And the band plays on...

Not a day goes by that we don't hear one of any number of school bands playing.  Now, some of you might be thinking, "wow, that would be awesome."  Well, you'd be mistaken!  They all seem to play the same song...actually the same bar of music from the same song...over and over and over and over.  Every now and then it is broken up with some firecrackers going off, but for hours upon hours we hear the trumpets, drums and xylophones.  This past week has been especially bad as schools are practicing for an upcoming parade to celebrate the fair coming to town and Coban's patron saint's birthday. 

On Thursday, we made a trip out to Chisec, about 1 1/2 hours north of Coban, to visit the ministry Mission2Guatemala.  We spent the day getting to know the founders, Manny and Cindy Batres, and two of their board members.  It is amazing how diverse this country is.  Just 1 hour away, and you are in a different world:  jungle!  It was absolutely beautiful...and very hot and humid.  It was great to see what these believers are doing to advance the Gospel in this somewhat challenging area of Guatemala. 

This past week we also had the opportunity to meet our Pastoral Care Couple from Commission to Every Nation, Stephen and Tammie Burger, from Kerrville, Texas. As you know, CTEN is our sending agency.  It was wonderful to spend some time with this couple and share a bit of our hearts...and our struggles...with them. We will see them again when we go to Kerrville for CTEN's Orientation in September. We are happy to go for the orientation, but it will mean not going home for Christmas, as we can only afford one trip a year. So, this will be our first Christmas in Guatemala.  We will plan to spend some time with Hector and Arryn sharing with Hector some of our Christmas traditions.   

On Saturday we attended the wedding of Rocky's Spanish teacher, Jaime.  It was a small, but nice wedding and another opportunity for us to practice our Spanish, as none of the guests spoke any English.  It also meant that Rocky had to dress up, which is good with me!
We spend a lot of time with Jaime and we have become good friends.  He is very open to hearing about the Lord and so, as the opportunities arise, we share with him our faith and our Lord.  It is good!  As I finished reading Radical Together  this past week, I am more aware of opportunities to advance the Gospel and count it an honour to share the Lord with whoever will listen. 
Thank you for your prayers and continued support.  We love you and miss you a great deal!
Rocky & Karren

The Important Things

I love flowers.  In Canada, when I'd go to Costco, I'd always linger by the flowers and admire their colours and smells.  I rarely bought them, although, because it seemed like such an extravagence.  I wish I could say my husband regularly bought me flowers, but that would not be true...he is too frugal as well!  Living here in Guatemala, although, flowers are cheap.  You can buy a dozen long stemmed roses or gladiolas for about Q20 or just under $3.  And that is expensive for here; I usually spend around Q10 or $1.50 for a full bouquet!                    Every Saturday Rocky and I walk to the market to buy our vegies and fruit and then, with whatever money we have left in our pockets, we pick up some flowers.  I have had to do it in this order, however, or I would spend all I had on flowers and forget about the food.  I sometimes get my priorities mixed up when I am knee deep in incredible tropical flowers for such amazing prices. 

As I was pondering yesterday, I realized this is a little like my walk with the Lord.  I sometimes get so immersed in what brings me pleasure, that I miss what is really important.  Last year I read the book, Radical by David Platt.  If you haven't read it yet, you should.  This book impacted my thinking and my living in ways that I know please the Lord.  Well, this week I started the second book, Radical Together by David Platt.  Wow!  Much of what he wrote about in the first book is echoed in the second, but this one is directed at the body of Christ - His Church.  It is very powerful.  Rocky and I read over the following passage yesterday and it struck us that we sure wouldn't want to read this from the pulpit Sunday morning, yet, at the very same moment, it is exactly what the church...what we...need to hear.  So, we wanted to share this thought with you all.  

And his [satan's] tactics are subtle; we could even say missional.  Amid much talk in the church today about being missional, the Adversary may subtly be deceiving our minds about mission.  We are exhorted to see ourselves as missionaries in our cities, and we are encouraged to engage our cultures with the gospel.  These exhortations and encouragements are needed correctives for church mind-sets that have compartmentalized and limited mission.  But, bibilically, our mission is not only about loving our city or invading our culture with the gospel.  Our mission is also about leaving our cities to infiltrate every culture with the gospel.  I am convinced that Satan, in a sense, is just fine with the missional churches in the West spending the overwhelming majority of our time, energy, and money on trying to reach people right around us.  Satan may actually delight in this, for while we spend our lives on the people we see in front of us, more than six thousand people groups for generations have never even heard the gospel and remain in the dark. 

But when we rise up as the church of Jesus Christ and give ourselves urgently, sacrificially, and radically to taking the gospel of the kingdom to all those people groups, we can expect to be met with the might of hell.  ... It will not be easy.  And it will cost. 

Radical Together, page 87.

You see, it is easy for us to get so absorbed in our own church, its facility and programs.  It's not like these things are bad; that is part of why it is so easy to lose ourselves here.  Sadly, although, we can become misdirected and neglect the great commission; sacrificing the world for our own community.  Scripture commands us to have both a local and global vision. 

Matthew 28:19 says, Therefore go and make disciples of all nations... This is not a suggestion, it is a command.  That is not to say that God is asking us all to move to another part of the world, but He is asking us all to play a part in spreading the gospel to all nations. 

