Our team in Tikal.

King of Hearts drama

Sharing the gospel in the classroom.

Clearing a path!

Please pray for Gilbert (left) and Maggie (right) who prayed with us to accept Christ.

Island Ministry

I just returned from a couple of weeks of outreach in Ambergris Caye, an island off the coast of Belize. Our YWAM team was on our outreach phase of the Discipleship Training School, and we were hosted in Belize by another YWAM base. Here are some ministry highlights:

-As we were entering the country an officer asked for some of my gospel tracts to pass out to others!

-As a ministry to the community our team picked up garbage along the beach and cut brush along a couple of roads to make a wider path for bikes and vehicles.

-We did ministry in a very poor neighborhood one day. It looked like a garbage dump, but the people are apparently using the garbage as landfill. A few of us talked to a lady there who was sitting on her porch. Her and her x-husband ended up praying with us to receive Christ!

-Our team did a couple of services at a carpenter shop. The owners are trying to share Jesus with their workers. We got to help by sharing dramas, testimonies and teachings. We also got to do some dramas and testimonies in a couple of churches on the island.

-I got to do some open air preaching along the beach. I used some illusions to draw a crowd and then I shared the gospel with them. A few of the kids who were in the crowd prayed with me to accept Christ. I also got to lead a few men to the Lord on a couple of other days.

-We did a series of programs in different classrooms at an Anglican school. Our base leader thought there may have been about 50 students that prayed with us to accept Christ during those 3 days of classes!

-After our time on the island we stopped to visit the Myan pyramids of Tikal. I was thoroughly unimpressed. I thought about the waste of human potential- piling up a bunch of rocks when they could have been loving Jesus and loving people instead. God, save us from wasting our lives on things that are going to crumble. Help us to build for eterninty!!!

-On the 16th I came home to 4 smiling faces and 2 wagging tails. Yep, life is good.

Time of Refreshing!

We just returned from a wonderful time of refreshing in Minnesota visiting our friends and family! It was such an amazing time, thanks to all who made it possible for us to really just unwind. You are so special to us, you'll just never know.

We were able to meet 2 new nephews! And, can I just say that the Annands make incredibly beautiful babies?! Really!!!! Congratulations to Mark's sister Robyn and her husband Patrick on their beautiful son, Joshua. We're also so glad to have been there for the birth of Matt and Katie's son, Max. What a blessing for us to be able to connect with new family members!

God is so good! I want to encourage you all to do what we've made a point of doing for our family--take a day to just rest, enjoy your family, and reflect on God's goodness. It's so important, especially now as things become so crazy in our world. We need to stay grounded in the things that are important. Spend some time of refreshing yourself!

What God has done!

It's so good to sit from time to time and look back on all that has happened. I try to do that in June so I can see the first part of the year and evaluate where we are. Did we get as far as we needed to in school? How are the kids doing? Are we meeting our goals as a family and, if not, what can we do to make room for new goals or to make our goals happen? Are we spending our time and resources wisely?

These are things I think about. Here's a 6-month evaluation:

Ministry since January 1, 2009

We have hosted and planned for several teams.
We have completed our new theme for Kid's Club on the Armor of God and the Fruits of the Spirit.
The girls have been helping teams at a malnutrition center.
We have continued to be active in our church.
Mark has been active in street ministry here in Antigua.
We've taken part in training sessions here in Antigua and Mark has taught at a conference at the Lake.
We've started building relationships with some young men here in hopes of beginning a youth minsitry in Antigua.
We've survived our 4th Semana Santa (Holy Week)! No small feat, I can tell you!

Family stuff

We have more than half completed our school year already! (we school year-round)
The kids have had a lot of opportunities to translate and use their Spanish.
We have been able to spend the beginning of the year seeking God for His direction for our family.
God has provided miraculously for our family and our visa situation.
Our family has been able to bless a couple of Guatemalan families and meet some needs they had.

Goals for the rest of the year.

We are needing a new car. Our car has just died--it was bound to happen! Mark has opportunities to go to rural churches and train the people, but, until we get a new, reliable vehicle, it can't happen. Hopefully we'll have a new one by the end of the year.

We need to finish our school year. Alicia will be in 10th grade! I can't believe it.

We need to take some time off. We need at least a month off to refresh.

We would like to do some more training sessions in evangelism and outreach and do more work with the youth in Antigua.


God is so good! We are feeling like we are right where we need to be and things are happening. We'll keep updating what's been going on as it happens!

Dayle

Small World

I’m in Guatemala sitting at the computer that we use to listen to the radio station from back home in Minnesota. Technology has made the world smaller. Imagine being a missionary to Guatemala 50 years ago. You may not have seen your family back home for years at a time, and you may have had to rely on letters to communicate. These days you can leave for the mission field one day and see your family on a video phone the next day. Hop on a plane and you’re back home after a couple of in-flight movies. Right now if I wanted to I could probably share the gospel with someone who’s sitting at his computer in... Germany! Amazing! Through email you can pass out virtual gospel tracts to people in many states at the same time! Maybe God has allowed this technology at this time in history to make it easier for us to get the job done. It makes the call to go into all the world to preach the gospel seem more do-able, doesn’t it?

