Residency Process--Year 2

Our residency process for year two is underway.  We brought back our 2012-13 support letter from Abundant Life when we were there in April.  Last week the government-approved translator finished his work.  This week Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva is working on their part of the paperwork--it should be ready tomorrow afternoon.

Thursday all of my school kids at New Life Christian School have a field trip so I don't have classes.  Instead of making the trip with them, we've decided to take our church paperwork to the attorney/notary for his signature and stamp.  Once we have that, we will take everything we have to the Immigration Office.  If things go perfectly, we could be done submitting the paperwork Thursday.  If not, we can make the necessary changes and return to the office on Friday.

Please be in prayer for this process . . . . our cards expire June 29, but we will be leaving for Guatemala in early June (more about this in another post) and it would be idea if we had our new cards before we left.  If not, we will have to return to El Salvador before the end of June to pick them up.

Colors of the Stage

Music was all around us this weekend!  Friday night we had the opportunity to hear the Youth Orchestra of Central America in concert!  There were more than 100 very talented youth from Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic and El Salvador (including Ena and Koky's son, Rafa.)  The music was amazing!

Then, Saturday night we went with William and Gilma to see Jesus Adrian Romero, our favorite Christian Hispanic songwriter/singer, in concert at one of the football stadiums.  I'm guessing we were one of the few, if not the only, gringos among the crowd of  10,000+.  We sing some of his songs at church and it was great to hear them live with the crowd singing along.  He had sung for about an hour when it started to sprinkle.  Unfortunately, the wind and rain moved in and they had to stop the concert early.  Even so, we had a great time with great friends!

Growing the church

There were 15 people here last week--4 from Abundant Life in Lee's Summit, MO, 3 from Louisiana, 1 from Fresno, California, and 7 from Valley Baptist Church in Bakersfield, California.  Together they made up our "mission team" for the week.

This week we were focused on growing the church in Lourdes.  On Saturday and Sunday we set up the inflatables in private neighborhoods and hosted a coffee/pastry reception for the neighbors.  The event included a puppet show and a gospel presentation.  On Monday and Tuesday evening we returned to the same neighborhood and hosted a Mother's Day event and dinner, featuring pupusas for the whole neighborhood.  Once again, we had the inflatables up for the kids, the youth performed their drama and a team member shared the gospel presentation.  Several lucky mother's received early Mother's Day gifts from the church.  Everyone who made a profession of faith or who expressed an interest in coming to the church in Lourdes was invited to a special Mother's Day breakfast being held Sunday morning.  Jeff, Pastor Steve and Koky were thrilled with the turnout--we served more than 300 meals each night.

Monday through Wednesday during the morning, the team visited schools and shared the sexual purity lesson with high school students.  It is amazing to see the Holy Spirit moving among the students as many of them commited their lives to Christ.

Wednesday evening and Thursday morning and evening, we worked to help church plants in Aguilares and Apopa.

 Yes, sometimes Stephen does run the inflatable!

 Kids in Lourdes watching the puppet show.

 Donna and the girls from one of her classes.

 I'm not making pupusas, but I'm waiting to help serve them.

Jim, Donna and Kevin sharing during the door-to-door time before the movie and gospel presentation.

Koinonia--Sunday, April 29

On Sunday all three locations of Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva met together at the Crown Plaza Hotel.  This "Koinonia" service happens every 3-4 months.  The worship music was awesome--I have really come to appreciate the Spanish praise and worship songs.  In fact, when we were at ALBC last week, the music just didn't sound like "home" to me.

Pastor Steve Kern and Pastor Julio Contreras shared the vision for the church for the next three years.  The vision has two parts.  First, there is physical expansion which includes updating the sound, lights, and seating at the main church facility in Miravalle and a completely remodeling the facilities, including a new sanctuary, at the church site in Lourdes.  The second part relates to spiritual expansion or spiritual growth among the members of the church.  This process of growth is known by three S's or S3 (seguidor, siervo, sacrifcio) for short.  The concept is captured in this beautiful butterfly logo:  

The meaning is clear in English, even if the words don't all start with the same letter:  The Process of Transformation at New Life Baptist Church:  Follow, Serve and Sacrifice which encourages all believers to continue growing and maturing in their walk with the Lord.

