Sunday night I didn't sleep. Too many things were scrolling through my mind. We'd be waking up at the crack of dawn praying that Maria hadn't changed her mind. And how were we going to fit Henry and 5 others in our 4.5 person car with all the luggage? Did I have everything prepared for our interview with the Consejo Nacional de Adopciones (CNA) on Wednesday which would determine whether or not they saw us fit to be the directors of another children's home in Guatemala? And how were we going to fit it in to meet with the accountant before we left to get our passports back? Two volunteers arrived at 12:30a.m. in Coban on their motorcycles soaking wet...were they safe? Would they be able to find a hotel? Were we going to have time to meet them in the morning and show them the land before we had to leave? Two sleeping pills later, I still laid there wide awake.

Monday came quickly. We hurried to the accountant, got our stuff, hurried to our new volunteers, found them a place to stay and showed them to the land, hurried back to town, packed our stuff, made 7 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, drove to Maria's house and she wasn't there. It was 20 minutes after our scheduled departure time, and she was not there. Her sister Olga and her niece were going to go too. Olga's husband is an abusive alcoholic and the situation was very delicate. He did not want her to go, but Maria needed the support. After all,  if they accepted Henry, Maria would be riding back to Coban alone right after giving up her only child. Olga couldn't go without her 14 year old daughter, and so it was. But where was Maria? Finally, she showed up and an hour and a half later, after Maria cleaned and dressed her son, we left. Every one of Maria's neighbors had come out of their rusted tin, wood, nylon shacks to watch what was going on.

Henry had no wheelchair, no shoes, no diaper, and a huge bag of stinky blankets. He had never ridden in a car. Maria put a plastic grocery bag on him for his diaper. We piled him in with everyone else, and off we went. 6 hours later we arrived in Antigua. We met with Daryl Fulp and his assistant Gerardo and we tried to get everyone checked in to Casa de Fe.

They allow 2 people only, the patient and one person. We had 4. The person must have a cedula to get in. Maria had a photocopy only. They accepted it. Then there were two more people. They said "no" and "no". Everyone in the room told us it was against the rules. We did not know what to do. Then something changed, someone gave in and said okay. Obstacle number 1 (besides all the obstacles overcome getting everyone down), overcome. We took them to Casa de Fe and Daryl carried Henry in and we immediately faced obstacle number 2, the people said only the patient and one caregiver could stay. They refused and refused even after we told them the other people said yes, and we pleaded. The people were very unfriendly and stern. We told the lady we came all the way from Coban, the mother is by herself and can not move Henry alone, the sister's abusive husband would not let her come without her daughter...and we begged. She finally said yes. Obstacle number 2, overcome.

Daryl ran and found some diapers for Henry. Maria and her son slept on the floor of the chapel. Geoffrey and I went to Hogar de Esperanza to meet Daryl's family.

They are amazing people. They are starting a home for 12 disabled children, orphans, and they already have 10 children, 7 of which live with them in Guatemala, 8 if you include Gerardo. One is adopted from China, one from Guatemala, and one from Korea. Two are foster children that they adopted from the US and the rest are their biological children. This family is great and live the great commission out every day. The Lord has provided a castle for them to live in with extremely crazy decor covering the entire 6000 sq feet. We couldn't believe our eyes. Getting to know them and hear their story was such a blessing and encouragement. If they can move to a 3rd world country with 10 children, start a home for 12 more, and have a huge multifaceted ministry and live and operate by faith....nobody, NOBODY, has any excuse for why they cannot or did not go to the mission field when they heard the Lord's command.

5am, Tuesday, we are up and getting ready to head out to Hermano Pedro. Prayer warriors all over the world on our side pleading for Henry, pleading to the Lord that they would have a space available to accept him into the Home, pleading that Maria would truly give him up to them when the time came. 6:30, we are in line and waiting to get to see the first doctor. 8am, we are in and he says Henry qualifies. Next, social work. Social work looks us dead in the eyes and says, "There is no space". They wouldn't budge. I am about to cry and I can not even look the woman in the eyes when I ask her, "You are telling me there is no space for this boy, after we came all this way?" She says, "No, I am sorry." So much more I want to say, but I can not because I was too overwhelmed. I just walked out. We came all this way...it wasn't going to end that quick. Someone goes back in, and they say we can be put on a waiting list, but we have to see the neurologist before we can even be put on the list. We head to the neurologist's secretary who tells us one, he won't be in until 1pm, two, he doesn't have any opening to see anyone until February of 2013. We asked what we could possibly do. She said come back at 1pm and if someone cancels, we could fill in.

