2013

It's been awhile since we've spoken. My fault. Life got so incredibly busy after we came home from the hospital that we had to make time just to breathe, and eat, and sleep. The long-awaited steel structure was finished in mid-November, praise goes to Jesus. We had crews out there every day and had to keep a tight watch on them to make sure things were done right, and for the most part, they were. So now we have this HUGE, red, totally out of place looking, covered soccer field?? sitting on our property out in the middle of a bunch of banana trees and mountains in this poor indigenous community. It is a strange sight indeed, but it is a beautiful reminder of the Lord's provision and faithfulness....and people come to our gate nonstop in the hope of finding a job with us.

We had to continue Mary Charis's respiratory therapy for a couple of weeks after we left the hospital which took up large amounts of our days. Once she was well enough, we took her to get her four month vaccinations. We had to go back to the dreaded place where she caught pneumonia the first time, and we asked the nice nurses to please give the vaccinations to her outside so we didn't have to bring her in where the sick people were. They were kind and understanding and came to our car to give them to her. So before we came to the States, we made them some peanut butter cookies to say thank you.

Baby has not been sick since and we are super thankful. We have learned the importance of frequent handwashing, sanitizing, and staying away from sick people.

Shortly after bragging to Geoffrey about not acquiring any new dog-children the whole year, we passed by a suffering dog being kicked to drag himself out of the street. He couldn't walk for both his back legs and hips were mangled. He was emmaciated to the point of death and suffered from fleas and mange and infections that were ravaging his body. So we stopped and scooped him and took him home. He is getting lots of physical therapy and we are hoping that upon our return to Guatemala he will be able to walk and we will find him a forever home. We named him Guapo which stands for beautiful, handsome boy :)

2013 was full of patient waiting upon the Lord, learning to find contentment through hardship, and reaping the blessings of loving on the poor. We continued our ministry at the dump and have plans to do lots more with them this next year.

 We continued sponsoring people living in extreme poverty like Henry and the family of four and many others.

 

 

 We sought out ways to build relationships and become genuine members of our community.

 

We shared Jesus with many people who came through our doors including lots of mormons and Julio and his wife who accepted Christ into their hearts for the first time. We made friendships with other missionaries living near us. And we gave birth to a beautiful blue-eyed Guatemalan girl.

 

 

We also completed a driveway thanks to a group of awesome people giving us access to the road from our property and were given an extremely beautiful sign that hangs on our front gate reading "Casa Gloria de Mision Vida Nueva".

 

 

And the grand finale was the completion of the steel structure.

We are ready to take in those orphaned, abandoned, abused, HIV, Street children, and child mothers that are waiting on us. Legally, all we lack is a home inspection. Physically though, we lack the rest of the home. What we need for 2014 are teams of flexible, generous, hard-working people that can come down and pour our foundation and frame the house. And more people who can come in and wire the house, lay the pipes, and do sheet rock. And more people who can come and paint and do the finishing touches. I want this 6400 square foot home to be ready to go by the end of this year. It's dreaming big....but we have a big God. We need the volunteers to help us because they help absorb some of the materials and labor cost. We need volunteers also because we know they know the value of this home and they will make sure to do it good and right. We need you to help us build Casa Gloria, and if you can't go....give! 

Everyone who wants to be a part of this can be a part of this.

One year from now, I will be sitting here writing how by God's grace and through His provision we were able to complete a very big task and how I can't wait to get back to Guatemala so we can get that home inspection done by the government and start bringing in those sweet babies and loving them in the way that God intended them to be loved. 



We love you all and for your generosity and prayers that are making an eternal impact on the lives of so many, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. May God bless you as you seek to bless Him!

Love,

 

Geoffrey, Jenna and Team Mision Vida Nueva

 

www.misionvidanueva.info 

 

 

May God be glorified and magnified in everything we do!

 

 

 

I am sitting at the top of a dirty brown bed with a blood-stained white sheet tied only to one corner underneath me. I curl my naked baby up in my arms and pull the blanket more over face to shield her from the blaring white light above us and the dirty dank air that we are being forced to breathe in. My back feels like it will snap in two at any moment from holding her in my arms since 3:30 in the morning. It is now 5pm. At the end of this bed, Geoffrey is half sitting, half reclining against the rusted footrail with bloody tape hanging off it. To my left lays a young man in his underwear, maybe he is 17 years old. He is trying to cover himself up with a dirty yellow shirt and using his jeans to prop his head up. He has a little plastic container of bloody urine sitting by his head on the bed waiting for a nurse to come and get it. In front of me lies a man in his underwear covered in open and oozing wounds. His head was split open in the front and the back. Geoffrey could reach out and touch him without even fully extending his arm. His bloody dark green t-shirt doubles as his pillow and a blood soaked hand-me-down hospital gown lays crumpled up next to his face. To my right lies a young girl, maybe 19, mother of three, I heard. She had her Mayan corte, skirt, under her head  and was covered with a blanket she brought from home. Her mid-section she was soaked with bacteria that was leaking out of an open wound in her lower stomach.

There are people buzzing around everywhere and from my little bed, I could see all kinds of horrors. There were police officers coming in and out. A woman who loudly vomited and choked every 5 minutes. Babies were crying from the pediatric room about 15 ft away. In the corner a little Mayan woman held her little boy as he cried out in fear everytime a nurse came near to see the huge mass in his little brown tummy. I thought my back was hurting; it hurt even more seeing that tiny lady having to constantly hold her 25lb little boy. She had been there longer than us and they didn't even give her a bed. She sat in an old rusty, blue, leather dentist chair that was missing the head support and only had one arm rest. It had been shoved up in the corner. There were spider webs everywhere and moths and mosquitos seeking the abundance of blood. There was used gauze, IV cords, bloody cotton balls all over the floor. The red zone was 20ft straight ahead, the green zone next to that and the emergency room was in the middle and there we were in the observation area. For the nearly 100 or so people that were jammed into this small place, there was one bathroom. A sign hung on the wooden door that said, "Please do not shut door." in Spanish. The word shut was misspelled. I prayed to the Lord that He would somehow make me not have to use the restroom while we were there.

