End of Year Party

Remember we said that we broke down and splurged on a lawn mower - well here is our yard after the first mow. This is a section of the back yard, still about 25% more that you cannot see plus a small side and front yard.

On Saturday we invited all of the staff and their families over for an end of the year social event and lunch. Unfortunately, we were missing 2 staff members who were greatly missed - Gaspar and Sheri. Gaspar had a commitment with a church he is conducting some Bible studies with and Sheri flew back home on Saturday to send a couple of weeks with family.

When inviting staff and "families" here you have to be careful to define family as most of them live in the same compound as their parents, and other married or single brothers and sisters. For example, if not defined Manuel could have brought 17-20 people easy as they all live together. So we compromised and invited all of their children plus 2-3 extra family members. It turned out great as we had around 35 people and enough food for everyone. We did a mixed menu of Guatemalan food and American food - we had Guatemalan enchiladas for starters and then hamburgers and hot dogs and chips for the meal. Then, Josefina's family brought the makings for shrimp ceviche which was excellent as well. The Guatemalan enchilada is a tostada with some taco like seasoned meat and some picked vegetables of beats and cabbage. Does not sound appetizing but it is very good. We finished up with Sarita ice cream.

At first people were shy in getting their food so we had to prod them along some, but once everyone was comfortable they started to enjoy more. The kids really like the hot dogs so it is the same everywhere. Some kids ate up to 4 hot dogs without the buns! Then of course they went to town on the ice cream as well. Hopefully everyone was not sick by the end of the day!

We had some great discussions and time together and everyone headed home before sundown. We have a great team with some extremely supporting families and churches, so we could not ask for many more blessings than that.

Had to end with a picture of one of our favorite little guys. This is Edgar, youngest son of Manuel Sut, but not the youngest. He now has 2 younger sisters. He ate 3 hot dogs and a mess of chips.