On a personal note, when we came to Guatemala last year, between Geoffrey and I, we had saved a good bit of money up from our jobs in the States and from selling everything before we left. I guess in the back of my mind I just thought, "well if God doesn't provide, we can just use our money." That would be my sinfulness.
I should have known with an attitude like that, God was going to teach me something.
As all you already know, we don't raise any support. We let God raise the support for us. Well He has done it ever since the beginning. What we didn't realize is that building a children's home would be very expensive. We thought surely it couldn't cost that much when you live in a third world country. That would be my naivety.
God raised us enough support that when you add it together with all our personal money that we had saved, it was just enough. So you can imagine the fear that began to rise in me when I saw that all our "back up plan money" was gone. The Lord is saddened by me. Now I have to do what I said I'd do from the beginning, trust Him and only Him.
I know you are all thinking, wow, it isn't like trusting God to provide is hard...I trust God everyday. But I say to those thinkers, put yourself in a place where you have no income, you have made a covenant with the Lord to not ask for a dime, and you have sold off all your belongings, and you have told everyone you were going to build an orphanage for 50 kids in a foreign country. Empty your bank account, quit your job, and sign an agreement that says in the next year or so you will pay over $300,000. There is a LOT on the line here, a LOT at stake. We have put God in a place where if He doesn't provide, we are in big trouble...
I think that is right where God wants to be, wanted to be from the beginning.
So in this poor and quite frankly very dangerous country...people do not live without fences and walls. An orphanage is not going to be approved with out some kind of fence around it. Originally we had in mind to build a concrete wall around our 2 acres....don't laugh at us. We didn't know that would cost just as much as the land itself, probably more. So we decided to build a chainlink fence, put razorwire on top of it, and layer bamboo all around the inside.
Imagine my surprise when the time to do this came and we had $0 to do it with, literally.
My heart sank and I struggled with the Lord. Geoffrey said, "Oh well, we can do without a fence until we get more money." But I continued to struggle with the Lord. Why would He bring us here, get us this far, and then just abandon us? He was the ONLY one we were allowed to ask provision from. I was mad at God in my heart and for the first time I was very disappointed in Him.
We had two dear friends coming to visit us in one week and their volunteer work would be to put up the fence. I wrote to them the Saturday before and told them that "unless God does a miracle, we will not be building the fence when you come." Our church here had even agreed to volunteer the labor for one day getting about 20 men to come and work. The same day I wrote to our friends, I wrote our pastor saying we can not afford it, please do not ask for volunteers because we will have no materials. He was suppose to announce the fence project the next day to the whole church.
So imagine my horror when at church on Sunday the pastor asked me to come speak (Spanish) in front of everyone (400-500 people) and then without even giving me a chance to object, asked for men to volunteer. I was just shaking my head. 20 men volunteered to come the following Saturday. The pastor had never gotten my email saying we weren't doing the fence.
Meanwhile something inside me, a tiny little voice, would say something like, "Jenna I can do it, I am going to build your fence." I told myself that the reality was that we would never get $4,300 before the next Saturday and be able to buy the materials and have them on the land. I couldn't let all these men think they were going to be working on Saturday, when really they wouldn't be. My mind outspoke the voice in my heart and I was discouraged and embarrassed.
About 3,654km north of us in the United States of America, my friend was running before church that same Sunday that my pastor asked for the volunteers. The Lord gave her a vision. Her vision was to go before her church and ask for a humble people to pray that God would do a miracle. So she ran home and asked her husband and he said it would be a great idea, they'd go before the church that Sunday, in just a couple of hours. According to her testimony, other people at her church had been feeling that the Holy Spirit was at work and was wondering what would happen during the service. My friend was given permission to speak before the sermon and she told them of my email that said unless God does a miracle, we will not be building the fence. She asked everyone in the congregation to join her in prayer. The two of them got on their knees before everyone and cried out the Lord to not only do a miracle, provide for this fence, but also to give them supernatural strength to be able to work on the fence while they were here.
Within three days, from people I do not know and have never met, $4,900 were given to us specifically "to build the fence". The donors, whoever they were, did not know that the cost to build the fence was estimated at $4,300 when they had decided in their heart what to give. Only God knew.
So Saturday the volunteers came and we started some really hard work...sun up to sun down. And Monday my friends came and we worked until our skin was peeling off from the sunburn. We worked in the rain and the wind and the mud, and we worked. By the last ten minutes of the last work day, we had finished every single galvanized post. All we have left is the chainlink part and the razorwire.
The emotions this experience works in a person is ridiculous. Maybe you can't understand it if you're not the one with a lesson to be learned. I can feel my hair turning gray and my skin wrinkling up and I know this is what comes with a sinful person trying to live a life of "faith" - faith that isn't in your job, your spouse's job, or your bank account or your insurance policy. Nobody ever said that having faith is an easy thing, because as a matter of fact, to have faith against every odd....it is quite hard. And it is humilating when you realize just how little your faith is. But after humbling yourself and repenting of your disbelief, that little faith grows just a little bit bigger...and the next trial to come will be just a little bit harder, but it will be, in the end, the perfect trial to make you just a little more like Jesus, the One who writes and perfects our faith.