We were in the Coban hospital. The place that every Cobanero tells you you never want to go. The place that missionaries would rather die than have to go. The place where people generally go to die, at least that is what we were told. We had at least three nurses come to our bed and tell us we would be better off to just take our baby home because here children get so much sicker from such poor hygiene and conditions.

Mary Charis had been sick and instead of getting better, it got worse. Bad enough to begin a fever and keep her awake with coughing fits so strong her face would turn blue from lack of oxygen. We took her to her pediatrician, quite possibly the best pediatrician in Coban. His private clinic is twice as expensive as the other pediatricians, but he is ten times better. Within 30 seconds of listening to her chest, he tells us we need to go to the emergency room at the hospital right now. He drove us there. Holding my baby who just threw up all over herself, I am trying so hard to keep my cool and not cry. My eyes were filled to the brim with tears, but only a few fell out. I was doing good. Our pediatrician also works at the hospital.

The hospital has good doctors and some good nurses, but that is it. You have intelligent people with very little, old, run down, equipment. It is a free public hospital, so that is where everyone goes. They are funded by the Guatemalan government, enough said. They use laundry detergent for soap, they have no gloves, no toilet paper, minimal cleaning supplies, and hand-me-down broken equipment from the United States. They have gowns and sheets that must have been reused a thousand times and they do not wash between every patient. It isn't possible. We could have been the first ever Americans to seek treatment there. The place stopped for just a minute when we walked in. A nurse came to our bed and took out her cell phone and asked Geoffrey to take a picture of her and Mary Charis. Mary Charis was naked apart from her diaper, and she thought she was a baby boy. She picks up our sick baby and squeals, "It is a Gerber baby, a pure Brad Pitt!!" It wasn't until that moment that Geoffrey and I realized that Mary Charis's face does kind of look like Brad Pitt's...

Anyway, we got a lot of attention and Mary Charis got an IV and bloodwork, an inhaler and a turtle mask for oxygen that looked like it had never been cleaned. She was very brave the whole time. We stayed there in order to be under observation by our pediatrician and that was the only place we could get the oxygen treatments and the X-Rays. We stayed there for 20 hours my friend, and the things we saw, you just would not believe. And I did end up having to go in that bathroom. We had to remind the nurses to give her her medicine every time. I asked one nurse to lift up the head of the bed so I could lean back, she looked at me in disbelief, disbelief that it was possible to lift the head of a bed! An unheard of request. She searched all around and finally found a lever and pulled it and to my surprise, and to hers, it worked. But only a little. I didn't dare close my eyes in that place, and I was beyond tired.

I felt terrible for the people around me. I prayed for them. They had no choice but to be there, but I'm not even sure they realize that other places exist where you dont have to lie in another's blood. When we first got there, there was an 11 year old little boy without a shirt on. He sat quietly on the bed next to the one we were assigned. His hands covered his face and his shoulders shrugged up and down as he cried. At this point, I was still fighting back tears myself. I determined that I had to be brave for him. Some nurses or helpers or something came to him and were putting his IV in and through his quiet sobs, he asked where his dad was. The nurse told him he didnt know and left. I walked Mary Charis over to his side of the bed and I asked him if he hurt his foot. He said no that he hurt his head and he turned it and showed me a large, oozing cut that had been just recently stitched. I asked him if it hurt thinking that was why he was crying. He shook his head. I asked him if he was crying because he was scared. He nodded his head yes. I told him I was too and that was the first time he looked up at me and met my eyes. His eye was dark blue and bruised. He asked me where I was from and we talked about plane flights to the United States and he told me all the English words he knew. I finally asked him what happened to him and he told me he was in a tuk tuk and a car hit it and he went flying out of it. I asked where was his momma and he said his dad had come with him in the ambulance but they wouldn't let his dad come inside. So Mary Charis and I asked the nurse why they wouldn't let Angel's dad in to see him and he gave me some excuses and then to my surprise that same nurse went and got his dad and brought him in. Turned out that his skull was fractured and he had to be rushed to Guatemala City because there are no neurologists in Coban. It only took them about 6 hours to tell him that.

So morning comes, finally, and we are praying that the pediatrician will tell us she is good enough to go home. I didn't care where we went, I just wanted to get out of that hellish place. He listened to her breathing and told us he couldn't let her leave, she was not good and needed to be admitted. We told him that we would take her to Guatemala City and have her admitted there. They released her under special circumstances trusting that we would drive her straight there. They left her hand IV in too so she wouldn't have to get stabbed again when she arrived. We ran home, grabbed a suitcase, and off we went.

Here I sit in a nice, super clean bed with my baby. The cleaning lady has just walked in for the second time today to mop the floors and clean the room. There is an LG flat screen TV with a Wii on the wall right in front of me and I am using the free Wifi service. There is an air conditioner above my head! This is supposed to be the nicest private hospital in the country, and it is nice and very private. The complete opposite of where we were yesterday. We haven't had to wait for anything and I have not seen not one other patient. The only thing I miss is our pediatrician, but he has already called us this morning to see how Mary Charis is doing and to get an update.

The puppy baby has severe bronchiolitis. She is getting respiratory therapy and breathing treatments. They want her for at least 48 hours and then we will see. Mommy and daddy get to stay in the room with her all day. We were supposed to attend a mandatory conference with the Consejo Nacional de Adopciones today for our children's home, but the authorities have given us permission to send just our social worker. That is a huge blessing for us, otherwise we lose our accreditation.

I was reading this morning about Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman and what Jesus said struck me in a way it never had before. He said, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst." It is easy to understand what this means, but to understand it as a truth....taking what Jesus offers you, you will be satisfied forever. Forever is a long time to be satisfied. The Lord reminded me this morning of how "thirsty" I was before I was born again. My soul longed to find peace and it never could be truly satisifed. Temporary satisfication, maybe. But that only lasts for a minute, a day, or a month and you find something within you still slightly unsatisfied. But the moment you take what only Jesus can offer, you find that your soul never thirsts again. This morning I asked myself if it was true. Do I still thirst for something? Has my soul ever thirsted for anything since I met Jesus? No. I am completely satisfied and my soul is at peace. My soul rests completely in assurance. I hope the same for you.




