Warm weather, happy faces, and God working in peoples lives,there can be no better thing. Monday was house dedication or I should say home dedication for families of the houses that we built. These families who we came to know expressed gratitude and some expressed desire to know the our Lord. Children excited to see us and hug us scrambled forward to watch and listen and be part of this experience. They covered their ears with the loud pop of firecrackers at each house after the dedication. Later as we gave away toys and trinkets we had brought I recognized many of the children from bible school time and received hug after hug from each. What an amazing God we serve!!

This is the day the Lord hath made and what an awesome creation we had an opportunity to witness today. Following a brief time of worship we loaded up the vans and headed for Lake Atitlan. Along the way we saw beautiful mountains, well maintained fields, and His Guatemalan children.

At the Lake Attilan nature preserve some of us climbed the mountain, viewed monkeys, amazing waterfalls and ziplined. At the end of the hike a wonderful picnic lunch was prepared with love by our AWESOME cooks, Sandie DeVries and Loie Wiers. Thanks to these ladies we were unable to loose any extra pounds we were hoping for. These wonderful women start their day at 4:30 am to prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner for us including homemade pies, cakes, and cookies!

We also visited the market in Panajachel on the edge of Lake Atitlan. The view of the lake was gorgeous.....what a spectacular blue!

On the way back to the mission house we had an authentic Guatemalan meal at a fabulous restaurant. We thank God for his creation and his safety traveling many miles today and every day. We are also very grateful for our talented drivers who navigate mountain curves and avoid chicken buses, mopeds, bicycles and pedestrians. Thank you Dave, Mark, Shawn and Dellen!!!

Tonight we finished our busy day by worshiping with the Guatemalan family of Pastor Roderico from KCC, a member of our team, and singing a few songs in Spanish. Singing "How Great is Our God" seemed very appropriate at the end of the day after viewing His beautiful Guatemala!

2/25/12 Saturday Guatamela

Today was one of the most wonderful days of my life. I thank God for bringing me here to share his love. Today I had the opportunity to visit the orphanage "Love The Child". I met the most amazing kids and beautiful infants that had been abandoned by there families or removed from abusive ones. I was a little apprehensive at first thinking I would not be able to connect to these children with my broken Spanish but the moment I walked in I found the sweetest girl named Maria who instantly ran up to me and hugged me, we squeezed each other so tight like we had known each other and we were reconnecting again. Then a little boy named Jose scooted over to me on his little cart and started to speak to me in almost perfect English. I kicked back with these two as we all played Angry Birds, listened to music, and took pictures of each other on my phone. Jose's sister Hana who suffers from bone deficiency like Jose scooted over to me to come play with us. I asked her Habla Englais? and she rolled her eyes at me and said "Of course". She was sassy, smart, and so adorable. Later on I went inside to see where some of the rest of our group had gone...I saw that they were just starting to give the infants their bottles when they asked me to climb in and help. I picked up a cute little boy named Deagio and began to give him his bottle which I have never experienced. By the time we were done giving the babies their bottles it was time for us to go back to the mission and meet up with the rest of our group. Dave Westhouse had to come down to were we were to get us and tell us that every one was waiting by the vans for us to go back. None of us wanted to go but we knew every one was waiting for us so we slowly got up and said goodbye to all the kids we had connected with. It was so hard for me to believe that these kids parents had just abandoned them and wanted nothing to do with them. You could not give these kids enough love. I know for sure I will be back to visit them again, these kids will forever hold a special place in my heart..... After we got back we received unfortunate news that Tanya Cookes brother in law Andy Rusticus had passed away....... Our hearts are heavy and all of ours prayers go out to him and his family. God Bless us all, and may the word of the lord continue to spread, in the name of The Father the Son and the Holy Spirit Amen.

-Nicholas Quinn Zain Neuman

Friday's Update

Had another good day. Two vans went back into the village to finish up the concrete and all but 6 fronts of the houses. We should have a short day tomorrow to get everything finished for dedication day. One van went to the market to buy housewarming gifts. What an adventure that was...I've never seen so much traffic in one small area! That van also went to visit an orphanage for special needs kids. It was an awesome experience to play and interact with these kids and participate in their physical therapy with them. I'm not sure who was blessed more during this visit.

Late this afternoon we went to a town in El Tejar for our food and clothing distribution. We handed out food and clothing to 150 families. When we arrived on the site, the families were participating in a church service. We found out after the distribution was over that this site will be the site of their church. There were many smiles, cheers, tears, and hugs as this was announced to them. Our food distribution was the first activity of this new church. We ended the night by forming a circle, joining hands with them, and giving God the glory for using our distribution to reach out to so many and planting the seed. There are no language barriers when you're praising God and giving him the glory. We hope to have a good day tomorrow as we prepare to finish our housing projects.