One day when this fence is finished, it will be more than just a fence...at least to me. It will be a reminder of the truth that God's power can not be fenced in in our finite minds. Our boxes of security and knowledge give us a false confidence, a confidence that says that reality is the only real thing. It teaches us to not have high expectations of God, even if He says we can, because we fear being disappointed. But why do that? Why not, in great faith, step out of that box and let the Lord show Himself all faithful and all powerful; the God who can move mountains and cause the rocks to cry out and praise Him? Why not simply believe Him and take Him at His Word?
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| A volunteer from our church spent hours digging meter deep holes with a stick. |
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| Church volunteers working to get the tubes in the ground and making cement. |
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| A hard day's work. |
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| Our faithful friends who spent a week with us. |
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| With God, ALL things are possible. |
And sadly, no, thankfully, our trials of faith have just begun. The fence is finished, the first phase is halfway up, the septic system is complete....but we still lack the orphanage and the orphans who are waiting. I can not wait to write to you about the next miracle that the Lord does. From here on out, it is all HIM, ALL Him. Lord, we wait for you.
Here is the updated list of what He has already done through you and what we are still waiting on Him to do:
| ITEM | COST $ | STATUS |
| LAND | ||
| 2 acres of land | $19,230.77 | 2011 Donors |
| Lawyer fees from legalization of land | $1,494.87 | 2011 Donors |
| Drawing of official land Plot and elevations | $211.54 | 2011 Donors |
| Clearing land | $91.67 | Mary Joesting 7/27/12 |
| Leveling of land | $1,291.28 | EnviroTech $500 8/2/12 Jackie York $500 5/3/12 Edward San Juan $250 6/18 |
| Truck of Gravel (NEED TWENTY) | $57.69 | |
| Bag of Grass roots (NEED SEVENTY-FIVE) | $4.49 | Steve Haynes 7/20/12 |
| Taxes on Land | $2,307.69 | 2011 Donors |
| Fence | $4,300.00 | Joy Samford and Unknown 7/31/12 |
| WATER/SEPTIC/PLUMBING | ||
| Water service and run tubes to property | $723.31 | 2012 Donors |
| 36ft Metal Water Tower | $4,305.08 | |
| 5000liter Water Tank | $899.88 | |
| Covering for Water Tower | $278.85 | |
| Installation of Water Tower | $1,155.51 | |
| Wetland septic system | $3,915.53 | Geoffrey Haynes 4/9/12 |
| Septic system tank | $1,152.56 | David Baker 2/28-8/3/12 |
| All Plumbing incl. shower units in Phase 1 | $2,023.91 | David Baker 2/28-8/3/12 |
| CONSTRUCTION OF PHASE 1 | ||
| Roof for Phase 1 of Children's home | $5,125.38 | |
| Economic Tiling for floors in Phase 1 | $1,093.75 | |
| Garage doors (NEED TWO) | $386.15 | Debbie Gavin 5/15 $400 Emily Caldwell 2/9 $300 |
| Exterior finishing of Block for Phase 1 | $1,772.06 | 2012 Donors |
| Stairs | $571.18 | Rick Simile 4/9/12 |
| Total Cost of Phase 1 | $36,073.56 | |
| ELECTRICTY AND INTERNET | ||
| Block Column for gate (NEED TWO) | $412.18 | $100 David Baker 7/27 $200 Emily Caldwell 7/31 2012 Donors |
| Cost to Install 10KVA transformer | $4,366.67 | 2012 Donors |
| Installation of Electricity in Phase 1 | $1,656.98 | 2012 Donors |
| Cost of Installation of Satellite Internet | $1,153.85 | |
| VEHICLE | ||
| Vehicle for Mission | $5,032.05 | |
| Cost of Repairs to Vehicle | $1,163.58 | |
| SOCIAL WORK/VISAS | ||
| Accreditation from CNA | $5,032.05 | $1,778 Richard Simile 11/5/11 6/3/12 Debbie Gavin $250 8/21UNMET $3,004.05 |
| Permanent Resident Visa (NEED TWO) | $564.10 | Nancy Corbitt 4/11/12 Richard Simile 8/15/12 |
| LIVING NEEDS | ||
| One months rent | $157.05 | All Donors 9/11-8/12 9/12--George and Sandra Spivey |
| Bills/Month avg | $143.59 | 2011 and 2012 Donors 9/11-8/12 UNMET 9/12-- |
| Mission Website | $80.51 | Betty Sheffield 7/28/12 |
All we ask for is your prayers. Pray for us, like people who believe that the Lord hears us and will come to our rescue. Pray for us with humility before Him because we know without Him this is impossible, but with Him....we can't even begin to fathom what He will do with this home and with the little ones who will find their life inside of it!
Love,
Jenna & Geoffrey
(and of course Theodore & Mercy)
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