Meanwhile we leave and Daryl finds a ministry that gives wheelchairs to people in need for $200. Just so happened that that day they were giving wheelchairs for free. We spent about two hours there while Henry got fitted for this super nice $6,000 wheelchair. It was incredible and we wheeled him away like a king.

Back to Hermano Pedro. Up to the neurologist...we wait. He won't see anyone until 2pm. We wait. About 4pm we got in. Obstacle, this neurologist is not a very "nice" guy. He apparently over drugs patients in the home, and for new prospective patients, he orders expensive tests and the person can not even be referred to the home by him until they complete whatever requisites he sets before them. This could be the end of the road for Herny at Hermano Pedro. This doctor has to say yes or no. We sat outside and prayed and prayed. Five minutes later the door opens, and not only is he accepting Henry, but he is writing a referral to social work, and tells us if social work will not tell us there is space, we need to go directly to the priest. The priest of the whole hospital/home! Obstacle number 671, overcome.
It is 4:30pm and everyone starts leaving at 5pm. We hurried to social work and they said no. Firmly it was a no and there was just no space and nothing they could do. So Daryl and Gerardo brought the priest over. I am thinking wow, God is just making this work. The priest goes into social work, 2 minutes later he walks out lays his hand on Henry, and walks away. Daryl and Gerardo come out and the answer is "No". There is no space and nothing they can do for him other than put him on the waiting list. Our fight was over, after spending the entire day overcoming obstacles, at the end of the day...Henry would be wheeled away from the home.

We took him to a hotel, put them up in a room, and early Wednesday morning we put the four of them on a bus back to Carcha.

What a wonderful relationship we've built with another incredible ministry here in Guatemala. We can not thank them enough for their love, sacrifice, and service they gave to us in the name of Jesus.

 Hope for a Home Ministries 

and thank them for with us by liking them on Facebook:

Hope for a Home Facebook 

Our meeting with the CNA went well and we got back to Coban late last night and found out that our two awesome volunteers, the EnduroBros, had finished our fence for us. What a blessing.

Today we took Henry his wheelchair and modified their home and flattened their dirt floor in order to help Maria to be able to move the wheelchair about easily.

The Lord knows what He is doing and His time is never early and it is never late. We will praise the Lord.

Mision Vida Nueva

www.misionvidanueva.info

I used to look forward to writing blogs, then I realized that nobody truly wants to listen to my ramblings. And then people ask me, "When are you going to write another blog?" and I feel as though I need to write, not because people want to hear what 'I' have to say, but because I have the privilege of sharing what the Lord is doing, and even if not one person reads it, I am boasting in the Lord and what He is doing, and believe you me, that is something worth boasting in.

Thank God I grew up a little and realized, it isn't about me at all, it is about Him.

There is a lot of deep theological topics I would love to discuss with you, in depth, that bring immense glory to the Lord, like perseverance of the saints or the fact that HE chose us and that we, in our depravity, not to mention our lack of sovereignty, would never choose Him. Or the fact that as I was reading the other night He hit my heart hard with the beautiful truth that He made me His not on the basis of anything I had done and that He will never ever take His gift of salvation from me - no matter what horrible things I do to deserve that it be taken away. How FREE I am to love Him, and to truly, in the realest sense of the word, "love" Him! That's because I love Him not out of fear that I may mess up and one day go to Hell, I love Him not because I am trying to earn anything, or keep anything, but just because He has loved me first with a love that nothing can separate. By the way, I can't "keep" (to keep is an action) salvation, it is mine because He, the unchangeable, gave it to me - freely. 
I could go on and on and I know that people who live a life trying to win God's favor and "keep" something they never "earned" to begin with would probably love to debate me, but God has not given me the gift of debate and I tend to get a little fired up and mad that they'd distort God's beauty....
So I will just tell you a little of what has been going on lately here in the jungles of Guatemala.

A few weeks back a man was murdered on the road that runs between our land and another town as he was delivering a van he had been trying to sell. It was a brutal murder and the man was the father of our board member Cesar Macz. Murderers, not found.

