Our third week has come and gone now and with it many new adventures. Early last week we confined ourselves to studying hard and staying in San Juan in the afternoon. David and I got up early one morning to wash our clothes and get them on the line by 7:15- since the rainy season has somewhat begun, there is a 50% chance of rain every afternoon and its important to get the clothes dry as early as possible:) We had a short week because Friday is Guatemala's labor day, thus no school. So we planned a beach trip to El Salvador for our 3 day weekend. We came up with a shopping list assuming(correctly) that things would be more expensive in El Salvador. Since I was elected head chef and of course that suited me just fine- I got to brave the market with instructions from my host mom on what type of pineapple to ask for and how much things should cost and I am pleased to report that I am pretty darn good at shopping in the market. I got three of the sweetest pineapples you could ever imagine for less than $3.00. Wild huh? Early Friday morning we were picked up in a mini-bus and headed out to the beach- a 4 hour trip more or less. The place we stayed was nice by standards here at least:) A little rough for standards back home. 5 girls in 1 room, and 2 boys in the other. But the place had a tiny pool and was ocean front and for $80 for 3 days and 2 nights-thats not too bad. The beach was great- different, black sand and rocks, but warm water and great waves! I swam more there than I have in a long time. Lots of surfers- and David had a lesson on Saturday morning:) He said it is much harder than it looks and I believe him! We cooked supper the first night (me and Mandy) in the hotels' kitchen- which is also the kitchen for the restaurant in the hotel. I kinda felt like we were in the way. But they assured us it was OK and I think they enjoyed watching me struggling to de-skin the chicken with a dull knife. Not easy. But we produced fried chicken, mashed potatoes, broccoli, carrots, and pineapple that was consumed with gratifying gusto. And no one got sick- thank heavens. The next night David and I actually went on a date! The rest of the group went to a restaurant down on the beach- but Dave and I crossed the road to a little place across from our hotel and enjoyed french fries (my first in 3 weeks and y'all know what a big deal that is to me) and garlic chicken for me, mexican chicken salad for David and cokes in the bottle (even after several weeks, that still makes me smile-I think I will still love that after 2-3 years). We had a great time just being by ourselves. Sunday was slower and then came the ride home. Not terrible but not great- it seems the travel agency overbooked the bus home and we had one more person than we had seats. So yup- of course I'm the skinniest and I was sitting on some German guys' backpack on the floor unable to see out the window. That only worked for an hour until car-sickness overtook me and my wonderful husband took over for me. Better on my stomach, but worse on my nose as I then had to sit beside the German guy who did not smell so pleasant. Our driver was determined to make up the lost time spent waiting on the 3 German guys by zooming around every vehicle in sight for 3.5 hours. Needless to say I was overjoyed to set these two feet back in the dust of San Juan del Obispo- which I realized when we got back to our house and my heart jumped a little, really is feeling more like home. Monday, we went to school and when we got home, I became sick- for the rest of the day, then David got sick and another girl. So as much as I enjoyed El Salvador, I'm not a fan right now! We are on the mend now, just tired from fighting the fever and nausea and still having some ill effects of the stomach. However, our host mother has not rested in making sure we are ok- making us different herb teas (one that really did help), making us hot bananas for breakfast, offering to take us to the doctor, bring us buckets to throw up in, you name it- she really is like a grandmother:) I like her because she laughs full out and often and likes to tease me and lets me help her sometimes. We skipped school today but we are hoping the rest of this week will continue more normally and uneventfully!
Please continue to pray for our health, our ministry to our team mates, our relationship with our family and teachers, opportunities to share and opportunities to minister to the people here in San Juan. Pray that we will be protected from the enemy and strengthened daily by God's Word. Pray that our feeling of home will be in Him alone. Please let us know how you are and how we can pray for you!  

