Laptop Problems

As you may have noticed, nearly the entire month of November has passed without a blog update.  This is what happens when you have a nearly dead and then completely dead laptop.  The laptop started acting crazy when I was in Texas at the beginning of October.  I limped along by running and repairing bad sectors on the hard drive.  When I had to do it a second time, I knew that it needed some "real" help.  I backed up as much as I could, including uploading our pictures to Google photos--the only glitch is that it takes forever to upload files when the computer is struggling to run.  

I took it to our residency missionary/tech, Ryan Blackstock, and he looked it over for me.  He kept it while we were gone to Guatemala (hence, no blogs about VBS) and we picked it up the day before we left for the states.  Unfortunately, he had to restore it to it's original settings (Windows 8) to get it to boot up; he also mentioned that the hard drive is failing so it's just a matter of time before it's completely useless.

We have ordered a new hard drive, but now that we're in the states, we haven't found anyone to install it.  So, I'm borrowing a computer for now and hoping that I can get mine up and running enough to do our December newsletter.  If not, I'll just send out an email update and worry about the laptop repair when I get back to El Salvador at the end of the year.

We seem to have the worst luck with laptops--there are three dead ones at our apartment and so the latest makes four.  Not sure if it's the hot weather, all the travel, the level of dust in the air or all of the above.  

August Campaign--Guatemala

We rode the church bus to Guatemala on Saturday, July 30, with the rest of the team from Vida Nueva, San Salvador.  The trip was uneventful--just the way we like it.  We arrived with about a half hour to spare before the scheduled evening event.  

Forty-six people from four different churches (First Baptist, Ferguson, MO; First Baptist, Gulf Shores, AL and Bell Shoals Baptist, Brandon, FL) came to Guatemala to help us share the gospel and help our Guatemala church.  

Instead of a regular family festival, after a short meeting to assign translators, the team went out on the streets around the hotel to share one-on-one.  It was awesome to see the group jump right in and share with the people on the street.

There was a 5K road race near the hotel on Sunday morning, so after orientation, the group picked up some bottled water to pass out and headed over to the park.  Although the church had a regular church service, it was the first time I can remember not joining them for worship.  There were hundreds of people in the race so there were many opportunities to share with the runners and their families and friends who came to watch.  Even when the race finished, this area of the city is full of families who spend their Sunday running, walking and visiting.  

  
After a quick lunch break and a short rest, we all returned to the park for the afternoon.  The crowds seemed even larger in the afternoon.

Triple Trip Preparations

We've been hard at work helping Guillermo prepare for the triple trip; as you can imagine, it takes a lot of preparing to be able to send 100+ Salvadorans to join up with 120 North Americans in three different countries at the same time. Here is a list of some of the things we've been helping with:

• Verifying those who will be going on each trip and what their role will be, i.e. translator, evangelism, logistics.
• Verifying paperwork for all minors (under 18) who will be traveling, which requires legal documentation from each parent authorizing them to travel out of the country with the church.  All of these documents have to be notarized and multiple copies made.
• Purchasing, assembling and documenting contents of the first aid kit for each country. First step on Monday was to buy $80 of various types of medicine--it's definitely a blessing to be able to buy things here without a prescription.  For example, we bought 9 antibiotic regimes (10 tablets each) so each kit would have three.  We also added lots of over-the counter medicines like Alka-Seltzer, Sudafed, cortisone cream, gauze, alcohol, adhesive tape, cough drops and much more, all the while hoping that no one needs any of these items.   
• Assembling everything that needs to go to each country, Bibles, tracts, equipment, etc.
• Ordering and organizing the MetroAmerica 0-20 t-shirts which we will be selling to the North Americans in each location
• Ordering and organizing the MetroAmerica 0-20 mission trip t-shirts which are gifts for everyone from the church who travels with us
• Making up packets for each country which contain the "Jesus drawing" (see below for pictures) for each night of the campaign (total of 20 presentations across the 3 countries.) 
• Attending and presenting at three training sessions (one for each country.) The Nicaragua training was last night, Guatemala tonight and Costa Rica tomorrow night.
• Lists, lists and more lists

Of course, there's also our regular personal preparations including paying all of our bills ahead of time.  This time we are going to go to both Guatemala and Costa Rica, so that has added to our packing issues.  

Here are a few pictures of last night's training for the team going to Nicaragua.  

Please pray for everyone involved in the trip and for the people who will hear the gospel, some for the very first time, in each country.  Pray safe travels and good health for our team and the teams from the states.      