 

The night after, a man heard his doorbell ring. He, a Nazarene christian man and a well-known professor at a reputable school in Coban, went to answer his door and was shot four times in the chest on his front porch and died leaving a bloody mess for his wife to find. This man was the brother of the contractor that is building phase 1 of the children's home. Murderers, not found.

 

 

 



We were shocked and saddened by the sudden and unexpected deaths in the families of our friends. As a gift, we wanted to buy Cypress trees to give to them to plant in honor of their loved ones. On the way to the nursery to pick out the trees, we noticed quite a few military men lining the streets with their guns out. We were not sure what was going on until we got back home that evening and learned that about 30 minutes up the road from where we live, two children were beheaded with machetes while in their classroom at their school. A group of men had entered the school with the intent of harming the teachers. The teachers escaped and the children were left at their mercy, or lack there of. An 8 year old girl and a 13 year old boy were slain. The one man that the community caught, was lynched and then set on fire in the school yard. The community knows that to put the guilty in the hands of the law here, nothing will happen. 99% of crimes are not even investigated, let alone the criminals prosecuted. The other murderers, not found.

 

 

A week later we were driving out to the land to check on the progress of the construction. Crossing a bridge, we came upon a large gathering of civilians, officers, and military. I got very interested to see what was going on. We pulled over and walked down near the river where sure enough a dead body was laying on his back with the current running over his face. He was caught in some rocks. Turned out he was an anthropologist in Coban and was murdered the night before and tossed from the bridge. I grabbed my camera, but decided it best to not take a picture of the body, so I snapped a shot of the spot where the body lay before it was taken. Murderers, not found.

 

 

Last Saturday morning I woke up and headed to the roof to take down the clothes that I'd hung to dry the night before. As I was removing them from the line, I noticed two small kids running on the roof of a house. One of them was chasing a puppy. The next thing I heard were the piercing yelps of a tiny, hurting puppy. The kids had kicked the puppy off the 15 foot roof and it lay on the ground crying in pain.

 

 

 

I am not one to stop and think real hard before I react to something traumatic. I ran down the stairs, out the house, and straight to the neighbor's house. I found the mother and asked her about the puppy. She freely admitted to me that it stole her kid's bread and he kicked it off the roof. I told her I cared well for puppies and would like to take it to my home and look it over real good and possibly take it to the vet. She brought it to me and it ended up staying with us for 5 days. It had also been hit by a taxi the week before. This puppy is as much a miracle as my baby Mighty, if any of you remember him and his story. It suffered from fleas, mange, malnutrition, parasites, fractured ribs, and an extreme lack of love. It barely weighed anything and was filthy dirty when we first got him.

 



 

 

 

 

He ate and ate and slept and slept. But he wouldn't just sleep anywhere, he insisted on sleeping on my chest. So I cuddled him and loved him and we took him to the vet on Tuesday and got him some good medicines to rid him of the parasites and the mange. Then I asked the mother if we could find him a home where he will be loved and cared for well, but she said no. I told her if she wanted him to get his medicine, he'd have to come to my house once a week so I could bathe him and give it to him, and at least she agreed to that. And we have a new relationship with a lost woman out of all this, and I look forward to growing that relationship and hopefully revealing the love Christ has for her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Naturally I fell head over heels for this baby and a cried quite a bit when I had to give him back to the people. But I was able to teach the woman a little about caring properly for a dog and hopefully she will use her new found knowledge for the sake of this puppy and my own emotional well-being. I find it ironic that we keep saving suffering dogs when we are here to save suffering children. But the dogs are suffering, in Travieso's case, because of the children. And it makes me wonder....but the children we take in will learn to love animals and treat them the way that God intended for us to treat and care for His animals. They are, after all, His good creation. 

 

 

During this time, Geoffrey and I went to buy some seizure medicine for Henry, who still suffers at the hands of his mother. If you remember, we had found a place for him where he would be well taken care of and receive all the medicines, therapy, and treatment he needs, for free. His mother refused to send him. So I am sitting on her bed and trying to breathe only through my mouth to avoid the smell of feces and urine that stained the blankets covering him. She is, like always, telling me how hard her life is because she is caring for Henry and then tells me that she gave him a bath today. I could feel there was more she wanted to say, so I sat quietly and listened as she began to tell me that the other day she came home and Henry was across the room on the floor crying. He had had a seizure while no one was there and had fallen from the bed and seized himself about 3 feet from the bed. Then she told me that the reason she bathed him today was because when she went to change his "diaper", which is really an old shirt she wraps around him and ties, she found a worm. At first, I told her that meant that he has worms in his stomach and he needs to get medicine to kill them. Then she shook her head and looked down at the ground and told me that this was the kind of worm that comes from a fly, we call this a maggot. She showed me where the maggots had been, and they were actually in his hair down there. I told her she has to wash him everywhere and use disinfectant soap...and she just shook her head and told me she doesn't have any money.