Hola! I hope you all are doing well. We are doing good here- we've survived our second week:) This week has been a little different. School was much harder as I got into the intricacies of ser and estar and por and para and saber and conosco and irregular preterit verbs. Whew- it makes me tired just writing it! But conversation is getting better and a little easier and thats good. I figured out that I had over 400 vocab words as of Tuesday. No I don't have them all memorized yet. Keep praying! On Sunday we went to a Baptist church near Antigua and are going today to minister with them in a mission project they are involved in. More on that later. We've stayed in San Juan more this week in the afternoons and that has been helpful. Candy, Mandy and I have also been putting on our backpacks full of stuff and hiking some of the steep streets here a couple of times a week for practice for the Andes. The locals really think we are crazy now. Our family continues to bless us with their kindness and generosity. The food is still amazing- one morning this week we had homemade banana crepes with marmalade in them and a side of fresh pineapple. You have no idea. Please pray for them that the veil of catholicism will be lifted and they will see who Christ really is. We love them very much and hope to be able to speak to them better soon! Pray for our teachers as well. They are used to teaching missionaries and they either know what to say or how to keep the conversation from going there. Though just in regular conversation I've been able to share some things with my teacher. Its not hard to love the people here very quickly. They are sweet in nature, quick to laugh, and always ready to eat something! We are hoping to plan a trip to the beach next weekend b/c Guat.'s labor day is Friday and we don't have class- so we get a long weekend.
Please continue to pray for our group here as we strive to be united, find where God wants us to minister, and work hard to learn the language. Pray also for health for the group- David and I have been fine but some others have had a few stomach issues and a sprained ankle has made their week more tough.
An interesting note: Here in San Juan there is a bombas factory (fireworks mostly, though not with the pretty lights, just the loud loud loud noise) and they are very popular to set off for a fiesta or someones birthday or if I understand correctly, if anything remotely exciting happens at all. We've heard them quite a bit and they are extraordinarily loud. But we've kinda gotten used to them. Yet this morning (friday) I was having my typical nightly bad dream about a war of some kind- when I was awakened to the loud sound of what I could only imagine was machine gun fire. David, being the protective caring, wonderful husband he is, threw himself over me and covered my head. My heart is pounding like crazy and I'm thinking we need to get under the bed!!! But its not big enough- so I'm laying there trying to think if we could turn the table over and get behind it- when at last we realize it was just someone celebrating a birthday with an enormous string of bombas_ AT 4:45 IN THE MORNING. Now I'm not a Guatemalan- so I know I don't really understand, but who in their right mind celebrates ANYTHING at 4:45 in the morning? Well they do in San Juan. With that note- I'll write more next week. 

Week 1 in Guatemala

Hola! I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the spring there! We've jumped straight into summer here and of course I'm loving it. Guatemala is a great place and we are enjoying it tremendously. Though things are dusty and a little brown now- I've been assured that in a few weeks when the rainy season starts- everything becomes really beautiful. But even now it looks good to us. There are tons of flowers and plenty of fresh fruit. The family we are staying with is wonderful- I really couldn't ask for better. They have 4 kids, one dog and 2 parrots. The house is very nice- its more of a lot of seperate rooms around a courtyard. For instance, when I leave our bedroom I walk outside and across the courtyard to the bathroom and then across again to get to the kitchen. Our mother has fed us very well and eveything we've had has been really good! The pineapple is so sweet you wouldn't believe it. We've also had papaya, canteloupe and bananas. The school is about a 5 minute walk away, we go past the center of town where the catholic church is and the park. The school is 2 rooms, 2 bathrooms and a principal's office. But we don't have class inside- they set up tables outside on the wrap around porch and one is the yard. The yard is very nice, with tons of flowers, and a few chickens running around. Each of us here have our own teacher, so its one on one for 2 hours and then we get a 30 minute break and then 1.5 hours more. Its very good for learning because you can't zone out at all- you have to work the whole time. My teacher is very kind and patient and has taught me a lot. The first few days we did a lot of vocab and verb forms but from there have gone to more conversation with drills thrown in here and there and whenever we get to a word I don't know or I say wrong, he corrects it and we keep going. Today David decided to write out flash cards for all the vocab he' s learned this week and it has taken him over three hours and he's still not done! Whew- very intense. But I can see a difference already- so there is hope for only learning for three months.
In the afternoons we go home and eat lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day here. After that it depends, our first day we had a tour of Antigua- a very pretty town that isn't that large but a lot of people and a ton of tourists. But there is pretty much anything you need there. The second afternoon we went on a macadamia nut farm tour. It was kind of a bust- bc it wasn't much to see. But is the only organic one in Guatemala! Wednesday we stayed in San Juan and studied in the park, but went to Antigua to have supper with some IMBers here. Thursday we hiked up an active volcano- so our first sighting of lava. Friday we hung around San Juan and studied and enjoyed not having the 15 minute bus ride into Antigua and then home again. So in short we are enjoying this very much. Please let us know how to pray for you! We miss you!
Please pray for us as we stretch our brains and try to learn as much as possible

Also pray for us to know best how to minister while we are here, we are trying to start a Bible study and maybe some prayer walking.

Pray that our group will stay united and that we will be an encouragement for each other.

Pray for our families that they will have peace and comfort about us being away.

Pray for our adopted families here that we will be able to show the love of Christ to them in real ways.

Praise God with us for the success of our learning so far!

Please pray for these boys in Peru-

We saw them two years ago.  They 

live in San Jose de Quiero.