Matthew 24:14 says, This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.  

Of the 11,000 identified people groups in the world, 6,000 remain unreached.  So, what does that mean?  Well according to Matthew 24, the end of this earth will not come until all have had the chance to hear.  This is a challenge to us.  Who is God going to use to do this work?  You and me!  The challenge then becomes, how are we going to live our lives to fulfill the great commission so that eveyone will have the opportunity to hear the gospel?  How am I going to spend myself to this end? 

It is a questions we all have to ask ourselves.  It is one Rocky & I ask ourselves regularly.  The answer is not always comfortable or easy, but it is always good! 

Blessings, Karren & Rocky      

I can't believe it is already July 15th!  I haven't posted a blog for three weeks...a lot has happened over the past three weeks! 
Arryn and I went to the hotel where their wedding reception is going to take place.  It was fun to see the place and look at how they will prepare the tables/rooms and what kind of decorations we will need.  Her colours are navy blue, white, and a crimson red.  The hotel didn't have navy blue table cloths or chair bows, so we went to the fabric store and bought a bold of navy blue fabric and Hector's uncle is sewing up the table cloths and bows for the chairs.  I am really enjoying helping Arryn with the wedding arrangements. 

Alex, too, is planning her wedding for May 2013.  She is awesome at keeping me connected by sending me photos and allowing me input; I am so thankful for being able to share this with her, even if it is via long distance. 
A couple of weeks ago, Rocky and I, along with our teachers, Jaime and Wendoly, went on a field trip to Carcha to see the fair.  We went in the morning when they were just setting up, but we were able to experience all of the different foods and games that there are at a fair without having to deal with the negative parts of the fair.  It was fun to get out of the classroom for a change and have a guided tour of Carcha and the surrounding area.  Of course all of our conversation was in Spanish - class did continue! - but the different setting was a nice break. 

We have now completed 9 weeks of Spanish school.  This is quite an accomplishment for us.  Some days we feel as though we have really learned a lot already, and others it feels more like we are learning very slowly.  More and more, however, as we continue to interact with Spanish speakers, we can see the importance of being able to share our thoughts well in Spanish.  So, we are going to continue pressing on in our studies. 

We have also had lots of opportunities to connect with Arryn and Hector.  The other weekend, Arryn and I made a big pot of borscht - nothing like food to make a connection.  Rocky and Hector played cards and together we spent the day just hanging out.  We know our culture is very different than Hector's and although we have been exposed to the way things are here, he has had little opportunity to see our culture, so by spending time together, playing games, cooking, eating and visiting, he is able to see a little better into our lives. 

This past week we needed to get our visas renewed.  We decided to take a week off from classes (our brains needed a break) and we were thinking about making a trip out of Guatemala, perhaps to El Salvador, to get a new stamp in our passports, but we received an invitation to visit a ministry in Jalapa, Guatemala, so we changed our plans a little.  We took our passports to the Immigration office in Guatemala City to renew our visas and made a trip to Jalapa.  It was really interesting to drive into this town.  It is not on the main highway and you only see Jalapa if Jalapa is your destination.  It is really not on the way to anything.  The landscape, although, was very similar to the Kamloops area.  It felt as though we were driving in the hills between Kamloops and Merritt.  Lots of hills, open spaces, cattle, sage brush, pine trees, etc.  It even smelled like the hills in Kamloops in the summer. 
The ministry we visited was Hands of Mercy, founded by David and Julie Sutton, from Houston, Texas.  They were amazing hosts and we had the opportunity to see what they were doing in Jalapa and how the Lord is building His Kingdom in this place.  Hands of Mercy has a Christian television station and a safe house for women and children who have suffered abuse.  They are also involved in hosting teams and work with organizations like LAMP (Latin American Medical Providers), hosting up to 90 medical staff who come to Jalapa once a year and take over the hospital for a couple of weeks.  They have a huge vision for the future and are in the process of purchasing land so they can build an orphanage and eventually a Christian School. 
After our time with David and Julie, we went to Hawaii...well, not the Hawaii you're thinking of...Hawaii, Guatemala!  Who would have thought there would be a town called Hawaii here in Guatemala? 

We enjoyed two days of R&R at the beach.  The Pacific Ocean here has a very strong surf; in fact it is known as a good place to go surfing.  Unfortunately it isn't that great for swimming, but we enjoyed the hotel's 2 pools and spent a lot of time simply walking up and down the beach.  The sand is black volcanic sand and in the sun it is very hot!  We were thankful for the airconditioning in the little cabana we stayed in. 

We arrived home on Friday evening and yesterday we bought a fridge!  After 3 months of continual use, the power cord for the electric cooler mom and dad gave us finally burned out.  We have been so thankful for the cooler, but I have to say, getting a fridge was a huge highlight.  Now I can shop for a few days worth of food rather than only one.  I can also have cold water to drink and ice!  Incredible!   

We are so thankful for the way the Lord has provided for us.  When we left for Guatemala 3 months ago, we thought we knew where we going and what we would be doing.  The Lord had other plans, although, and we know that His plans for us are always the best plans.  He has given us His peace in the midst of the unknown and has provided for us at every turn.  Thank you for the support you have given us, both financially and with words of encouragement; we are humbled by your generosity and pray that the Lord will repay you as only He can.
Dios le bendiga,
Karren