 

 

 

 

Last Friday we met with our Pastor who is helping us find Godly people to work with our association. Medics, Psychologists, Social workers, accountants, etc. We talked and talked and then he told me he needed help. He told me of three children who had just been abandoned by their father in Coban and were staying at the house of a sister from the church. I told him that legally we are not authorized to receive children yet because the home is not finished and we are only in the process of accreditation. However, I told him we would speak with the mayor (who we currently live with) and see if personally we would be legally able to care for the children until they are turned over to the courts. So I spoke with the Mayor and his wife and she told me that we most definitely should not attempt to care for the children until we have the home. We needed to have someone else call the authorities and have the kids turned in. She told me stories of which I had heard before of foreigners doing the smallest things like giving a child a cookie or taking a child's picture and the foreigners were stoned, beaten, and lynched. She told me that more than likely if we care for the children and the father comes back, just because we are white he will say that we kidnapped his children. She told us that she herself, the wife of the mayor, went with a group to a poor village where they took nutritious food and charted the growth of the children until one day no child would eat. When she asked why, one child stepped forward and said that they were told that they are trying to fatten them up so they could cut them up and sell them per pound. They were no longer welcome in that village and had to leave.

This is what we deal with here, ignorance. Where is the education, the common sense? We are working super hard every single day and thanking God for every gift you give us that helps us progress and move toward the goal of getting this home built, because once we have that home....we will take these children without risking our lives and give them an education and turn them over to their country, only after equipping them with the knowledge of the Savior and empowering them to go out and work hard to make a difference. Don't stop praying and don't stop giving. We may be the ones on the ground here, but you are the ones who are making this happen.

 

 

 

 

Just three days ago in Coban, there was a boy found partially decapitated under his bed. No one in the house but his sister. Murderer, not found.

 

 

 

We went two days without electricity which was somewhat difficult since the majority of our work is done through communication with lawyers and licenciados through the internet. Not to mention when it is dark, it is real dark. But who am I to complain? Yesterday evening we spent too much time in the office of a lawyer. This lawyer is the one who is doing our paperwork for the purchase of the land we made back in May. He has Q30,000 of ours which is about $3,800 and he has done about as close as you can get to nothing, except cause us problems. The work he wants to do is very sketchy and the people he associates with are even more sketchy. Dealing with him is like a living nightmare, one of those that stress you out really bad and you are so thankful it was just a nightmare when you finally wake up. Anyway, his mouth is full of lies and he is taking advantage of us without so much as a blink of an eye. But he has our money and we aren't sure what to do about it. Thankfully our board member, Cesar (mentioned above), is willing to step in a try to handle our situation with this lawyer. If we can't get our money back, I just pray that the job will be done correctly. Again, who am I to complain? At least I still have a head on my neck.

 

 

And to finish up this painfully long blog, I will tell you of Julio.

 



 

 

If you remember me writing about Julio last year, then you know that I thought he had experienced salvation. Salvation is a 'life-changing' experience and when a person is born-again, nothing in their life stays the same. Unfortunately, my drug-addicted friend here, I am afraid, only had an "experience" with the Lord. It was not salvation and he will be the first one to admit that to you. This morning, however, when he came over for his weekly English lesson (which is actually learning English using God's Word), he told me how the day before he was arrested at the request of his parents and taken to the capitol to be put in a rehab. During the day, he escaped the rehab when the guard was not at the door. He came back to Coban and was sitting at my kitchen table this morning. We did not have our normal English lesson, instead we talked about the things I mentioned to you at the beginning of this blog, the exciting things that bring immense glory to the Lord. I shared the gospel with Julio yet again. We talked about how God is sovereign and NO one can come to the Lord unless the Lord draws him. We talked about how people like to create their own God and make things up like purgatory and salvation by works. We read together word for word that God's perfect Word will never be spoken without having an impact on the hearer and that it is one thing to hear only, another thing to understand, but God is even sovereign over our spiritual ears. We spoke of Jesus' righteousness and the difference between grace and mercy. We talked about trees that produce fruit and those that do not. Julio is thirsty for truth and there is only One truth and he read it aloud to me for two hours. It was beautiful and I am clinging to the promise that God's word will produce something in Julio's heart.