If You're Watching This, I've been assassinated...

Lately things in Guatemala have gotten a little tense, to say the least! The political situation is not good. It's becoming volatile. Please pray for God's Spirit to fall and revival to begin. Watch this, and you'll know what I mean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC_ODpxMA10

What HAVE we been up to?

Okay, I know it's been a long time! But, we've been super busy and haven't been able to get new stuff added! Here's a few things we've been doing:

Bailey and Alicia worked with a team from our church helping to translate for them at a malnutrition center near Antigua.

We did a special Kid's Club where we took the kids on a prayer journey to tangibly teach them what prayer is. We had stations for them to go to with their prayer journals we gave them. We did Praise and Worship, Repentance, Praying for others, Praying for our needs, Thanksgiving, and What is Faith? Mark did the Repentance station. Alicia worked on the Praise and Worship Station. Christopher helped with What is Faith. Bailey worked in the Thanksgiving station. I kept it all rolling! They loved it! We were exhausted! We had about 80 kids that Saturday go through the whole prayer experience.

We also had Semana Santa (Holy Week) in there! This is one of the carpets made of colored sawdust that they make all over the streets of Antigua. They are beautiful! We love to walk around and look at them. Holy Thursday is when it all really starts with alfombras (carpets) and getting ready for the processionals, which are massive with all the costumed people. Mark does street ministry that night because there is so many people out and about. It was a good night and we got home around 5am Friday morning!

Sex and Dating Youth Rally

Today I had the amazing opportunity to speak at a youth rally of about 350 students on the subject of sex. I also got to share the plan of salvation with them. It seems like a strange mix- sex and salvation, but both originated from the heart of God. One relates to birth and the other to rebirth. My friend Luis translated for me and then he later shared a message about dating. The subject of sex is something that needs to be talked about a lot here. At Central Park in Antigua it’s a common thing to see young people making out for everyone to see. Makes me wonder what they do in private! I pray that today’s rally will be used by God to help bring a revival of purity to this part of Guatemala.

Fish Sandwich

A while ago I was fasting, and I started craving a fish sandwich. I could almost taste it! Well later as I was reading my Bible I happened to be reading in John 6, and guess what it was about! Jesus multiplying the bread and fish! "No fair!", I thought. Maybe it was God’s sense of humor. But then I thought of how much more valuable a spiritual fish sandwich is than a physical one. Eating a fish sandwich will feed my body, but reading about Jesus making a fish sandwich will feed my spirit! The Bible says that we can’t live on bread alone. We need every one of the words that God speaks. Which food do I hunger for the most? Also, I can multiply food like Jesus did! Every time I share God’s word with someone else I multiply it to those people, and they can get fed spiritually too! So, yes, I finally got the fish sandwich my taste buds craved. And it was sooooo good! But what’s better is knowing the God who feeds body, soul and spirit.

--Mark

Global Warming?

With all this talk about global warming and climate change I want to offer some thoughts. First of all, I’m not a scientist, so I don’t know for sure if global warming is even true or if it’s really caused by humans at all. But even if it is, there’s a deeper issue. When God made the world it was pronounced "good"(Gen 1:31). Creation fell when SIN entered the world- not when cars or factories were invented (Gen 3:17-18, Gen 6:5-7). So the reason the creation is so messed up is because of our sin in general. Some may say that our "sin" is not taking care of the earth better. But, no, Adam was probably taking care of the garden just fine (Gen 2:15)- until he disobeyed God’s commandment to not eat of the one tree God said not to eat from (Gen 3:6). So the real issue is disobedience to God’s commands. The real problem isn’t my carbon emissions it’s my sinful commissions. Because of our sin there WILL be a global warming one day. God has said he will destroy this earth with fire (2 Peter 3:7, 10) and make a new heavens and new earth (Is 65:17, Rev 21:1). So let’s seek God in this earth and look forward to the better one to come. Go green if you want to, but let’s let the Lord guide our steps, not the counsel of the ungodly (Ps 1:1).

--Mark

New Year Stuff

Well, here we are at 2009. Who'd have thought?

Our family decided to set aside this week to seek God together for this year and what He wants from us. We are watching "Driven By Eternity" by John Bevere this week and discussing it as a family. It's amazing what insights the kids have. I love their perspective on things! If you haven't read the book or seen the teaching, do it. It's really challenging. I love that it blows away things we as Christians always believed but, weren't necessarily Biblically true. I like the challenge.

I'm looking forward to this year. I can't wait to see what God will do with us. It's exciting! What will happen? What will we be doing this time next year? This time last year we were planning on going home for a visit in February, what will next year bring?

Blessings to you all this year. Seek God. Stay faithful!

-Dayle