I'm so thankful that we are able to sit under Pastors Steve Kern and Julio Contreras who, week after week, share the truth of God's word from the pulpit here in El Salvador.  We are blessed!

Family Time

We traveled to Lee's Summit, MO, in April to meet up with our son, Daniel, daughter-in-law, Shannon, and two grandkids, Maleia and Josiah.  Once again our dear friend, Sam Hizer, shared his van with us.  He picked all six of us up at the airport!  We stayed at the Abundant Life Baptist Church mission home and what a blessing it was!  We kept a low profile, staying at home most of the time (except for a couple of doctor/dentist appointments.)  In typical Kansas City fashion, the weather varied from cold, in our opinion, to hot, in Daniel and Shannon's opinion.  One day we had the heat on in the house and another day the air conditioning.

Staying together in the missions house gave people the opportunity to come to us and minimized the need for getting the kids in the car multiple times per day.  On Saturday, we took Maleia and Josiah to the Kite Festival at Longview College, where, unfortunately, there was so little wind the big kites could not get off the ground.  Our good friends, Jim and Debby, their son, Garrett, and granddaughter, Camdyn met us there.  The kite festival was just the beginning of a great day--hurray, we were able to go to Gates for lunch.  I know there are many barbeque opinions, but for our family, a beef sandwich just doesn't get any better than the one at Gates.  I think Daniel and Shannon bought 3 bottles of sauce to take back to California.  By afternoon we were back at home and waiting for Stephen's three brothers to arrive.  The four Parris boys played a quick round of golf at the Longview Executive course.  It was great to have everyone for dinner at the house; a special thanks to Shannon, Denise, Mandi and Tanya for helping with the Lasagntons!

Sunday we worshipped in the 8:00 a.m. service at ALBC and then visited and briefly shared in our Community Group (Sunday School class) at 9:30.  It is always fun to see new faces and connect, if even for just a few minutes, with friends at our home church.  We appreciate everything ALBC does to support us and the ministry here.  We couldn't be here if not for their faithful prayer and financial support.

We caught up with my family at lunch on Sunday afternoon.  I'm telling you that the 14 of us made quite a few trips to through the Chinese buffet at Legends of Asia.

We had hoped Stephen's parents might be able to make it to Lee's Summit, but his mom's health restricts her ability to travel.  So, instead, Stephen, along with his brother, David, traveled to West Plains on Sunday afternoon to visit his mom and dad.

There was a quick trip to the plaza and another one to Town Center, but otherwise, we just hung out with the kids and grandkids.  Okay, we did make it to Custard's Last Stand a couple of times!  Except for the two places mentioned above, we didn't eat at any of our favorite restaurants this time--we didn't even have pizza.  We did, however, eat two meals, in the Guenther kitchen!  Just can't beat Terisa's pot roast, potatoes with all the trimmings for the first and then hamburgers, brauts and dogs on the grill for the second.

I've attached a couple of pictures--enjoy!

 Four Parris brothers, Mark, David, Stephen and Michael

My family--me, my dad, my sister, Kristi, and my brother, Ron.

 Our chunky and very happy grandson, Josiah!

Maleia and Josiah hang out in the front yard with grandpa.

Hilo, Aguja y Biblia--Two Classes Today

I started the day with Hilo, Aguja y Biblia (HAB) in San Salvador. There were 11 women in class today. We made a bag to hold plastic grocery bags or other things. Link to the directions is here:http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2009/01/grocery-bag-holder.html (we made ours from one piece of fabric to save time.) One of the women is going to use hers for socks. I thought that was a great idea; the white socks that her daughter wears with her school uniform are all the same. Put them in the bag after they're washed and then your child can pull out a pair to put on every day. (You may be saying to yourself, this is was a drawer is for, but understand that most of the bedrooms in the homes here are only big enough for a bed--there's usually very little other furniture. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera this morning so I didn't get any pictures.