 

 

 

 

Pray these things with me people. What is our life worth if we learn of the atrocities of this world and learn that there are multitudes of people dying and going to a Christless hell and yet we do nothing about it? You believe there is a God? Good, even the demons believe that. The question is, what are you doing about it?

 

 

 

www.misionvidanueva.info

www.facebook.com/misionvidanueva

 



 

 

 

A disgusting person (me) and a loving God.

I woke up at the normal 8 o'clock to my children licking me in the face. One is unusually snuggly in the mornings, and the other is wide awake, ready to play. Sigh, another day.

I pulled on some lazy clothes, started my two cups of coffee routine, and sat at the computer ready to get some work done. I wouldn't sit there long however, because this day was going to be a bit different than the other days. I had a new relationship I had to attend to.

After my two cups of coffee were finished, I began to sift through the house looking for things that would be of good use as I went over to Maria and Henry's house. I found a tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush that hadn't been used. I got a bar of disinfectant soap and filled some empty coke bottles with water. I grabbed some nail clippers and a whole pack of baby wipes, a washcloth, some Qtips, my head shaver, some scissors and a razor.

I must be the worst missionary ever. If I can just be honest for a minute before I go back to pretending I love everything I do here all the time, I have no idea why I chose this profession, or should I say why God chose this for me. I mean I don't even really like people that much. I think they are annoying and quite frankly, gross. Long ago, I thought I was going to be a neonatologist (premature baby deliverer). I laugh to myself when I remember those days. What was I thinking? I pass out when people give me shots. I can't stand dirty teeth, bad hygiene, bad breath, other people's blood or gunk or...my goodness. I can't even stand certain words that describe people's body functions. I like sleeping better than staying up late with company, and being by myself instead of being with people that like to talk...most of the time.  I prefer dogs over children. Yet here I find myself surrounded by 'people' and planning a life of working with 'children'. Don't get me wrong, there are people I enjoy being around...as long as I can leave when I'm ready. Call me introverted. I don't care if you judge me, I know I'm a terrible missionary.

So I packed up all the little things I found around the house into a bag, and I got my husband to come with me and we hiked the little hill to the dirty, wood shack with no water, no electricity. A piece of rusted metal that reached just below my knees acted as the door. I lifted up on it to move it out of the way regretting not getting a tetanus shot before I left the clean world I used to be a member of.

Immediately the stench hit me. I held my breath as long as I could and walked in between some stained and tattered mattresses, dodging the pieces of fabric that hung from wall to wall.

There lay Henry, soiled, unable to move. His mother was just starting to change his diaper. Oh, but this isn't just any diaper. This is a green sweatshirt diaper with the arms tied around his waist. She has perfected the use of clothing, not to be mistaken for cloths, for diapers. Geoffrey held open the white bag we had brought to collect all their dirty, I mean dirty, clothes, diapers, whatever you want to call them. She filled the bag up and off Geoffrey went to wash the clothes. Lucky Geoffrey.

I prayed and asked the Lord to help me through this. Poor Henry. He was at the mercy of the world's worst nurse. I put on a smile and the Holy Spirit began to fill my heart with compassion at the flesh-colored bones that lay limp in front of me. I grabbed his dirty hand, pried his fingers apart and his hand open, and began to cut his nails. One at a time. A smile grew on Henry's face and stayed there the rest of the time. I chatted to him and prayed over him and worked my way down to his feet. I started with the big toenail and began to squeeze the clippers and snap, the metal clippers broke in half. His toenail was too big and thick. I quickly wiped the look off my face, found some other clippers and I clipped away little by little. I got a bucket of water and the soap and washcloth and gently washed his feet and legs, his hands and arms. I noticed dozens of very deep scars that covered his body. His mother said these were from bed sores. I shaved his face (it had about 6 hairs on it) and washed it, brushed his hair and brushed his teeth, at least what I could before they began profusely bleeding.