Thank you for keeping us in your prayers.
Randy and Michelle Bosse

Wednesday, February 23rd

For the second day of the house building process we, Emily and Tanya, had the chance to be right in the center of the action. In our team alone, two houses for two families in need were completed. All the work in the sweltering sun was made well worth it to see the expressions of pure joy and appreciation on the faces of the families. During water and lunch breaks, the local children kept us busy, wanting us to play games with them as much as we were able. It was hard to tell whose smile was bigger between us and the little girls when we gave them flamboyantly colored necklaces and hairpieces, complementing the exotic flair of their culture. After finishing our day's work, we gladly played and talked to the children, bouncing off the walls with energy, as we waited for the other building teams to complete their work. Back at the Mission House, delicious, steamy scalloped potatos served alongside green beans, pink jello-pudding, and an absolutely scrumptious Oreo pie for dessert. After dinner, we relaxed over a few fun card games with Jordan, Dan, and Madison - a couple of the other teenagers in the group - before heading off to bed.

By:
Emily Byker
Tanya Cooke

Wednesday February 22, 2012

The first day proved to be an eventful one. It seemed as if we, Jordan and Dan, tried out every job there was to experience. In the morning we helped out with VBS where there were around 15 kids. At VBS we made turtles by stuffing premade felt turtle cutouts with cotton. It signified that like the soft turtle, Jesus comforts us in our time of need. Later Juan taught us to make balloon animals which made it just as much fun for us to tie them as it was for the kids to play with a brightly colored sword, puppy, or swan. We also played memory games where Jordan only won 1 of many games. Jordan claims to have been going easy, but Dan still isnt convinced. After lunch the 2 of us were roped into, reluctantly, mixing dry cement. Since we are in fact clueless teenagers, we tend to simply listen and do, rarely asking the purpose of our designated activy, but while moving a black and white pile from one location to another 2 feet away sparked our curiosity. When we had finished relocating two decently sized piles of cement we flattened out the saturated cement at a different work site. Floating was the term Mark had used. Yet, unfortunately for Dan only the too small, pink flower boots were left, so Jordan was left to complete the thrilling task while Dan did what his arms could reach from the sidelines. Spagetti was for dinner. After dinner we mosied around until it seemed an appropriate time for 2 "big strong teenagers" to go to bed. PS we love you moms :)
With love from Guatemala
Dan and Jordan

Thursday, February 23, 2012

So here we are, Thursday is coming to a close and we have so much to be thankful for today! With so much hard work and effort our teams nearly completed all of the 15 homes! We have established some tremendous relationships with the families in the town of Alotenango. Rodrico has been such a blessing to our team. He was born in Guatemala and is also a pastor back in Grand Rapids. As we work tirelessly on the construction of homes, and interact with the beautiful children in the village, he has been connecting with the leaders of each household and sharing God's word. He is able to speak with them, and lead them to new understandings they have never considered. What a joy to watch! It completely opens our hearts to see the children so eager to learn and laugh with us. It's hard to think of them as anything other than our own family now. It will be extremely difficult for us to leave. As we sit in our mission house nestled approximately 6,500 ft in the mountains with a view as vast as the ocean, and mountains in our view stretching over 13,000 ft we continue to grow in God, and thank him for this opportunity we have to share the word, and hopefully change the world. One family at a time. Thank You Lord. We love you with all of our hearts and all of our minds.

-Daniel & Alison

Wednesday! After a restful night's sleep, we left for the villages. We had a bright, sunny day and built almost 8 homes. We also did Bible School both in the am. and aft. The childred loved to paint the pictures after hearing the Bible stories. Their smiles are so sweet! Thank you for your thoughts and prayers-they are felt across the miles!
We enjoyed guests for dinner and are thankful for our ongoing relationships with them. Tomorrow we continue with the projects we started today. Hello from Juan Marcos, Samuel, Reina, and Denise. Also Max, Teresa, and daughters. John and Lori King also say Hello to all!
Now we will unpack the suitcases and put together the HBA kits[shampoo, etc.]Thank you again for all of your donations and gifts for all of these dear people.
Bev and Pastor John

Tuesday, Arrival Day!

We've arrived!!! As in recent years the mission team was blessed once again by our luggage angel. The transition through customs was smooth and uneventful. No misplaced luggage; no misplaced team members. We have ALL arrived at the Friendship Baptist Mission House together.

