Have you ever done anything so difficult that while you were doing it your heart was pounding, your head was spinning, and you had to remind yourself to breathe on a regular basis? I've been there. Regularly! Leaving everything that I love--family, friends, home, familiar culture, language, church--to bring ourselves to the mission field of Guatemala has felt like that. Right now, it feels like that. Trusting God so completely that you've left yourself no other choice, feels like that sometimes.
But, God is good. He knows what we need. He knows what character He wants to build in us. He understands our hearts. He knows our innermost thoughts. He sees our fear. Nothing is new to Him. Nothing surprises Him. Never does He say, "Whoa! I didn't see that coming? How will I handle that?" Or, "Well, I've never seen this before. What do I do now?" No. He is able. He is sufficient. He is completely perfect in all His ways.
This is what I have to know. This is what I need to move from my head, where I can spout all the beautiful platitudes of Christianity with the best of them, to my heart, where the rubber meets the road so to speak. The only way this happens is through circumstances where I find myself in no other place but to trust Him. I don't have a choice. This is where I am. This is where I've been on a regular basis lately.
So, here it is. Today, I'm trusting God with my family, my life, my heart, and to provide in so many ways just like He's promised. That's how it has to be. I trust him for today, this time, this hour, this minute whatever I have to do to get to that point that I don't worry so much.
To quote Beth Moore:
God is who He says He is.
God can do what He says He can do.
I am who God says I am.
I can do all things through Christ.
God's word is alive and active in me.
Let's see how this works.
--Dayle
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
Where are we?
We are in Antigua just a little bit to the left and up a bit from the big star marking Guatemala City. We are about 5,000 ft. up in the mountains surrounded by beautiful mountains and hills. One of the mountains called Fuego is an active volcano that erupts regularly. We can see it clearly from our house!
Some Pictures of Mark doing Outreach
The above pictures are of street ministry in the market of Antigua and of Mark doing an evangelism teaching for a team that was here this summer.
Here we go Again!
Well, we've tried a lot of other sites for this type of thing, but, for one reason or another, they don't work for us. We are just too computer illiterate I guess! Sad, but, too true. So, since we've figured this site out without very little pain and suffering, we will be keeping this up as our official blog. Now, if I can just figure out how to change that on our homepage, we'd be good to go! Our homepage will still be Annand Adventures, this is our blog.
What's been Happening?
I'm glad you asked! We've been really busy doing a TON of stuff. Here's a short re-cap!
1. Mark has been really busy teaching abstinence using the Bible in the schools here in Antigua and one school in Guatemala City. It's been such a blessing and an open door we've been praying for for so long. It's been a great opportunity. At one point, he lost his voice and I stepped in and subbed for him. It was interesting! I'm glad he's the one doing it.
2. Higher Grounds Coffee House has been super busy! That's a blessing to our base. We've been running to keep up with it all! It's been an opportunity to minister to people who are here to study Spanish or to volunteer, or to minister here in Guatemala. It's a haven for them. A chance for them to network and find support. The services have been going really well. This past Saturday, we hosted "The Call" prayer event for America. It was a 12-hour event in which we teamed with Janet Moutray (a missionary with an emphasis on prayer) and the World Race team that is serving for a month here in Antigua. It was well attended throughout the day and well organized. We even had the live feed from Washington DC for the whole day.
3. We've had a lot of teams come through the base. Mark was busy preparing their outreach opportunities and taking them to their various activities. It's a blessing to have them come because it's such a cool thing to see how God uses them while they are here as well as helping us out at the base. They were such good teams with servant's hearts. They worked in orphanages, schools, churches, base VBS, cleaning Higher Grounds, doing street ministry, prayer ministry, Thursday night services, construction, feeding program, youth ministry, market ministry, and I'm sure other ministries I'm not remembering. Busy!!!!!!!
4. Street ministry has been going well. Mark still goes out almost every Friday night for Soul Patrol. He goes into the park and talks with people and prays with them if they would like him to. He's had some great talks and his Spanish is coming along so that now he can share the gospel in Spanish and English.
5. Mark has taken a short break from Spanish classes and will be starting up again in the Fall. He only has a couple more levels to go before he has completed the entire course at the school he's been attending. He will be starting up again, hopefully, 3 days a week.