But Henry's smile never left his face. I had just about had all I could take for one sitting and I gave everything to his mother and told her to keep it and to brush his teeth every day. I gave Henry a kiss on the cheek and darted outside the house, happy to be out in the fresh air, and went straight home and up to the clothes dryer only to find that all the clothes still smelled like crap. Back into the washing machine they went.

As the days went on, I felt my heart falling in love with Henry. I thought about what it would be like if he were my child. I told the Lord to make it clear to us how we were suppose to get help for this dying boy. A missionary on the other side of Guatemala had connections to one of the only homes in all the country that takes in people like Henry. Not only that, but despite the waiting list that is who knows how long, he felt pretty confident that we could get Henry in immediately. The Lord had answered our prayers!

I ran as fast as I could to tell Maria that we found Henry a home. I told her about the place and she seemed to be pretty excited with everything except that this was a Catholic ministry and not, according to her, a "Christian" ministry. In 5 minutes, and broken Spanish, I tried to diffuse years and years of violent persecution from the Roman Catholics towards the Evangelical Christians in Guatemala. I left her house that night thinking that we would be leaving in two days to take Henry somewhere where he could finally get the help he needed.

The next day Maria made it clear that without her boy she would die and that she could not send Henry to be taken care of by people who were not brothers in Christ and might beat and neglect him.

All that work and all the prayers and all those nights spent laboring over how to help these people, and she rejected it. Flat out rejected it.

Is she wrong? Maybe not. Does she love her son? Yes she does. Does this help me love people more? No it does not. Oh well. So it is with the life of a missionary, at least this missionary. And we press on in prayer, spending time with them, trying to find a way to help them, get them a wheelchair and some medicine so he doesn't have to have his four seizures a day, and we press on.

We took Maria to church yesterday. She slowly walks up to the front with an offering, I say offering because a tithe comes from an income - she has no income. She drops maybe one of three coins she had in her purse in the offering plate and returns humbly to her seat.
Well I'm the one that's humbled. I'm watching live the story of the widow and her offering played out in front of my eyes. We sing and she weeps, we pray and she really prays.

Church is over and I'm ready to go home and get in my pajamas and eat my left over pizza and spend the day doing nothing, after all, it is Sunday, the one day where we try not to work. And she turns to me and tells me she is going to get some of the food the church is selling after the service. We stand around waiting, patiently actually, and she comes back with two heavily fried bananas covered in sugar and gives them to us.
This lady, who can't afford to feed herself or her child who is already dying, has bought us  fried bananas. Do we accept them? I tell her she should eat them or take them to Henry and I see the look that comes across her face and immediately I retract my statement and tell Geoffrey that these are for us. Well, humility has slapped me in the face again and together we all pile in the car and leave.

September 1 marked my one year anniversary of being a terrible missionary in Guatemala. So far, I really love living here and I don't have the same longings I had when I lived in the States to just fly away to somewhere where the needs were great. I don't make much of a difference here, but a difference has been made in me. I know how the Lord should feel when He looks at me lying helpless in my own filthy pile of sin, acting out of pure ignorance, determined to choose the wrong when the right is so clearly right and right in front of my face, unable to help myself or even move. The Lord should be repulsed and sickened and He should get angry and roll his eyes and refuse to be there for me ever again. He should talk bad about me to all the saints up there in Heaven and have nothing to do with me.
Instead, He tells me,

   " '...on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing; you were not rubbed with salt or even wrapped in cloths. No eye looked with pity on you to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you. Rather you were thrown out into the open field, for you were abhorred on the day you were born.
      When I passed by you and saw you squirming in your blood, I said to you while you were in your blood, ‘Live!’...Then you grew up, became tall...your breasts were formed and your hair had grown. Yet you were naked and bare. Then I passed by you and saw you, and behold, you were at the time for love; so I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness. I also swore to you and entered into a covenant with you so that you became Mine,” declares the Lord God. Then I bathed you with water, washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. I also clothed you with embroidered cloth and put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet; and I wrapped you with fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck...and your dress was of fine linen, silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey and oil; so you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you,' declares the Lord."

So I guess the Lord is not surprised by my flaws. He is the one that chose to put me here. I think He knows exactly what He is doing putting such a human being like me in such a place like this. He uses weaknesses like mine and somehow, creatively, He turns them into means of glorifying Himself and proving Himself to be the One that is good, that is strong.

