Doing the "MAINE" thing

So....again it's been awhile since our last post, and yes, it's been fun!

We returned from Texas July 26 and had a group here waiting for us! It was a group from a church in PA that supports another CAM missionary here, and he asked my help in leading half of the group in construction projects in the music dept at SETECA. We built cabinets for instrument storage, shoe racks for childrens classes and painted a lot of the music dept.


We had a few days after they left to prepare for another group from Wilton MAINE! That's a long ways from here! They are from Calvary Hill Baptist Church in Wilton, and this was their first trip to Guatemala! There were 30 people in the group, with ages from 8 to 64!

The "MAINE" group at our church 'Pueblo de Dios'

We started out with two days in the capital, visiting some sights, learning about and praying with the people at Kairos House, a home for kids with cancer and their families.

Kairos House

Sunday morning the group attended our church 'Pueblo de Dios' and led some of the worship time! After church they climbed on the bus for the long ride to Huehuetenango. In Huehue, the group worked during the days at Berea Bible Institute, painting, plastering, sewing, sifting sand, building closets, playing fútbol (soccer) and having fun!

Sifting sand for mortar

Sewing new curtains for Telma, who works in the kitchen and whose husband is a teacher

The youngest boys worked the hardest!

We also spent some time doing things besides work. One evening we visited a local church, Nueva Jerusalén, where the group sang some songs, gave a couple of testimonies, and Mike Wolfe gave a great message!

Singing at Nueva Jerusalén

Another highlight was visiting a Mayan community and the CAM church there and holding a VBS for the kids! There were about 150 kids there, and many accepted Christ for the first time!

A few of the kids at VBS

On the return to Guatemala City from Huehue, we spent an afternoon in Antigua so the team could do some shopping and sightseeing. While in Antigua, one of the team, Barb, was pushed from behind in a crowd, and moments later discovered her bag had been cut open and her wallet and passport were gone! So...after filing a police report, we said goodbye to 29 of the team the next day and Barb got the privilege of spending a couple more days in Guatemala! We got her a new passport on Monday and she finally got home to Maine on Tuesday.

During all of this time with the wonderful folks from Maine, we still had one intern here with us...Molly Perara, aka...Guatemolly! We took Molly with us and the team to Huehue, and Molly got a special treat! Molly is a linguistics major at WWU (that's Western Washington U for you East coasters) and is very interested in the Mayan dialects. There is a CAM couple in Huehue, The Ekstrom's, that have helped translate the bible into several Mayan dialects. They took Molly to the town of Nebaj, where they attended the dedication of the New Testament into the local dialect. This does not happen very often, takes years and years in fact, so the timing to have a dedication while Molly could attend was God sent!

Molly worked at Casita Benjamín while here except for our trip to Huehue. We truly loved having Molly here, she became like part of our family, but, she too has returned home a few days ago.

Molly with kids from Casita Benjamín

Next up, a 17 yr old friend coming to stay and work with us for 3 weeks. We will host 4 men from World Orphan visiting to see about partnership possibilities here with CAM. We have 4 interns arriving in September, 2 for 3 months, 1 for 6 months and 1 for 8 months!