We'll keep you updated through facebook on Mary Charis. Thank you for praying. She's in good Hands.




P.S. - She did not get this sickness from being cold. Period.

If one more person tells me my baby is cold [pause someone just came to the house]

Okay I literally just sat down to write this and someone came over and was holding the baby and the baby, wearing a nightgown, socks, and wrapped up in a blanket with a little sweat on the back of her head from sleeping, started cooing and I asked her, "What are you saying Mary Charis?" and the lady looks at me and says, "She says she is cold."

I must have missed something in my almost 29 years. Something that is so common knowledge. Apparently babies are freezing cold until they are 6 months old. They need to be wearing layers, gloves, socks, boots, toboggans, earmuffs, face mask, and wrapped in three blankets and please, get them close to the fire...and even though they are probably still freezing, at least maybe the air won't make them sick. Because apparently the air that blows on you is absolutely and always the cause of every sickness a baby has. How dare a mother drink a cup of cold water, milk, or anything that has been refridgerated. Then her milk will be cold and the inside of the baby's stomach will be cold too. I missed the health class that taught that the cold, the flu, and all diseases a baby can get come through the wind. And just because she fusses uncomfortably everytime you try to put a blanket over her legs and whines and kicks until she finally manages to kick it completely off and immediately relaxes and goes right to sleep all sprawled out, she is desperately cold and NEEDS that blanket. It doesn't matter that air conditioning doesn't exist here and that the coldest temperature is equivalent to an Alabama September, she is freezing. And how dare a mother allow her baby to lay in her diaper and be unsweaty. How dare she!

So by Guatemala standards, I am afraid to say, I am a bad mother. And the women can NOT believe that my baby has not been sick, because it will surely happen. Oh the whispers I heard when I arrived at someone's home, drenched in sweat mind you from having to climb the little mountain in the sun to get to their house, and they took the baby, who was also sweating, from being covered up by a thin white cloth diaper that we use as a burp rag, not because she was cold, but to prevent her from getting a sunburn. How dare I use a diaper to cover my baby, she must be absolutely freezing to death...

Okay, obviously it can be annoying the cultural differences between here and there and other than acid reflux and bad gas, she is healthy and happy and gaining weight. Having a baby does wonders for your relationship building as a missionary (if she is covered from head to toe and steam is rising out from under the blanket that is). I mean everywhere you go people smile and want to touch her and talk to me. The meanest people act like we've been such good friends. It must also be a cultural thing to kiss the baby here. There have been many many lips touch my baby's arms and hands...men's, women's, children's...dog's...while it is very touching and sweet, thank goodness for antibacterial soap, because I always thought that germs were what caused the cold, the flu, and other illnesses. But what do I know?
But the love and concern, no matter how they might irritate a foreigner, they are there and it is precious to watch the women here love all over her. I have no concerns about her growing up in this poor rural community. She is completely accepted and adored and for that I can not be more grateful.

So July 28th came the baby, August 1st came my mother, August 22 came the good lawyer to legally serve the bad lawyer, and August 29th came my inlaws, and August 30th came the steel structure company to start constructing the children's home. Lot's of good came this past month and we've been rather busy.

Seems we waited all year for all these things and they all came at one time! We are blessed. We are so blessed because we had the full 50% to pay the company to start the construction and we didn't have to personally loan any of our money although we expected we would have to. We are even more blessed that by the end of this month it will be very likely that the Mission will have enough funds to pay the next 20% we owe. The Lord knows what we need and He will provide.

Please don't stop praying for us as we seek to make disciples of the children the world has yet to consider. And don't stop supporting us as we are diving head first, by faith, into the building of this home that will allow us to raise up these children in a Christ-centered environment full of love, hope, and education. There is a mountain of work before us, but Jesus, well, He is worth it!

The Mary Charis Story

A lot of you guys have asked me to tell you the birth story. I wish it was as exciting as my friend's 74 hour home labor story, or something like that, but I'm afraid it is just a normal birth story with maybe a few small exceptions.

Mary Charis was set to arrive August 17, but I was so sure she wouldn't come until around the 22nd. We still had 3 weeks to a month to go. I was as big as I could possibly get and life was uncomfortable as I felt like I had a bowling ball rolling around inside me all the time. We knew she was breech, and not only that, but had her feet first and that a normal delivery was probably out of the question.

I had been blessed about a month ago to unexpectedly meet an american OBGYN working with a HELPS INTL mission team that had come to Guatemala to spend a week working in the hospitals here. I had taken a very sick lady from our community to get treatment when I was offered a chance to see this OBGYN. Of course, I said yes. She told me that in the States doctors rarely will deliver a breech baby, and almost never would agree to deliver a footling breech being that it is the most dangerous type. Contrary to what the doctors here told me, she said not to schedule a c-section, but wait until you go into labor, have your first contraction and immediately go in and have a c-section, unless of course the baby has turned.

This put my mind and heart at ease and the next week we told our doctor we refused to schedule a c-section. He said he understood, but it would be very likely he would be unavailable, as well as a pediatrician, etc. when the baby decides to arrive. Well we decided to take our chances. There was another woman doctor here with her own private clinic and when we went to visit her, she insisted the baby would turn and to not schedule a c-section. I liked her a lot and her husband is a pediatrician. So we decided that when we went into labor, we'd call her first to see if she is available and if not, we'd call the other.