The journey is long, but our sprits are high. Team members are making new friends and acquaintances and lots of Dutch bingo is occurring. This year's team is unusual with team members from 12 different churches. What an awesome bunch of believers....excited about the adventure that begins tomorrow in the village.

We were greeted by temps in the 70's and sunny skies. There was even time to explore the surroundings.

Thank you for the prayers that got us here safely and your continued prayer support is coveted. Wish you were here.....

Wednesday, January 18 :)

Home dedication today and there aren't enough words in ANY language to describe the feelings that come from this experience! God is good. All the time. This is specifically one of those times that only the phrase "it is more blessed to give than to receive" is appropriate. I'll try to summarize the experience, forgive me if I stumble with emotions blog style:

We arrived with housewarming gifts for the 15 home owners and their families. Our intent was to pray with the families, ask them if they know Christ as their personal savior, present the gospel appropriately, provide home supply gifts including adult and child geared spanish Bibles, share a picture of their home sponsors (whomever from the USA paid for the building supplies) and sing the benediction in their native tongue. The experience was distinctly different at each home. The second home our group dedicated with the family received Christ for the first time ~ to witness that step of faith knowing I likely won't meet them again until Heaven left me both in tears of gratitude and completely speechless at the handiwork of the Spirit in that place. Another family, already Christians, were so grateful for God answering their prayers for a home that they couldn't stop crying and thanking. They confidently exclaimed God will continually bless us so we can continue to bless others generously. A third home supplied us with homemade lunch and pop, an expense they I'm very doubtfull they could afford.

We followed each home dedication up with a little fiesta - well just fireworks and cheering :) Isn't the fattened calf supposed to be cooked for celebration after the lost son returns home? We'll continue to pray for these families to be blessed in their home and in their faith walk, whatever that might be, for many years to come. Please join us in that endeavor knowing all of this transpired on God's strength not ours and He can do amazing things (I would've mucked things up quite nicely if left alone!).

Tomorrow we depart the mission home at 3am and, Lord willing, hope to be back to church in Moline by about midnight. Please pray for travel safety and health - we're eager to return to our families renewed and ready to share the details!
~ Michelle Vonk (the newbie)

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Sorry about not having a post yesterday. It has been very busy and we forgot. I will try to combine both yesterday's and today's together.

Monday started out by going back to the village to put the fronts on the houses and hang the windows and doors. All of the concrete work had been finished in the houses by the families. It is our understanding that the families are encouraged to get involved by doing their own concrete if they are able. There was also a group doing Bible school with the children while the houses were being finished.

I went with a few people to do one of my favorite things...shop. It's not the shopping that I love so much but where we go to do it that I love. We went to the local market in Chimaltenango to purchase the gifts for the families receiving the houses. I love this market because it is a real taste of life in Guatemala. The women go there to purchase a chicken still alive, or purchase their vegetables, or some raw meat or fish. There are hundreds of locals selling their wares and it is fascinating. There is uniqueness to the sights, the sounds and of course the smells. We have a couple of vendors in the market that we go to every year, Mirna and Jose, and they know us now by sight. They see us and there are smiles on their faces. (Might be because they are going to have a really good day in sales.) But they do know us and we know them as well.

From the local market we went to another local market to get more fruit for the team. Then it was on Economica, the local Family Fare, to purchase soap and other things for the families.

Today, we split the team up and had a group go to the local Bible Seminary to work on a building project that they have going. The group that worked there worked really hard I am told. They spent the day laying part of the foundation and then backfilling around it. They were all tired at the end of the day.

The remaining ones in the group went to Amor Del Nino to play with the kids at that orphanage. When we got there the older children were off to school so we played with the younger ones and held the babies. Lots of hugging of those beautiful children. After the older children had arrived home and had some lunch, we did some Bible school with them. Mily our translator told the story of Jesus entry into Jerusalem. After hearing the story, the children had a parade with streamers and lots of singing.

After getting back from the orphanage and the seminary we went to a local church in El Tejar to pass out clothing and food to the people of the church. I am always amazed and humbled by how grateful they are for a bag of food and a few clothing items.

Tonight after our dinner, we had Mily's parents do some singing for us and they told us some of their story. They were fun to listen to and it was very interesting to hear their story.

It was a great day again. God has blessed us over and over again throughout this week. We thank all of you back at home for all of your prayers. We give all the glory to God for such a great experience this week.

Love you all and miss you.

P.S. Hoping you have lots of snow to greet us when we get home. (That part might only be from part of our team.)