In the afternoon, Stephen needed the truck to transport an inflatable to a church event he and Jeff were helping with. So, Ena stopped by and we loaded all the stuff in her car. Today was the first Hilo, Aguja y Biblia class at Lourdes so we were excited to see how many women were going to join us. We decided to make an oven mitt (something we did a couple of weeks ago in San Salvador.) I brought fabric (thanks many of my friends in the states for donating fabric) and batting. I'm sorry to say that I underestimated the amount of batting we would need--we ran out right before the last two ladies arrived. All together there were 18 of us--an amazing turnout for our first class. They seem to have a great time selecting their fabric, cutting, pinning, sewing . . . . it's such a blessing to work with them. As usual, we worked for an hour and a half and then started the Bible study. Today Ena shared Psalm 133 with them. Although only 3 verses long, the theme of dwelling in harmony is so relevant in women's ministry. It was a great place to start.

Please pray for this ministry . . . that the women will be able to invite unchurched friends, that lasting friendships will be forged and that Ena and I will be Godly examples for the women participating in this ministry.

Pictures below. If you donated fabric, you just might see it in one of the photos.

Menu Planning

We'll be in Kansas City this coming Wednesday! YEA! We're going to stay in the Abundant Life Baptist Church mission house and Daniel, Shannon, Maleia and Josiah will be joining us there. It will be like having a home again!

I'm in the process planning the menu for the week. It seems that most of the side dishes on the menu are vegetables that we can't get here in El Salvador, for example: asparagus, lima beans (yes, I'm craving them), broccoli slaw, corn on the cob (sweet and tender), edamame, just to name a few. As for the entrees--can't wait to have some good beef since the only beef I buy here is hamburger.

Although you might find it surprising, I'm not planning to make any desserts. I think I'll just let Custard's Last Stand, Orange Leaf and Hy-Vee's ice cream freezer take care of dessert.

Patience is a virtue

The difference between travel in the states and travel in Central America:

US . . . . in 18 hours you can drive from Kansas City to Syracuse, New York. I think we might have even done it a couple of times when Jon was in school there.

Central America . . . . leave El Salvador at 4:15 a.m. and arrive safely in Managua, Nicaragua at 9:30 p.m. Twelve hours of driving and 6 hours at the borders (2 in El Salvador, 1 in Honduras and 3 in Nicaragua where we had to completely unload the bus and open all our suitcases for inspection. ) By the way, it's only 314 miles from San Salvador to Managua!

Easter Projects

This was our last teaching day before Easter--New Life Christian School is on "spring break" next week. So, what better to do than create Easter art.

First and second grade colored a 3-dimensional egg which accompanied an Easter Egg Poem. Third graders made an Easter card and the fourth graders made an Easter lily accompanied by an poem about the significance of the lily.

Here are some pictures of their work.

Serving up a Mexican feast

My busy day started with my first Hilo, Aguja y Biblia of 2012. We had so many things going on in January and February, including Judgment House, that we decided to postpone the new "semester" until March. Today, our project today was an oven mitt. They loved picking out their own material from my tub of donated fabrics. For some reason, I always forget to take my camera with me so I don't have any pictures. Twelve ladies came to sew, fellowship and study the Bible.

Next stop the grocery store for some last minute items. We're serving up a Mexican feast tonight for our good friends, the Flores family: William, Gilma, Jerry and Amy. As I have mentioned before, William is the worship leader at Vida Nueva. Gilma, his wife, is responsible for the beautiful flowers in my garden. Their daughter, Amy, is one of our 4th graders. You really wouldn't believe how much help they are to us--from trips to the airport, to taking care of our house/yard while we're out of the country, to helping us with our residency papers, to finding a place for us to buy a new spare tire after ours was stolen. They help us navigate everything "Salvadoran." We so thankful for their friendship and support.

Having a meal together one of the ways we can say thanks. Tonight's dinner is: chicken fajitas, black beans, Mexican rice, guacamole, tortillas, chips and all the trimmings. I had to depart from the Mexican theme for dessert--it's a coconut pie.

We usually watch a movie after dinner, but tonight we're thinking about teaching them to play one of the card games we like. We'll see--either way it will be fun.

It's back

City water is back this morning . . . with all the air in the line every faucet turned on sounds like a mini-explosion. The two repair guys our landlord sent arrived at 7:30 . . . . yep, the pump died. They're off to buy a new one and then will come back to replace it later this morning. Hurray, we're back in business.

Footnote: we had a really strong tremor just a few minutes ago--didn't last long, but it was definitely the strongest one we've felt.