Well then came last Saturday. We relaxed at the house, spent time outside with the dogs, walked around, had a fellow missionary friend come over for the afternoon, ate a small dinner, watched some Dateline, and went to bed. Geoffrey just happened to ask me during our show where was the bag that I had packed to go to the hospital should the day ever come. I told him. When we got in bed, we did our Bible study together, prayed and fell asleep. Needless to say I had no pains, no cramps, no contractions, nothing. As a matter of fact, I had been chatting with my mom on Facebook before bed and even told her I had never once even felt a Braxton Hicks contraction the whole pregnancy. She said "Oh you probably have, it's when your stomach tightens and then relaxes." I said, "Well my stomach is always tight, maybe I have had one long contraction that has lasted the last two months?"

So I am asleep and about 2:30am I sit straight up because I thought I was going to throw up. Normal, my acid reflux gets bad at night and that definitely wasn't the first time that had happened. I didn't throw up, but I did decide to take advantage of the fact I was already awake to go ahead and go to the bathroom, knowing I'd probably have to anyway in the next hour. So I go to the bathroom and everything is normal and fine. I felt a teeny tiny little cramp, barely even noticeable, and thought nothing of it. I went back to the bed and laid down and felt a little water. I wasn't even concerned about that, until I felt it again. Afraid the bed was going to get wet, I stood up real quick...and then a lot more than a little water came out. I still wasn't "worried" yet, but I did decide I better quietly go to my computer and research to see if this is normal. So I am sitting in front of my computer on the couch and read that a way to tell if it is amniotic fluid is to go from sitting to standing and see if there is a gush. I stood up and GUSH. Uh oh. I waddle back over to the bed with papertowels and wake Geoffrey up and tell him I think something is wrong. I explain to him what was happening and he said to call the doctor. I was like, "But it is 3 in the morning!" He asked me what I wanted to do and I didn't see any choice as now the water was a steady flow. I called her and thankfully she answered. I told her what was going on and she said to go to the clinic and to call her when I arrive.

Well the clinic is 30 minutes from our house and a rough little drive. I feared we'd get there and all the water would stop and she would have woken up to meet us there for nothing. But better safe than sorry. Geoffrey grabbed the labor bag and I threw in some last minute things, just in case, and waddled downstairs. By the time I got to the car, the water was coming fast. I didn't realize how much water was inside of me! We drove to the clinic and I was panicking. I started feeling some slight cramps on the way and I could tell I was soaking through everything. We arrived and called her and 10 minutes later her and her husband arrive. I waddle up the stairs, soaking wet and freaking out. She turns the light on and I notice a cockroach go scurrying out from under the bed she is telling me to get on. "This is Guatemala", I told myself. By now I was used to such things. I climb on the table and she tells me she will check my dialation. Well I wasn't expecting to feel so much pain, but goodness, that was painful. I got even more scared as I saw blood all over her hand when she pulled it out. She did a quick ultrasound to make sure the baby was still breech, told me I was already 5cm dialated (halfway there), and that we'd be delivering the baby now. I was in shock. I had been in labor for who knows how long on Saturday and all through the night and never even knew it.

"Call my mom!" I told Geoffrey. He did and she wouldn't answer her phone. We did get in touch with Geoffrey's parents and he told them what was happening and to please try to call my mom. Meanwhile they sent me to lay in a bed while they prepped the delivery room. The pediatrician husband actually speaks English and he came in there to talk with us while he hooked me up to an IV. I must be a really big baby, but that plastic, huge needle he stuck in my hand made me cry out. Laying there in shock, scared to death, I started having contractions. The doctor asked me if I wanted to try a natural delivery. I looked at her like she was crazy and the words of that american OB kept running through my head, "Footling breech is the most dangerous and there are hardly any doctors who would perform one...." I said, "No! Just give me a c-section and get this over with!" The contractions hurt really bad and I kept telling the doctor I wanted to go to the bathroom. She wouldn't let me and told me I dare not push.
They made me walk to the operating room and climb on the bed. They shut Geoffrey out while they prepped my back for the spinal block. This was the WORST part of the whole process. They had me with no clothes on, in the fetal postion on my side, while the pediatrician held me down from the front and the anesthesiologist started messing with my back. I was freaking out as I knew what was about to happen. *I should mention I have a phobia of even small needles.* He stuck that huge thing in and I screamed and apparently moved and he told me I couldn't move like that and had to do it all over again. Are you kidding me??? I just kept thinking well it was either feel the pain from this needle or feel the pain from the knife that is about to cut me open. He got the spinal block in and immediately my lower half went numb and felt like it weighed a million pounds. They rolled me back over and tied my arms and wrists down to the bed. I probably looked like Jesus lying there. I would tell my foot to move and it wouldn't move. I'd tell my leg to lift up, and I couldn't do it, not with all my might. That was a bit freaky too especially since the only thing I could move on my own was my head. My clausterphobia kicked in a little but I kept telling myself to breath and relax. They put some airtube thing in my nose, but unfortunately I had a cold and couldn't breathe a bit through my nose, so that didn't do any good. I had my mouth wide open to make sure I would get as much air as possible. By now, all the way to my neck was completely numb. Geoffrey came in and they put a curtain in front of my face. They told Geoffrey he had to stay at the bottom because the anesthesiologist was sitting at my head. They began doing something, I guess cutting.

There was a clock above my head. It was 5:10 or so. There were white tiles on the wall and I could see a bit of a reflection of what the doctors were doing, but the better voice in my head told me I dare not look at what they are doing or I would freak out and literally go into shock. I had a beeper in my ear monitoring my pulse I suppose and I just kept wondering when I would hear that flat line. So at 5:29ish I heard Geoffrey say, "She's out, Jenna." Well I didn't hear any crying and none of the doctors were speaking and I was tempted to start worrying, but I was so focused on staying alive and breathing and when that beeping thing would start making one long beep meaning I was dying, that I decided it was best not to ask any questions like, "Is she okay?" I knew if they didn't answer me or told me "No." I would die right there on the table. So I told myself that they'd tell me if something was wrong and all the sudden I hear a short "Waaaahhh." Even though that was it and there was nothing to be heard after, I told myself that meant she was just fine.
All the sudden I started feeling very dizzy like I would pass out and it was hard to breathe. Geoffrey asks me, "Are you okay, Jenna?" I told him, "No", and that I was dizzy and couldn't breathe good. The doctors start doing something to me, but I don't remember what. I just remember the pediatrician walking around the side of the table and showed me a grey naked baby with a lot of dark hair and saying, "Here is your little girl." He put her to my face and I kissed her cheek, unable to speak. Then he took her away and I lay there while they sewed me up. Then they moved me from one bed to another and back into the first room where I had first felt the contractions. No baby.