Donna

Sunday - Jan 16

Another awesome day! The day started out with another wonderful breakfast from our wonderful cooks!!! We then had a time of worship with alot of singing. Braden spoke on the topic of prayer from Colosians 4. He challenged each of us in our prayer walk. We can do nothing on our own but only with Christ's help. We then paired up and spent time sharing and praying for each other over issues that we needed to turn over to God. We then went on the roof top and sang Amazing Grace. It was a powerful service.

The day started out cool and cloudy but by the time we arrived in Antiqua the sun started to burn through. We had a wonderful dinner at our traditional restaurant with a lot of good fellowship. The group has been a real blessing and everyone has gotten along wonderfully. After dinner everyone went shopping and had an enjoyable time.

After arriving back at the Mission House we began to prepare for the local church to arrive for a night of supper and worship. Several weeks ago at our last meeting, Dave and Donna ask if our preferce was to go to Lake Attilan on Sunday or go to Antiqua. If we went to the lake, we would not be back in time to have the local church come to the Mission House. We think we made the right choice!!

We don't know how many people were here but it had to be close to 100. There was plenty of food as always and a lot of wonderful fellowship. We then all gathered upstairs for worship. We sang a number of songs and then shared communion with our brothers and sisters in the Lord. It was an amazing service and reinforced that we serve a Great God.

Praise God that Brandon Ebenstein was healthy again and able to get out of the Mission House for the first time. Pray for continued health and safety and that we can be a blessing to those we come in contact with.

Randy and Luanne Ellens

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Another beautiful day in Guatemala. The day started with devotions led by Randy Ellens on living 'in Christ' and leaving a legacy. Since we accomplished so much building yesterday, the pressure was off a little today. When we arrived this morning many of the new casa owners had their concrete floors completed. All 15 homes were constructed up to floors and front walls by the end of the afternoon.

Bible School met in a church building several blocks from construction sites. There was concern that not many children would be there because it was down the street from their homes, but after doing some 'canvassing' on the curbside much like Ceasars Pizza man we soon had over 35 children. After Mily led some "aerobic" singing she told the story of Noah's and God's promise. The story was visualized with a flannelgraph and was followed up with coloring etc. We sent them off with a tortilla rolled up with Nutella and then took a lunch break. At 2:00 we started again with lots of singing and games reinforcing the Noah story. We finished with small family groubs of children, praying over them by name. It is difficult to describe the affection you experience from these children as they cuddle up to you to hear a story. No wonder our Jesus was/is so drawn to them.

We were back to the mission house by 5:00, quite early. All of Max's family, including Eswardo and Ruth, were able to join us for another delicious dinner from the cooks. Tonight we are unpacking the supplies for distribution next week, all precious gifts from our friends back home. There are a few games going on here and there, along with some deeper conversations we seldom take time for back home.

It has been like a graceful dance we have enjoyed as a family of God since our start here. There is no meaningful substitute for the family of God when all our thoughts are directed toward him.

submitted by Don & Mary Westhouse

January 13: Day 1

Greetings Family and Friends,
We all arrived to the mission house safely yesterday. Customs all went well and we found our "Luggage Angel" at the airport again!! Travel from the airport to the mission house all went well also.

We began our Friday morning with a devotions from Dave and Donna Westhouse talking about our theme for the week. "Roots, Shoots, and Fruits." We all broke off into small groups and talked about what being rooted in Christ really means.

After a little singing and devotions we headed off to the village for our first day of work. For those of you that went last year, we are working very close to the village we did last year right by the beautiful volcano. We were able to see one or two of the kids from last year.

After arriving, we began by getting to know the families that we were building the homes for and praying with them over the work site. By the end of the day today we have nine houses built, the 10th started and cement started in two. Great way to start off the week :)

Throughout the day we were all able to make some new friends and really get to know the families that we are working for. How ever, we were not able to do a Bible school lesson with the kids because of not having much space. Max and Juan were able to get us into a church in the village tomorrow to do a lesson with all the kids. We were able to do many activities with the kids today which they all enjoyed very much. All of the kids were so grateful when receiving something as small as a sticker. The many smiles on the kids faces put a joy in my heart and makes me realize how blessed i really am. I gave a little boy some hand sanitizer today and when I saw him sharing the one thing that I had given him, I told him, Thank you for sharing with them. After having held him for about 45 minutes, he insisted I put him down and as I watched him run to all his friends to share with his many friends, he just about put me in tears. To see that little boy, with so little, share the one thing he had gotten from me with all his friends, he put a big smile on my face!!

Thank you all for the many prayers, we can definately feel them and have seen answeres to many of them already!! Hope you all are doing well at home. Miss you all!

Written by: Stacy Westhouse

P.S. Braden Kok wants you all to know, He is the sword master with the balloons :)