 

 

 

 

We have started the plans for phase 2 of the children's home, which is actually the part that will house half of the children. The sooner we get this started, the sooner we can take in the orphans, the abandoned, and the abused. We hope the Lord will do a miracle and provide the funds to lay the foundation in January. Pray with us.

 

80' x 40' Option for Casa Gloria

 

 

 

 

Love, Jenna

Henry.

World, I want you to meet Henry....no, I think God wants you to meet Henry:

But before you get the blessing of meeting Henry, you must first meet Henry's mom Maria and listen to her story. She has invited us into her home in order to share a very hard piece of her life with you.

Maria's kitchen

 

 

This is Maria. Welcome to her home. She rents this shack with dirt floors which currently does not even have running water. 22 years ago Maria was raped by a man and found herself pregnant. She gave birth to a boy who suffered from cerebral palsy and epilepsy. For the past two decades she has cared for this boy day and night with no one to help her. His name is Henry.

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, Henry has multiple seizures a day and they are very severe. When he was 8 years old Maria met a man who began to give her Q100 a week. That is about $12. The man did not live with her, he would only come to "visit" her. He began to abuse Maria, often choking her and hitting her with his belt among other things. He also tried choking Henry. Despite the extreme poverty in which they live and that Q100 was enough to put a little food in their mouths every week, Maria decided she had to stop seeing this man.

 

 



 

 

Maria can not afford diapers for Henry, so they use shirts. When we first got to Maria's house this morning, Henry had a red shirt draped over his midsection. It was soaked with urine and Maria, a little embarrassed threw a green shirt over him.

 

 

 

 

Henry can not walk, talk, and can barely move on his own. He has a kind of wheelchair, but it is unusable. Maria was able to give Henry some pills once when she was receiving the Q100 from the bad man and she said it seemed to really help. Now they can't even afford food, let alone pills.

 

 

 

 

Maria can not work because Henry can not be alone. She can not take Henry to work, she says, because he scares people. Henry has sores from head to toe on his disturbingly thin body. Maria tells me that this is from when he seizes, he falls out of the bed and onto this dirt floor.

 

 

 

 

Maria grew up Catholic and she told me about 5 years ago she found the gospel and gave her life to Christ. Maria wept and wept and as we laid our hands on her and prayed for her. She also began to pray with great fervency. She believes God. She has faith. She knows that Jesus does not choose to heal everyone and she understands that if He doesn't heal Henry it is because He will receive more glory from Henry's disability than He would from Henry being well.

 

 

 

 

 

Never the less, we laid our hands on Henry's precious body and we prayed for Him with all our hearts. We trust that God has a plan not only for Maria's good, a plan to give her a hope and a future, but a plan for Henry too. We accepted that God loves Henry more than any of us ever could.

 

 

As much as Maria loves her baby boy, she has asked us for help. She heard we take in children that don't have families and who need help. She has come to a point where she can not lift him and she doesn't want to watch him suffer. She is willing to give him away if it be for his good. Well, I explained to her that we do exactly that, but for children orphaned, children abandoned, children abused, and children of the street....age 10 and under.

 

But God has said that we are "NOT to withhold good from those who deserve it when it is in our power to act."

 

So here we are, "acting". Tomorrow I will go over there with some food, nail clippers, toothpaste and a toothbrush, and I will show Maria how to clean Henry up a bit. I will bring some water over there and we can bathe him. I will offer to wash her blankets for her also. We have located a home in Antigua called Hermano Pedro that takes in people of all ages with severe disabilities. I have already written to them.

 

 

 

 

 

Now I am writing to you. Would you please "act" also. Just take a minute, right where you are, and pray for Maria. Thank God for putting such a strong commitment inside of her, thank God for her salvation, thank God for the life of Henry and pray for him as well. PRAY please that this home in Antigua, or some other home somewhere would take him in and give him everything he needs. And the joy that is written all over Henry's face...well the author of that is Jesus Christ. Praise Him because He loves the least of us!!

 

 

 

 

 

As you pray for Henry and Maria, please remember that this is nothing really surprising to find in the rural parts of Guatemala. There are thousands of children like Henry who are sufferring, even without a devoted mother to care for them. These are the ones that we want to see rise above the world, above all odds, and follow the Lord heart and soul. These are the ones that we want to one day see taking the gospel back to their own people with power and great conviction. This is our mission.

 

 

 

Mision Vida Nueva