My 2nd grade math class had another test today and i just graded them and they all did fairly well with a few exceptions but i'm learning not to let that get me down!

Every night the kids do a prayer time from 7-8 where there is light music playing and candles lit where the kids come and pray and they can stay as long or as short as they'd like. Tonight i decided to go use that time with the Lord myself and so i went down there and sat in there with the kids and prayed also. It was an amazing experience to see these kids pray. It was all silently but you could just tell the children that were in there were there to spend it with God they were so intensely into their prayers you could tell they were connected and i'm talking about children ages ranging from 7-17. The Lord definitely opened my eyes to what 1 Timothy 4:12 really means.

I hope all is well at home with everyone. Have an amazing week and God Bless.

Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.---1 Timothy 4:12

A Great Weekend!

We went to a new place this weekend!! We took a two hour shuttle/van ride to a place called Panajachel! We had a great RELAXING weekend there. On saturday we took a little boat to a small village called San Marcos and found a nice little hotel where we ate lunch and laid out on a beach! It was exactly what the two of us needed. It was an amazing weekend!

Over the past several weeks of being here Jessica and I have stepped out of our comfort zones quite a few times and have learned how to put our trust in the Lord. I just wanted to share how he has shown himself to us with you guys...Every weekend we try to find something a little different to do or something to get us to venture out and explore a little more. Everytime we do this we rely on our faith in the Lord to see us through and keep us safe. On that note every weekend we have been here we have met someone new who has either gone out of their way to help us get where we need to go or to befriend us or someone the Lord sent to us to just lift our spirits and be a light to us. For example, this weekend we ventured out on our own truly for the first time since we've been here, every other time we've had a little help from steve and pam or one of the teachers here, but this weekend we had to find our own transportation and our own ways and skills on how to get us where we were going and how to get back to La Senda safely. On the shuttle ride down to Panajachel we met a woman who had been before to Pana and was telling us all about it on our way up to it. When we got there we weren't sure on where we were going to be staying we had checked a few places out and just hadn't made a complete decision this woman took us to the hotel we were staying and got us a room and made sure we were ok before departing us. The next day we weren't sure how to get where we needed to for the boats to get to the other villages and we coincidentally bumped into the same woman on the side of the street and instead of just pointing us to the way we needed to go she took us all the way to the docks, put us on the boat we needed, and then stood there and waited for us to take off to make sure we were ok and was still standing there waving as we turned around when we were taking off. It has just amazed me at the way God has put people into our lifes to make it that much easier and stressfree on us!

The new couple is going to be arriving tomorrow! They are a young newlywed couple who are coming to teach here also for three months so keep these guys in your prayers! Hope all is well with everyone back home! Thank you again for all the continuing love and support and i will see everyone very soon!

Feburary 5, 2008

Hello!!! Sorry again that it's been so long since i have written! This week has been crazy. On monday two of the teachers quit leaving Pam and Steve in quite a mess with the lack of teachers and poor Jessica has had to pick up alot of the slack so be sure to remember her in your prayers! On top of that I woke up very early Monday morning not feeling well, and now we have all determined i had a small encounter with food poisoning!!! Leave it to me right?! Other than that everything has been going fairly well! There is a couple arriving Monday afternoon who will be staying here until June so keep them in your prayers there in for quite a lot when they arrive! I hope all is well at home and PROMISE to write again soon!