We'll be coming around the mountain

On Friday of this last week we traveled to visit a new church in the area of Cubulco, Baja Verapaz, in a town called Pachajop.  The title is "coming around the mountain" as we literally had to drive to the far end of the mountain range and then come back to be able to get to the community of Pachajop.  Manuel and I(Kemmel) traveled with a group of others from Chichicastenango, Patzite, and Xesic to join this church in celebrating its formation 1 year ago.   Lisa and I visited this church in September of 2009 or somewhere around that time.  This church has a great story as people from Santa Cruz del Quiche started evangelizing this area over 6 years ago, and a man from the church in Zacualpa has been continuing the efforts for a number of years as well.  Over time a man by the name of Tomas was baptized and discipled to be the christian he is today.  Over this last year 30 other people have been baptized and a church has formed.  What an excellent example of how God can work and bring so many christians together to grow his kingdom.  In the last year, Cruz and his family has continued to visit the area often with the support from the churches of Zacualpa, Xejox and Chuchuca and also through the support of the Bible Institute in Guatemala City, BICA. 

The people here are very vibrant, hospitable and willing to serve one another which is always a lesson for us and inspires us to want to be better. 

Here are some pictures from the trip.

I do not have a picture of Cruz by himself, but he is in this picture of the group of church members who come to Clinica Caris for health education classes.  Cruz is in the back row far right with beige or yellow shirt.  This is a great group of people representing around 15 communities. 

Here is a pitcure of Tomas and the new members of the local church in Pachajop.  Tomas is the man with the microphone and the church members are too his left with his son and granddaughter closest to him.  The picture is red as everyone is under a red tarp with the sun shining through. 

Here is a picture of the crowd who came in support of these christians to worship with them, to pray for them and to show their support.  The dedication to each other is awesome as no one just gets in a car and travels individually, it is a community event, having to plan, hire a bus, pay for the bus, and travel 2-4 hours to get there and most likely deal with bus trouble on the way - we passed one community, Xejox, whose bus had a flat tire.

On other news we celebrated Sheri's birthday on Monday - here is a pictire of her enjoying her cheesecake.

On Saturday Lisa made us some apple fritters!  Yummmm!

Today, Sunday after heading to market we are resting a bit and enjoying the day, finishing off the day with worship services tonight.   We are really getting excited about our visit to the states to see family and our supporting churches in September--won't be long until we are "coming around the mountain"!