I don't remember much of anything after that until they brought the baby in and laid her in the crib. Then they told us to try and get some sleep. Were they joking? They turned the lights out and left us alone for a long time.

I was in that bed on my back numb for at least two more hours. Then it started hurting. Oooh it hurt so bad. The nurse would inject some pain medicine which hurt something like fire as it went in. They brought a cot for Geoffrey and we just laid there thinking, "Wow, what a surprise."

Well recovery from a c-section is no picnic. I am 5 days postpartum now and still have pain even as I write this. It gets a little better with each day, but it sure hurts and is really hard. We do, however, have this little, tiny 6lb 4oz girl to cuddle with all the time and she is quite the reward. She is worth the 5 months of constant vomiting and nausea, worth the parasites and the really bad acid reflux, worth the pain of the c-section and the spinal block, worth the fear we went through.....but to all those who said I'd forget it ever happened as soon as she arrived, well I'm afraid you were wrong...at least I have not forgotten yet and can't say I'd ever look forward to putting myself through that again. I think we will opt to adopt from now on, unless the Lord tells us otherwise.

But thanks to Him and only Him, she is healthy and growing and eating so well. She hardly ever cries and she sleeps ALL the time (I know, I know, just let me think it MIGHT stay that way), making recovery and returning to a form of normal easy. It's so much fun to pick out what cute outfit to put on her and what night gown she will sleep in. She is as pretty as they come and as sweet as an angel. The only thing better than having her is having a supportive and loving husband who is already proving himself to be a great father. I look forward to raising her up and thinking about the plans the Lord has already set for her. I wonder if she will be a missionary and what country might He call her to. What will she look like and how many languages will she speak? Geoffrey wonders if she will be the President one day...

Either way she is our gift and we absolutely love her!


Mary Charis Haynes
July 28, 2013 5:30am
6lbs 4oz 50cm
Coban, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala

Update

I suppose it's time for an update. I don't have anything really touching to write about. So some may want to stop
reading
here
*

But for those of you who pray for us and want a brief update on what is going on, I can give you that.
As far as the mission goes, we have resumed communication and negotiation with the steel structure company. They will be the ones to come in and erect the bases, columns, and roof of the main building of the children's home. I was hoping that by the end of June we would have 50% of what we need. The total cost for completion is $43,000 (assuming there will be no surprises) and they should be in and out in 60 days. Well, by the end of June we had $18,000 saved up and we need at least $20k. So we are about $2000 short from signing the contract and beginning. Don't ask me where the other 50% will come from. We are just believing by faith that the Lord will provide. He hasn't given us reason to doubt Him yet, He just likes to make us wait.

The CNA stopped by to do an inspection of our children's home and were surprised to find that we don't have a children's home. That's how far along we are with the government paperwork. So everybody is ready and waiting, especially the children who are being crammed into the overcrowded and underfunded homes far away from here.

Also our mission is in the process of legally "pursuing" the lawyer who took nearly $4000 from us last year when we bought the land. This is a very stressful and difficult process because we all know how reliable the justice system here in Guatemala is. We could just walk away from the lawyer, but that money belongs to the Lord and was intended to be used to bless the children here. We still, to this day, although we have spent a year and a half constructing and living on the property, have no legal document that says we own the land or even purchased it. The good thing is that the seller has not tried to pull anything sketchy and that the community loves us an supports us and everyone knows who we are and that this land belongs to our ministry.
We dont know how much this legal battle will cost us, but being right in the middle of starting construction again and also about to have a baby, we are really trusting the Lord to provide. It is a very delicate situation.

So construction of the 6400sq ft building and taking a very dishonest lawyer to court, and what else? Well we are trying to sell (or rent) Geoffrey's Alex City house. The previous renters moved out, which means to keep it afloat Geoffrey is having to work at minimum 20 hours a week on his computer job, and we got our hopes up about two weeks ago when we almost had a seemingly sure deal to sell the house with a woman, which would have given us enough money to pay the other 50% of the children's home, but she backed out and ended up purchasing another home. Let down for us. Oh well. So we are working hard and praying the Lord will send us a buyer or a leaser that will really help us out financially and allow us to further our work down here.

And of course, there is Mary Charis (btw that is a double name and we will call her by both and it is not pronounced "chair-is" rather "care-is" (it is the greek word for grace)), our baby who is scheduled to arrive Aug 17ish unless she continues to be stubborn and not turn around. Then she will literally be "scheduled" to arrive between Aug 1-7. So a baby almost here. I have been washing the hundred million pieces of pink clothing, towels, and blankets (which are rather cute and a nice change to Geoffrey's big dirty clothes) she has received and finding new and creative ways to store these things in our 24x28 one room home, and preparing for her arrival. Thankfully I am over the throwing up every hour days and have moved on to dealing with parasites and colds and other infections. She is a little low on her weight, but other than that she seems to be perfectly healthy. My stomach does not seem to be growing anymore, but she is and I can tell because I know she doesn't have very much room to move around in there. If I lay on my side, I can feel her head and whatever other body parts are on that side. She moves a lot, but it is never painful. It is a very strange feeling. I will be glad when I can just hold her and put her to sleep in her own little bed. We can't wait to meet her, although we have no idea how to be parents or what to do with her. I suppose we will learn as we go.

So, prayer requests? Funds for construction, legal battle, sell Geo's home, and have a healthy baby in whatever way (normal or cesarian), whatever day the Lord knows is best. I don't have a personal preference anymore, I just know that God knows best and He will allow the best thing to happen.

That's all :) Love you guys!