No Water

From upstairs I heard Stephen say, "We don't have any water." I'm thinking, "Of course, we do. There are three 5-gallon bottles sitting in our dining room." Unfortunately, that wasn't that water he was talking about!

Water from the city is sporadic at best, so our houses have cisterns which provide a backup for the house. If the city water is off, then the water pump in the cistern "pumps" water into our house.

Fast forward to the present. There's no city water and evidently our water pump has died. Bottom line . . . . no water to the house until we call our landlord and he has someone come over to repair/replace it. Thankfully, our landlord speaks English so we can communicate the problem to him without too much difficulty, if we can reach him. He is the El Salvadoran air force and isn't always in the country.

Jeff and Paula live less than 2 blocks away from us and right now they are in Texas at a mission's conference. Guess showering at their house is the back-up plan to the back up plan. In the meantime, we have plenty of water to drink!

Three Extra Days

We've spent 3 extra days in Costa Rica visiting with Jose, Flor, David, Fernanda, Marie Jose, Ruth and Esther--our Tico family. What fun!

Over the course of the three days, we watched two movies, Hugo and Lady Hawk--the first was just released on DVD and the second is from the 1980's! I've cooked and cooked: No Bake Cookies, Snickerdoodles, popped sweet popcorn and regular, fettucini alfredo casserole and an apple crisp. We've also gotten to enjoy the wonderful fruit here--the fresh pineapple, watermelon, mangoes, strawberries are all awesome!

We played games with the family, including cribbage (thanks to Stephen's patient teaching) and Settlers of Catan--a first for us. Jose is still going strong with 11 victories in a row in Settlers!

Sunday morning we attended the 10:30 service with Flor and Esther. Fernanda and Marie Jose taught Sunday School. David went to the early service and Jose had to work.

Stephen and I managed to walk to Otero's, our favorite pizza place, on Monday for lunch. Flor and I ran errands on Saturday so we had some one-on-one time. Stephen and David spent their Saturday afternoon comparing/sharing music.

We love coming to Costa Rica for many reasons--we have dear friends at Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva, San Jose, we love sharing the gospel in the schools and parks and we can spend time with our true Tico family. Unfortunately for us, the next campaign in Costa Rica (for us) is not until March 2013. I'm thinking a vacation to Costa Rica in September sounds pretty good.

Great week in San Jose

We had an awesome campaign this week in San Jose, Costa Rica, with the team from Valley Baptist Church in Bakersfield, CA. Steve and Pam Kern's daughter, Kristen, son-in-law, Alex, and grandson, Kyle, also joined us.

We taught the purity lesson in school on three different days and the students listened well and many prayed to receive Christ. Over the course of the three days, we presented the lesson 30 times, reaching more than 1000 students.

Vida Nueva San Jose now has an inflatable! It just arrived in Costa Rica by boat from Los Angeles and the kids loved it. On Thursday night we counted more than 80 students "patiently" waiting in line. It was great to have this new tool with which to draw in kids and their parents.

Steve Kern told us on Friday morning that Pastor Rodolfo received more than 900 names throughout the week. Please pray for the follow-up--it takes a long time to contact every person!

Costa Rica for 12 days!

First, I just want to thank all of you for praying for us and, specifically for our safety. Every day of driving here brings one near-miss after another, and I am constantly reminded that your prayers are making a difference in our lives.

This afternoon we are flying to Costa Rica to meet up with two teams--one from Houston and one from California. It's always a joy to go back to Costa Rica where we have so many great friends. We will worship at Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva, San Jose, tomorrow morning and have the pleasure of hearing Rodolfo preach. I wish you all knew him . . . . he's a great man of God with a great sense of humor! We love his whole family--wife, Rocio, daughter, Natalia and son-in-law, Roger!

We will be sharing in schools during the day and in neighborhoods during the evening. We had a great campaign with much fruit when we were there in November. We're praying that hearts will be open to receive the gospel this week, as well.

The teams will leave on Saturday, but we are staying over several days to visit with the Chinchilla's, the family we stayed with when we were in language school. We're excited to have the opportunity to worship at their church on Sunday, March 11.

We fly back to El Salvador on Tuesday, March 13. Please pray that the students at New Life will work hard for their substitute while we are gone. They weren't very happy that we were going to miss 6 days of school.

Again, thanks for your prayers . . . . keep lifting us up!