6. The kids have been busy with school and various activities. It's been fun to see them start to fit into their different abilities and talents and start using them for God. Alicia has a gift for picking up languages and has been using it to teach a bi-lingual class for girls ages 6-12 in our church, Iglesia del Camino. She also has helped to translate for a team recently and will also be traveling in November with a team from Minnesota to translate for them and help head up their children's ministry. Bailey is doing great at the piano and horseback riding. She has been working at the stables one afternoon a week to earn another day of riding lessons. She is also doing great at playing the piano and learning so much by ear. She's reading music well, and is working toward playing for worship someday. Christopher went with us to the prayer day for America at the coffee house. After prayer, he was moved to continue praying for our country and has been asking a lot of questions about the upcoming presidential races for the purpose of prayer.
7. I've been just trying to keep it all together. It's been busy trying to keep up with it all and then also homeschooling all 3. Can you say, Challenge? But, I've been also taking time to attend a Friday morning women's Bible Study at our church with women from all different types of ministries and backgrounds. Right now we are doing the Beth Moore study "Believing God" which has been a super study and very challenging to my faith. I need this time each week, it's a chance to get to know other women and have a little adult conversation!!!!
I hope you got a little glimpse of what we've been doing the last several months. It's been busy, but, God is so good! He's faithful to provide all we need.
What's been Happening?
I'm glad you asked! We've been really busy doing a TON of stuff. Here's a short re-cap!
1. Mark has been really busy teaching abstinence using the Bible in the schools here in Antigua and one school in Guatemala City. It's been such a blessing and an open door we've been praying for for so long. It's been a great opportunity. At one point, he lost his voice and I stepped in and subbed for him. It was interesting! I'm glad he's the one doing it.
2. Higher Grounds Coffee House has been super busy! That's a blessing to our base. We've been running to keep up with it all! It's been an opportunity to minister to people who are here to study Spanish or to volunteer, or to minister here in Guatemala. It's a haven for them. A chance for them to network and find support. The services have been going really well. This past Saturday, we hosted "The Call" prayer event for America. It was a 12-hour event in which we teamed with Janet Moutray (a missionary with an emphasis on prayer) and the World Race team that is serving for a month here in Antigua. It was well attended throughout the day and well organized. We even had the live feed from Washington DC for the whole day.
3. We've had a lot of teams come through the base. Mark was busy preparing their outreach opportunities and taking them to their various activities. It's a blessing to have them come because it's such a cool thing to see how God uses them while they are here as well as helping us out at the base. They were such good teams with servant's hearts. They worked in orphanages, schools, churches, base VBS, cleaning Higher Grounds, doing street ministry, prayer ministry, Thursday night services, construction, feeding program, youth ministry, market ministry, and I'm sure other ministries I'm not remembering. Busy!!!!!!!
4. Street ministry has been going well. Mark still goes out almost every Friday night for Soul Patrol. He goes into the park and talks with people and prays with them if they would like him to. He's had some great talks and his Spanish is coming along so that now he can share the gospel in Spanish and English.
5. Mark has taken a short break from Spanish classes and will be starting up again in the Fall. He only has a couple more levels to go before he has completed the entire course at the school he's been attending. He will be starting up again, hopefully, 3 days a week.
6. The kids have been busy with school and various activities. It's been fun to see them start to fit into their different abilities and talents and start using them for God. Alicia has a gift for picking up languages and has been using it to teach a bi-lingual class for girls ages 6-12 in our church, Iglesia del Camino. She also has helped to translate for a team recently and will also be traveling in November with a team from Minnesota to translate for them and help head up their children's ministry. Bailey is doing great at the piano and horseback riding. She has been working at the stables one afternoon a week to earn another day of riding lessons. She is also doing great at playing the piano and learning so much by ear. She's reading music well, and is working toward playing for worship someday. Christopher went with us to the prayer day for America at the coffee house. After prayer, he was moved to continue praying for our country and has been asking a lot of questions about the upcoming presidential races for the purpose of prayer.
7. I've been just trying to keep it all together. It's been busy trying to keep up with it all and then also homeschooling all 3. Can you say, Challenge? But, I've been also taking time to attend a Friday morning women's Bible Study at our church with women from all different types of ministries and backgrounds. Right now we are doing the Beth Moore study "Believing God" which has been a super study and very challenging to my faith. I need this time each week, it's a chance to get to know other women and have a little adult conversation!!!!
I hope you got a little glimpse of what we've been doing the last several months. It's been busy, but, God is so good! He's faithful to provide all we need.
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