Jenna

 

 

 

"Pero Yenny, hay muchos, puro blancos!!" they exclaimed in amazement as they sat propped up behind me running their fingers through my hair. That means, "But Jenna, there are SO many, pure white!!" Yes, I know. But I wonder if they know that it is from spending the past year and a half in their country dealing with all their people?


Before I moved here in September of 2011, I was working at a bank. A nice, calm, air conditionered bank where my superiors appreciated my work and gave me pay raises and promotions to show for it. I would wake up at the same time every morning and knew where I'd go that day and how long I'd be there. The only thing to worry about was what to eat for dinner that night.
Then I moved to Guatemala and everything changed. I work in a dirty, jungly, rainy place where only God is my superior and my present day rewards for all my work is nothing but the rare day without the phone ringing or a good night's sleep. I wake up having no idea what my role will be for the day. I could be -and have been- a boss, a hirer, a translator, a secretary, and treasurer, an accountant, a banker, a wife, the PR person, a construction worker, a gardener, a cook, a nurse, a therapist, an evangelist, a business negotiator, a children's home director, an english teacher, a tutor, a veternarian, the cleaning lady, or the garbage man. I wear many hats here and thankful I am when I go to bed knowing more or less what I should be doing the next day.
I know all kinds of stuff about construction, tractors, tools, woodyards, septic systems, water pumps, and cutting grass with a machete, but I haven't had my hair cut since last November. I've learned all about how to diagnose sicknesses in children and adults and can usually recommend the medicine needed to cure them, and I am the go to person when your dog is dying, but I can't figure out how to keep myself from parasites and colds.

Here, a good day is when no one gets hurt and everything shows up on time with no surprises. Here those good days are few and far between. This is our reality and I am learning day by day to accept it and somewhat appreciate it.

This past month has been filled with making plans to pour a driveway down the big hill on the other side of our property that gives us direct access to the road. We were blessed to be able to complete this project because of a great group who devoted a week down here to making it happen. This group came mostly from Washington and one from Oregon and one from Idaho. I could write all day on how wonderful these guys were to be around and how they generously gave so much to our project and ministry. 5 guys worked nonstop, back-breaking work. They worked in the pouring rain, in the burning sun, through an infiltration of moths and other bugs, and they never complained. The one female on the team spent her week at an indigenous lady's house cooking on her dirt floor over firewood and making more than just snacks and lunch for all the guys. She made relationships with the woman and her children that will last a lifetime.

Everyone was tired and we had plenty of Guatemala's normal complications throughout the week, but we succeeded. And not only that, we got an absolutely beautiful sign on our front gate, props to Adam and Jen at Clarity Signs.

 

 

The team spent their last day in the area saying good byes and giving parting gifts. They gave a big gift to the children of the dump by spending an hour just playing with them and loving on them. This meant the world to some of those kids and meant a lot to the team too.

 

 

 

 

We said our good byes to the team and now we are hard at work again. Back to our everyday lives of complications and stresses. I never came to the mission field thinking it would be easy work. I knew that not only would it be hard and stressful, but it would also be worth it. It is not about being happy. Happy can be so superficial. But bringing the plight of the poor to the eyes of the rich, the plight of the suffering to the eyes of the comfortable, being a voice for the children who will never be heard, helping the helpless, and sharing the love and salvation that only Jesus brings to those who might not otherwise hear....that brings you something far more valuable than a nice house and a nice car can ever bring you, namely, joy, as well as a peace that comes from knowing you are right where God wants you.

 

So we are praying that by the end of this month, because of the generosity of many of you, we will be able to begin the construction of the main home that will house 25 of Guatemala's orphaned, abandoned, abused, and HIV children and babies. Pray that with us. We will put ourselves in God's hands as we empty out the MVN bank account as well as our own personal bank account and give everything that the Lord has given us right back to Him, believing in faith that He will multiply our efforts in seeing that the fatherless will one day get to know their one true Father.

 

So bring on the gray hair :)

 

Love,

 

            Jenna

 

www.misionvidanueva.info

 

 

Follow up to "The Family of Four" post.

About two weeks ago I wrote about visiting an extremely poor family of four living in a shack with nothing except a dirty. muddy floor. At that point they didn't even have blankets or anything, only a torn piece of nylon, maybe big enough for the one year old. They slept in the dirt, huddled up together, praying it wouldn't rain and the water wouldn't wash into their house.

Well, we determined to build them a bed, and many of you after reading the last blog were moved to ask how you could help them. We bought the wood necessary for the bed and had our handy man make one in our garage that could be easily disassembled and reassembled.

Last week, we drove to Carcha to put the bed together. Here is what we found out. The family of four is now, sadly, a family of three. The father of the children left them, telling them he was going to look for work. He gave them a little bit of corn (for tortillas) and disappeared. They haven't heard from him in over a week.




Geoffrey and Julio unloading the wood at the entrance to the "neighborhood".

Upon walking into their house we saw a couple dirty blankets piled up in the corner that apparently had been given them since we left their house the first time. Still the piece of nylon on the ground, still no bed.



The house before the bed. This is pretty much the whole house.

 



Wondering what the white people are doing back at her house.

 

She showed us where she wanted us to put the bed.

 



Julio and another guy putting the bed together for them.

 

 

Checking out his new sleeping spot.

 



It's nothing fancy, but it sure beats sleeping in the dirt!

 

They were very grateful for their bed and I told them that there were some other people that mentioned wanting to help them out and that we'd let them know what happens with that. We gave them some clean, fresh blankets and combined with their other stuff, they shouldn't sleep too bad. Julio did a good job.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So that's the follow up story to our visit. Catarina is getting by, even without the man being there. It is probably because of you who prayed. I told her we'd be back to visit and I hope to hear from those of you who mentioned wanting to help. Catarina grew up an orphan herself, she is now 23. Victoria is 1 and Miguel is 4. Don't forget these faces, may they either haunt you or bless you.

