Yesterday Lisa and Josue took off to clinic in Chuchipaca, Sheri and Manuel traveled to La Palma for an education session with the ABC kids from La Palma and Las Cuevas and Kemmel went to the inauguration of a new church in Chijtinimit, the first town you come to going out the cemetery road.
This church is a sister church to the increasing Chichicastenango church. There are quite a few families from the Chichi church from Chijtinimit and they have dreamed a long time about starting a church in their own village and now is the time! The first sister church from Chichi was Xepocol, where Gaspar (HTI promoter) is from.
As you can imagine, it was an exciting day with much emotion at he chance of starting a new church in their own community!
They made the final decision in March, started the building and now have an adobe building with a roof to start the church all with local funding. Of course they ask for money from the organization, but we respectfully decline, keep tithing personal funds and encourage them to put forth the effort. One of our favorite quotes from a preacher is "I have good news that we have the money necessary, but it is still in your pocket!" Something like that, but says it all. If it is important to us, the money is there.
Since there was a large crowd, most of the day was spent outside of the church in worship and fellowship together. They had Churches from up to 2 hours away come to encourage them. Very nice!
On another note, this year we have started a new part to the ministry dedicating Gaspar to full-time evangelism and ministry. He has had multiple opportunities to visit homes of members of different churches to encourage them in times of conflict and is helping a few families reunite with their church families. One man has not been to church for 20 years. He is also speaking with a number of people through contacts at the clinic and is currently praying with the church in Xepocol for the uniting of a family of 8 to accept the gospel! We are excited. Of course this has it's challenges and one is transport - Gaspar walks alot, so to hopefully give him more flexibility we are fixing up the Suzuki Samurai for him and teaching him how to drive. He wanted to get a motorcycle which we quickly discourage.
Gene Luna's old Suzuki - 1987 - and still running great. We are going to give it a paint job and revitalize it for at least another 10 years - Primero Dios!
If you would like to help revitalize the Suzuki for our evangelism vehicle, please let us know. Every dollar counts.
HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!
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