Hello!  I know it has been a while, but I'm finally getting around to updating this thing!  This is our first really free Saturday.  David is of course putting the finishing touches on the house.  Our renters are moving in tomorrow.  Please pray for them as they adjust to living in a new place with their first baby on the way.  I, however, am determined to hang out at the quad for most of the day and catch up on some paperwork and cleaning and laundry.  Being a missionary does not eliminate the problem of having to do laundry unfortunately.  In the past two weeks, we've learned a whole lot more.  We learned the T4T training method, doctrine, got our ESL certificates (they spelled my name wrong though), persecuted church and Bible storying.  Our favorite was probably the persecuted church- what an eye opening two days that was!  Please don't forget to be praying for people groups under severe persecution!  We've also been impressed with the need to develop our Bible Storying technique.  Its amazing how much of our world is oral.  If you want to know more about storying or the need for it, please send us an email!  We'd love to share some of what we've learned with you.  Please pray for us as we learn this new technique and practice it for the next few weeks.  We've been having fun too, don't worry!  I've taken up knitting and crocheting again with a large group of ladies who are in all stages of skill level and we are having fun doing that!  We've also been playing volleyball every Wednesday night and I'm holding in the competitiveness for the most part:)  We have gone out with some awesome people, played games, and laughed a lot.  We've also tried to make sure we keep a night of the week just for us.  Last night we went to the Byrd which is always fun!  We have about 3.5 weeks left here and it feels like it is flying by.  We are still waiting on definite dates of departure for Guatemala, but have settled into the South America mindset already- so we aren't worried about it.  Its hard to be worried about much here because they take such good care of you here. 

Please remember to be praying for the Quechua people.  One thing we've learned here is that prayer is not just nice and helpful, but it is critical.  And not just prayer for us, but especially prayer for the people we will be going out to.  Pray for hearts to stirred to the gospel, for persons of peace, and for a good crop for them this year.  

Please please please let us know how we can be praying for you all!  

Happy Sunday to you all! I'm updating this quickly as we are due to facilitate our house church this morning in about 30 minutes. I hope everyone is doing fine and had a great Valentine's day.
We celebrated by doing 8 hours of ESL training. Romantic huh? Things continue to go well for us. We have had sessions on spiritual warfare, anthropology, phonetics, church planting movements, mobilizing, servant leadership, worldview workshops and probably a lot more that I can't remember. Some highlights have been my success at memorizing Psalm 100 in spanish. Before you get too impressed, look up how short that psalm is! David's ankle is finally all better- now if I can just keep tarzan on the ground, we'll be ok! David said his highlight is the fact the he's still being paid to go to Bible studies all day! We are adjusting to the cafeteria food- and enjoy guessing what monday's meal will be recycled as on Wednesday! David has also figured out a better way for the ILC to run- he thinks there should be more produce grown on campus! I think he's going to miss gardening as much as I am. We get a break tomorrow- which I am sure we are all looking forward to. Dave and I will be running hither and to, getting some of our never-ending to do list accomplished. Please continue to pray for us to grow and mature in our walk with the Lord, be continually humbled before Him, and for rest, always for rest! Please keep in touch with us and let us know how to pray for you!

Hello again!  This time we write as professional missionaries (haha).  We are half way through our second week of training here at the Learning Center.  We started with 2 days of moving out of our house and into the ILC and all the pesky projects that seemed endless.  But they are mostly done:) and we have settled nicely into our little apartment here.  I have been running the heat full blast since we got here! What a luxury;)  Our building has four other units- 2 families and a single guy.  A total of 7 kids!  We were concerned about that- not being used to living so close to them, but they have been really fun and they really are great kids.  We are mostly in session all day from 8-3 or 4.  We've had a lot of overviews about missions and this time here and several just great Bible study times.  How is it that we are being paid to have Bible study?  Also on the schedule last week was a personal retreat time.  Time set aside for us to be with God for 3 hours.  That was amazing as well.  I went down to the South Anna- and was reminded that God doesn't just reveal Himself through His creation to those who have no other way to hear about Him (see Rom. 1) but He continues to remind me of His excellent greatness by showing me His creation.  This week has been spent studying spiritual warfare so far and tomorrow we move on to the development of the early church.  We've also had an interesting session on malaria- that scared most of the group half to death:)  We feel that God has really affirmed our call to those HIGH mountain places (where there are no mosquitos).  But anyway- the purpose of us being here is not just to remove us from our culture, but to really train us for the field.  I think I am beginning to understand a little more of what this calling is about and why we need this "spiritual boot camp" before we go.  We are also training physically, for the altitude, rough living, and just so that we will be healthier and able to minister more effectively.  When we aren't in session- we are usually eating (which takes a lot longer when every meal is shared with several families- and you can't leave until about an hour has gone by!) working on assignments- ok yes, its homework basically, catching up on the reading we should have done before we got here-oops, working on Spanish, running, talking to the people in our quad, learning bible storying, and hey- reading the Word, praying, journaling and generally seeking after the Father.  

Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement- they are a sweet aroma, not just to us, but to the Lord.  Please continue to pray for us in these specific areas:

1) That we will strive for excellence in our time here and not just get by

2)  That we will develop our strengths and work hard on our weaknesses

3)  That we will create patterns here that will carry us over into the field

4) For physical and mental rest as we get back into the school type life, and for me as I struggle with sleeping well - pray that God will reign over my dreams as well.

5) For the Quechua people of Peru

6) For our marriage- that we will strengthen and mature our relationship deeper every day and remember to put each other above our own selves.

Thanks to all of you!  Please keep us updated on what is going on in your lives, and how we can pray for you.

More to come...