 

 

Meanwhile, the Lord has been blessing us with some unexpected, but larger than normal donations and is getting us closer and closer to getting to start the children's home. I just learned of a very poor lady in our community who has three children and is carrying one in her womb that she very adamantly does not want. What a blessing it would be for us, for the child, and for her if there was a special home right here in her community that could take the newborn in and allow it to have a life full of love and being close enough to it's birth mother to have that relationship too. We have such a big task before us, but we have an even bigger God. Please don't just allow Him to lay things on your heart, but allow Him to show you and guide you in following through with what He lays on your heart. Let's be doers of the Word and together we will make a difference!

 

Glory House will be a place of celebration, and it will be because of people like you who are moved to action!

 

 

Praying for you,

Jenna

 

www.misionvidanueva.info

 

 

P.S. - I am proud to say that I have been successful in horticulture lately and am currently growing 18 apple trees, 23 lemon trees, 4 mango trees, 19 poinsettias, 3 injerto trees (I don't know what that is in English), 1 Bougainvilia plant (which will turn into more), a thyme plant (which should spread quickly), a cinnamon tree, a eucalyptus tree, a banana tree, some potatoes, vegetable pears, and two trumpet vines. That's in addition to my 28 Cypress trees and my 85 Eugenia bushes. We also have two Avocado trees on our property, one is full grown, and a full grown injerto tree. There is another fruit tree too, but I don't know what it is. It's kinda fun. Hopefully we will reap a harvest when we have the kids here and it will cut back on costs. But if nothing else, it will teach them that hardwork and patience pays off. All we can do is plant the seed, water it properly, and pray for God to make it grow!

 

 



I am so upset right now. Geoffrey asked me on the way home if this was going to be a "blog" and I told him no, I just wrote one the other day, it would be at least another month before I wrote another one. But now, two hours later, I am so upset that I feel like the only way to get it out of me is to "share it with the world".

People can live their whole lives with their eyes closed. They aren't ignorant of what goes on in the world around them. You know about the child trafficking, the female mutilation, the starvation, the brothels, the genocides, the street children, the abusive husband down the street, the girl who cuts herself, the drug addicted, the poverty that leads to disease and death. They know. They just choose not to let it affect them. They choose to close their eyes and only open them for the "important" things in life, themselves, or maybe the "easy" things in life, things that won't cause their materialistic smile to turn into a frown.

But the Lord tells us to bear one another's burdens. Bear them. I suppose we can choose to only bear the burdens of those we have to bear, our children, our parents, our spouses. But what about those who have burdens too painful to even mention. Burdens that can't even be imagined. Burdens that would drive someone to suicide. Those are the hard ones to carry. Those are the ones easy to close your eyes to, and pretend you can't do anything about them.

Today after church we went to bear a bit of Maria's burden. You all remember her. That is Henry's mom. Henry is the 22 year old boy, I say boy because that is all he is, with cerebral palsy who lays in a bed soiled in his own urine and feces all day long, every single day. His mother was raped 22 years ago and ever since has bore the burden of 24/7 care for her son, who now is too big for her to move. She struggles to even change the t-shirts she wraps around him as diapers. They are very poor and she does the best she can as a single mother with no income. People look at her and judge her. People whisper about her and talk about her behind her back. She has had no one to help her bear her burden, no one except a faithful God. She is a devoted Christian woman who has looked into my eyes time and time again with tears falling down her cheeks telling me in broken Spanish,"No aguanta." That means, "Doesn't support." She is telling me that she just feels at times like she can not do it anymore. It is too hard. Mentally, she can not do it. Physically, she can not do it. Emotionally, she can not do it. But yet, she does it. And now, living 45 minutes from her house, we are trying our best to be there for her. To help her "aguanta". We support them monthly with food and medicine. We sit and listen to her talk and laugh and cry for hours. I hold her hands and try to understand her plight and remind her that with God, she can. She is. I am here for her. I pray for her. I love her like a sister and will do what I can to help her bear a little of her burden. She is not perfect, she makes mistakes, but who am I to judge? Who am I to withhold the good I can do?

Today, we sit there and we listen. We talked about the hard rain from yesterday and she begins to tell us about some "poor poor people" that sleep in the dirt and the rain washed all the mud over them yesterday. I am looking around her dirt floor shack and thinking, "you are telling me about people you think are poor??" I ask her where they live and she immediately gets off the bed, grabs her shoes, and says let's go. We walk about 25ft from her shack to an even smaller shack. A shack smaller than most of your bathrooms. She says some things to the people inside that I don't understand and then motions for us to come in.

This is why I am upset. Meet Catarina (I wish I had a picture to insert here). Catarina, a 23 year old little girl, I say little girl because that is all she is, stands there and greets us. At her feet sits Victoria, a 1 year old, filthy little girl. She is sitting on a piece of torn plastic in the mud. She is digging at what looks like a dirty tortilla. She starts to cry when she sees our white faces. 3 ft away sits a young man and a 4 yr old little boy, also covered in mud from head to toe. Catarina was abandoned as a baby by her mother and never knew her. She now has this husband and two young children and I am standing in the middle of their house and they have nothing. Absolutely nothing. There are no clothes, not a toy in sight, no bed, no couch, no shoes, nothing at all. There is a tiny wooden stool and a little rotten wood table, not much bigger than the stool and a shard of a blanket not even big enough to cover the one year old. That is it.

I have seen poverty. I have seen extreme poverty. I have never seen anything like this. Catarina's eyes filled with tears as I asked her questions and I did everything I could to keep my eyes dry. I can't wrap my head around that family of four and how they live. I wanted to run out of there and pretend I never saw them. I told them "nice to meet them" and said we'd be visiting them again. Turns out Maria gave them that stool and little table. Maria brings the kids over to her shack to help clean them. She shares the little food she has with them too. Maria, who's paraplegic son lies in the bed 24/7 while she tries to keep the flies off him for fear of the maggots she will find crawling through his hair, she is trying to help this little family. She sees their need. She has a better excuse than anyone I know to close her eyes and not do anything, but she doesn't. The woman who has next to nothing doesn't close her eyes to the plight of the ones who have nothing, how can we?

