Saleeby Family in Guatemala--Saturday

After breakfast on Saturday, we all piled in the van and headed to Antigua--one of my favorite places.  No one should visit Guatemala City without taking the 45 minute drive to Antigua.  Joseph was with the campaign team when we went to Guatemala in January, but, of course, his family was not.  

We walked to the central park, shopped at the market, ate kaq'ik (traditional Mayan soup) at La Fonda Real, rode a horse-drawn carriage around the town and took pictures everywhere we went.

We also caught up with Eric and Kindsey, a couple from our church in Lee's Summit.  They are studying Spanish in Guatemala in preparation for ministry with an orphanage in the Dominican Republic.  We had coffee with them and met their beautiful daughter, Mackenna.

We returned to the city in time to go to "Crecer," the church's intensive discipleship 2 program.  Nelson taught for an hour and a half and Joseph, with Nelson's help, shared his heart for evangelism.  

Finishing the Campaign

Every now and then I get behind on my blog posts.  I'm never sure if it's worth it to do catch-up posts or just let them go.  Today, my thoughts are to post a final post about the El Salvador campaign. 

Like every other morning of the week, we had devotions at the hotel, picked up the Salvadorans at the church and drove to a school.  Friday's school was just a bit north of Apopa.  

Over the last five years, we've become accustomed to expecting things to change; sometimes the school is closed, sometimes there are fewer classrooms than we planned, sometimes the school is being fumigated and on and on.  What happened on Friday was different--it was unexpected blessing.

Once inside the school, school was full of adults--not a common occurrence.  When we made it down to the basketball court, we noticed that the bleachers were full of parents!

It seems that it was the day for parents to come pick up their children's grade cards and the administrators were talking with them.  We expected to hear that we wouldn't be able to share, but God had other plans.  The principal sent the parents to the classrooms (with their kids) and we were able to share the lesson, testimony and gospel with them.  What a blessing to be able to have the parents and kids together.  

There were professions of faith by parents and children!  A follow-up team from the church in Apopa will contact all of them, and we're excited to see the church grow as a result of this unexpected blessing.

Day 2--Apopa Schools and VBS in Lourdes

Tuesday morning we went to two schools in the Apopa area that are right next to each other.  One was for grades 1 through 9 and the other was the high school.  Stephen and I were with the group at the high school.  We had teams sharing in ten classrooms; there were several hundred professions of faith--praise God.  

VBS in Lourdes continued in the afternoon.  It was raining so instead of being outside like on Monday, we worked with the ladies in a small room at the community center.  Wow, was it hot!  There were thirty women on Tuesday (23 on Monday), so we were quite busy giving directions and passing out supplies to the newcomers.  I shared my testimony and the gospel about half-way and although there weren't any professions of faith, we did have the opportunity to have some good conversations . . . and some seeds were planted.  So glad to have lots of help from Maria Elena, Isabel, Carolina and Zuley.  

 The kids got their "Real Heroes" VBS shirts and made gospel bracelets for their craft.  The CCBC youth worked each of the five rotations, especially the games group who had to improvise because of the rain.

The other half of the CCBC group held a kid club/family festival at another location in the neighborhood and a basketball camp at a third location.  These kids were busy all the time!

May Campaign--Day 5

Wednesday morning we shared at a very large high school.  The principal asked us if we could add another group, so we reorganized a bit and shared in ten classrooms instead of just nine.  The kids were very receptive with more than 147 professions of faith.

The team from Truett-McConnell college included many members of their girl's soccer team.  They played a scrimmage against the girls team from the high school.  It was a fun afternoon of friendly competition and testimony sharing.

We ended the night in a neighborhood called Atlacatl in central El Salvador.  

Happy Feet Wrap Up

I've decided to do one more Happy Feet post and wrap up the week.  As I mentioned in the last post, the road to our scheduled location on Wednesday was blocked by a half mile landslide which made it impossible for us to get there.  Pastor Francisco called his sister who teaches at a school in another neighborhood and she opened her classroom to us.  I don't know how he did it, but by the time we arrived at the school around 9:30 in the morning, there were more than 150 kids waiting in line.

One of the difficult things for the Happy Feet team is trying to decide how many of each size shoes to bring.  They hate running out of a size because sometimes it means that a child won't get a new pair.  By Wednesday we were out of the smallest size, but had a good supply of most of the rest of the sizes.  For some reason, there were more older kids than usual and we almost emptied the size 4 bag before the day was out.  On Thursday, it was just the opposite, we didn't run out of size 4 shoes, instead the oldest kids needed size 3.  It was amazing to see how God worked out all of the details.

On Monday I had the privilege to translate for Emily; on Tuesday, instead of translating I was able to work by myself, washing feet, giving new shoes and sharing the gospel in Spanish.  It is so much easier to share in Spanish than it is to translate English to Spanish!  On Wednesday morning Emily and I worked together again and then on Thursday, Stephen and I were able to work together.  

Thursday was our final day and it was our smallest group of the week.  We finished with the 115 kids just after lunch.  We left all of the remaining shoes with Pastor Francisco who said he would try to get them to the children of the town we were scheduled to visit on Wednesday.  

We headed back to Chimaltenango and had an opportunity to tour the Don José León coffee roastery.  The owner, Gustavo Perez, is a member of Vida Nueva Guatemala, and he kindly demonstrated the whole process for the team and served up freshly roasted coffee. 

Each night after dinner, we had a testimony time which helped the team to get to know one another better.  Our final evening at the hotel was very special as we heard from each of the translators.  It was special to listen to several of the younger girls sharing how great it was for them to share the gospel with kids their age.  

Friday morning after breakfast and clean up we checked out of the hotel and drove to Antigua.  While everyone shopped, Stephen and I visited with our teacher, Corina, and her family.  We always make it a priority to spend time with them.  Stephen played cards with the four girls while I visited with Corina and her mother-in-law.