Lazy Days

There were supposed to be two July campaigns this summer, but both of them were canceled due to worries about the Zika virus.  As a result, we've had a lazy July with time to relax and catch-up on things.  We're not used to the time off!  Of course our regular activities have continued (band practice, Bible study, seminary class).

This week we will start preparing for the triple trip which is coming in less than two weeks.  Good News in Action will be hosting three trips in three different countries at the same time.  A team of 45 is coming to Guatemala, a team of 46 is coming to Costa Rica and there will be 24 in Nicaragua.  All of this means that Vida Nueva will be sending many, many translators and other support persons to each of the three countries.  

Stephen and I are going to spend the first two days in Guatemala.  We'll be riding the Vida Nueva bus over.  On Monday, we will fly to Costa Rica to spend the remainder of the week.  Pastor Steve and Pam are starting their trip in Costa Rica, which allows us to start in Guatemala. This will be the first time we've visited two countries, but a team from First Baptist, Ferguson, MO, is coming to Guatemala and we want to be there to welcome them.  Pastor Steve and Pam will fly out of Costa Rica on Monday and we will fly in.

Please pray for the teams who are coming from the states, our teams as they prepare for the trip and each local church.  

Saleeby Family in Guatemala--Sunday

Even though I've gotten behind, I felt like I should finish out the "series" on the Saleeby's visit to Central America!   Sunday morning we were up and out of the house by 8:30 and arrived at the Hotel Westin in plenty of time to help set up for the service.  As usual, it was great to see all our friends at IBVN, Guatemala, the music (led by William) was awesome and Joseph did a great job sharing his passion for evangelism.

After church, we went to Oakland Mall and had lunch and then also visited Starbucks for coffee.

Saleeby Family in Guatemala--Friday

We spent Friday sightseeing in Guatemala with good friends.  In the morning Javier, Claudia and Aldo took the seven of us downtown Guatemala.  We visited the train museum and took some awesome pictures.  

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After the train musuem we walked over to the central square to see the national cathedral.  it is an amazing building, but, unfortunately, the people who enter to pray and worship do not hear the gospel of our resurrected Lord.

We went back to Nelson and Rosemarie's house for lunch and a short rest.  Later in the afternoon, Rosemarie took all of us to Cayala, one of our favorite places in Guatemala.  Nelson and Camila weren't able to go because they had praise band rehearsal in the evening. Once again the photo opportunities were incredible.

 

Guatemala Wrap Up

Friday was our last campaign day in Guatemala.  We shared door-to-door in the Proyecto 410 neighborhood in the morning and returned in the afternoon for the family festival.  The park was awesome and many, many people attended the festival.

It was an awesome week with a total of 570 professions of faith!  Please pray for Pastors Nelson and Javier as they mobilize their teams for follow-up.

After the campaign the team from Faith Baptist took Pastor Nelson, Rosemarie, Camila and us to dinner at Kacao, a beautiful restaurant near our hotel.  It serves typical Guatemala soups, as well as other favorites.  We loved spending time with the team and the food was outstanding.

We followed the Salvadoran bus out of town on Saturday morning about 8:00 a.m.  About a half hour out of Guatemala City the bus stopped for a bathroom break.  We stopped to get gas and then went on our way.  Once again the trip was very easy, with no lines at the borders.  We pulled into our apartment building just after noon. 

Sunday--Guatemala Campaign

Worshipping with the local church is always one of the highlights of any campaign and Sunday was no different.  We sang some praise/worship songs and then two hymns, "Great is Thy Faithfulness" and "How Great Thou Art."  Although both were in Spanish is easy for the team members to sing along in English.  Nelson preached in Spanish and then after each point did a brief translation in English.  He made it seem easy, but I know it had to be very tiring!  

Because children's camp was still going on, we didn't seem as many familiar faces as normal.  Most of them were counselors/teachers at the camp which didn't end until Sunday afternoon.

Stephen and I did a quick orientation after the service to welcome teams from all three churches, Faith Baptist, NC; Bay Life Church, FL and Calvary's Cross Baptist, NC.  

It was a short afternoon, but we were on board the vans and bus by 4:00 p.m.  Translators for the week are assigned the first night that the whole team is present.  Once everyone was matched up they began the process of sharing Jesus door-to-door in the neighborhood. Salvadorans, who don't translate, set up the inflatable, sound system and the rest of the equipment.

Stephen and I both made some new friends, but best of all, there were 40+ professions of faith.