The Lord knows He has opened my eyes. He knows if He puts it in my path, I have no option but to act. That is, after all, why I live in Guatemala in the first place. All the suffering things He brings us, we help. How can we say no? Are we not saying no to Jesus Himself? I have been through plenty in my life and could make plenty of excuses, but when your eyes are open, there is no excuse. If you have breath in your lungs, you have no excuse. Give until it hurts. Give of yourself without holding back, without making excuses, give and give and do it all in the strength that the Lord provides, because that strength will never run dry. If you don't have anyone's burdens to bear, then it's because your eyes are shut.

We will go back to Catarina this week and we will build her a bed. Yes, we have lots of work to do here, and it will cost us money, and she lives 45 minutes away from us, and we will be dirty and uncomfortable, but the Lord has put her in our path, or shall I say put us in her path, and to close our hearts to her is to close our hearts to Jesus. To get her and her babies out of the mud, to pick them up in the middle of their suffering, to reach out to her and to love on her and show her that we care for her, well, that is exactly what the Lord did to us on the day He passed by and saw us squirming about in our own blood and He said to us "Live!". As Ezekiel 16 clearly portrays, He held nothing back from us, not one thing. He lavished us and gave us His absolute everything.

Are my tears for the weight of the burden that this family of four, and so many others like them, has carried for too long? Or do they fall because of all the suffering in the world that could be relieved or even eliminated if only people would open their selfish eyes? Together, the body of Christ can always "aguanta", always.

D.y.i.n.g. That's what I feel like doing anyway. To be with Jesus? Yes, please! But while I lay here wasting away, inwardly my hope is being renewed....

Okay, no. I will spare you all that...for now anyway. I don't have anything profound to say except that pregnancy, well, pregnancy = suffering for this girl. I am almost at 6 months, completed 5, and I have had maybe, maybe, 6 or 7 days of feeling o.k. Not good, but o.k. In 5 months! That is like 150 days or something.

I never knew it was so hard. I have so much more respect for, well, every woman who has carried a child to term and delivered, because for every person I look at, someone had to go through some kind of terror to bring them into this world.

Well it isn't news to anyone that I was blessed with hyperemesis gravidarum (the best diet known to mankind (if you're not pregnant)) for 4 months, but that goes away, I think, and a week later I get parasites, yes, a form of E. Coli. And, as if that isn't bad enough, I am diagnosed with a bacteria infection which causes me to immediately regurgitate anything solid I put in my mouth, and of course, gastritis, which means eating or not, I have acid burning mad in my esophagus, and if I am lucky, my throat too, almost all the time.

So, I've been giving our doctor really good business lately. Medicines are my new best friends. And don't worry, Mary Charis is growing just fine and has firmly rooted her butt right on top of my bladder, literally. Today during the ultrasound, she was sitting with her head upright, right at the base of my sternum, her butt straight down and her knees pulled up to her chest. Just hanging out in there with all her new little friends I suppose.

How did I get all these little playmates for my daughter you may ask? Well, someone didn't cook their feces good enough for me, and I ate them. Nice, I know. * Note to self * next time be sure to order them well-done. Noted.

Enough about me, we all know you are reading this to find out about the children's home. Well, it's still not there. We are still waiting on more funding. While we have been super blessed in the donations we have received recently, we still lack roughly $6,000 to start and $26,000 to finish. Some people, knowing we do not fund-raise, have felt led to fund-raise for us. It amazes me the things the Lord lays on the hearts of His church (the people, not the building). And last month was an incredibly special month with some of the donations we received, including the Morris Ave SGA donation. Those kids collected coins every day for two months for us and even won an award for it! That's incredible. A HUGE "thank you" to every single contributer. Way to make a pregnant woman smile!

So, what did we do all month last month, you ask? Well our guard and his wife got saved in our living room. Amazing. Our pastor came over to answer some of his questions and we chatted a while about salvation and my two humble friends decided it was time to make a profession of faith in Christ! Bam. He came to church with us to receive classes on baptism, and now we are planning their baptism for the next few weeks. Wow. Those of you who have been here know him, Julio, and others of you may have eaten his wife's food.

Our neighbor, the very very poor one, with no running water, no bathroom, no electricity, and no teeth...well her oldest son I found lying on his bed in tears with a fever of 104.6. I asked her why she hadn't taken him to the doctor and she told me, "He said he didn't want to go." End of conversation. I was like, "He is 12 years old, who cares what he wants?" So we scooped him up, carried him to the car and drove him to the emergency room. Got some tests done and found out he had parasites and a very bad bacteria infection. Yes, ironic isn't it? I know. We bought his medicine and within a week he was getting back to normal.

We started the sueing process of the bad, dirty, evil lawyer (see last blog). We will see how that goes.

We visited Henry (see many blogs ago) and he was still there, lying in his soiled bed, with long fingernails and curling toe nails. We still sponsor him monthly by buying a good bit of food and medicine, and it helps, but he needs nurses and caregivers. Still no news about the home in Antigua and whether they have a space or not.

We had my mom come down and visit for a week and stocked up on lots of little girl baby stuff and got to eat some really, really (shaking my head thinking about it) good food while she was here. Including Hard Rock Cafe, mmm. It was good to have her here and I didn't like seeing her leave. That was actually a few of the 6 days where I felt better. She has turned in to quite the tech-saavy grandma always on that Iphone 12 or whatever, snappin' photos and postin' them before you even knew she took one. 

And well other than being pregnant and trying to survive, that's about it. We are preparing for a team to come down in June and pave half the driveway. That will be a huge blessing. And in between spending a little time with the kids at the dump and waiting patiently through all the hot weather and earthquakes to get started on the next part of the home, we've been seeking the Lord's provision. We're ready and so are the kids who will one day live here, they're ready too. Thank you for remembering us in your prayers. We love you!

 

Love, Jenna

 

 

www.misionvidanueva.info