How's the kids?

We get this question a lot because, they grow so fast!

Alicia

She is now 16 and finishing up her junior year of high school.  She speaks pretty fluent Spanish and does a lot of translating for teams.  She is participating on the drama team that Mark put together that participates in school ministry as well as street ministry.  Alicia will be spending the summer in Chico, CA participating in the 24-7 program at YWAM Chico.  This program is like a mini-dts that teaches leadership and service.  She's excited to venture out on her own for 8 weeks!  We aren't as excited for her to be gone, but, really happy that this opportunity has presented itself for her.  Her future plans include some college online next year and then in 2013 she plans on moving in with her grandparents and attend nursing school in Brainerd.  After school, she wants to return to Guatemala to work with villages that don't have a lot of medical care.  She is also trying to coordinate a mission trip for our youth group here in Antigua to go to San Andres Quiche to minister to needs there.

Bailey

Bailey is 14 and finishing her freshman year of high school.  She speaks really good Spanish and also participates in the drama team ministering in schools and on the street.  She loves music and art and is very gifted in drawing.  She has been taking piano and excelling at it!  She hopes to participate in the youth worship team later this summer after a few more weeks of lessons.  She will be spending the summer working with the different teams that will be arriving to work with YWAM Antigua this summer as well as helping to get ready for the DTS students who arrive in July. 


Christopher

Christopher has just turned 13 and is finishing up 7th grade.  He is taller than I am and he is still growing--too fast in my opinion!  He speaks excellent Spanish and also has been helping with translating with teams and also for Mark in the park.  He is busy with computers and friends and we are so thankful that he has a gift for computer technology and has fixed things here many times!  He LOVES spending time with his friends and playing computer games and just hanging out.  He just started attending our church's youth group and it's been fun to see him be part of what God is doing in our youth.  He will be helping with sound and video editing for our ministry this summer and with the teams that are coming.

So that's it!  They are growing fast and it's fun to see God work in their lives.  Thanks so much for all the support and prayer we receive for our family--it's such a blessing!

--Dayle

Answered Prayer

I was just looking at our sidebar on this blog and realized that one of the prayer requests we put on there (over a year ago) was for new opportunities in the schools.  We have been praying and believing for opportunities to go into the schools here to share the love of Jesus to the students.

In the last 2 months this has been starting to happen!  Mark and the girls have been working with a group of missionary teens here to start a drama team to work on dramas and a program for public schools.  This is a group of about 9 or 10 teens.

Since they've started this team they have ministered in at least 3 school programs!  One was in a part of the City where the school called and asked for help because things in the school are bad and they need a change!

God is so good!  If we prepare for rain, it will pour!

Updates on all our Stuff!

It has been one crazy time in Casa de Annand!  We have enjoyed the DTS (discipleship training school) students being here since the end of July.  4 of those students were from the Lake Atitlan area of Guatemala.  Spanish was actually their second language since their families are indigenous.  They were awesome!  We also had 3 students from the USA who were a blessing to us and our kids--our kids miss them now that they are all in Haiti on outreach!  It was a lot of fun to have them over for dinners, game nights, movies, whatever.  We are so grateful for the opportunity to work with people like that.  Truly a blessing for our family.

There have also been some changes as far as our home schooling journey goes.  As many of you know, it's been a lot of years of praying for friends for our kids.  We had some friends, many who lived far enough away that we couldn't get there on a regular basis for one reason or another.  It's been a lonely time sometimes!  But, this past spring several new families moved into our area with kids our kids' ages!  So awesome!  Since they are all homeschoolers as well, we decided to start a learning co-op.  So now, on Thursdays, we do art, music, and science at our co-op in our church building here in Antigua.  We have 12 families and about 23 kids!  It's just a huge amount of fun and a great ministry to missionary kids and their families. 

Since then, we've had movie nights, dinners, parties for the kids in the co-op to get together outside of Thursdays.  Also, our church now has a youth group and we are so thankful!  So many opportunities opened up in the past few months for our kids to have friends and activities that are so important!

We are so thankful to be living in Antigua doing what we do.  Even though there are a lot of daily challenges, we wouldn't want to be anywhere else!

New things that are coming up is Mark's potential trip to Haiti to meet up with our students while they are on outreach.  We are hoping to raise another $1300 to help pay for the trip.  Please pray!  We need to have the money raised in the next few weeks as he is hoping to be gone by Thanksgiving for 2 weeks of ministry and outreach into Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  It's not a cheap trip!

We also are still plugging away at raising money for our car.  We want to get it completely paid off by the end of December.  We don't know what we'd do without our vehicle, it's become really important because of soup run, and so many other ministries that we do.  It's also going to hopefully allow Mark and a team of other guys to do more outreaches into outlying communities coming up next year.  More on that later!

Soup run is going well.  We continue to go out once a week and hand out food to between 30-40 people on the streets of Antigua.  During that time, we can also pray with them and minister to them.  Through this ministry we met Jason, a 16-year-old boy who lives on the street and is addicted to glue.  We have found a place that is willing to take him despite is addiction and help to rehabilitate him--Teen Challenge in Guatemala City.  Jason and Mark visited last week and after filling out all the paper work and touring the facility, Jason got scared and decided not to go in.  Mark had to bring him back to Antigua and drop him off on the streets again.  Please pray that Jason stays safe until he gets the help he needs.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support.  We couldn't continue to do what we do in Guatemala if it wasn't for the faithfulness of all who believe in what we are doing and support us!  You are a blessing to us!

Family Stuff!

Here we are in September and all I can say is, "Where did the summer go?"  All those wonderful plans we had--what happened to those!

Here are some things that happened this summer:

Hurricane Agatha














We have a lot of things on here about our ministry after the hurricane.  This has been a bad rainy season!  The worst in years.  The result has been mudslides, washed out roads and bridges, injuries, and even death.  Please pray for Guatemala as they dig out of it all.


Alicia turned 16!  We had an '80s birthday party for her and it was so much fun!

Alicia's party













I just doesn't seem possible!  But, she's 16 and in about a year and a half, she'll be graduating from high school and heading out on her own.  Pray for her parents!!!!!  Pray for God's direction for Alicia and that she would clearly hear His voice.


Then there was the usual--Alicia had surgery, Christopher broke his arm, immigration stuff--God was faithful in every situation and we are so blessed!

Now, something new!  Anyone who knows me, knows how passionate I am about our kids!  I love our kids!  I love teaching them and watching them grow and learn.  They have been blessed recently with great missionary friends who are the same ages as them and are also being homeschooled.  So great and a huge answer to prayer for us!  In response to this, we've started a learning co-op at our church here in Antigua where they learn science, music, art, and mayan weaving.  They also get to hang out with friends and build relationships.  So important!  Here are some pictures of our first day of ministry to missionary kids and moms!

Such a great opportunity!  Our kids are blessed and so is our family! 

Whirlwind Weeks!

It's been a crazy whirlwind in our house lately. I don't know how else to describe it! Not only have we been wrapping up the school year, but, we have had teams and ministry commitments that have kept us hopping. Sometimes it amazes me how hard it is to keep things from spinning out of control! But, it's been a good time in our house lately for many reasons: 1) Looking forward to a little break from the school routine, which we all need. 2) The ministry is really stepping up and doing well. 3) The kids are growing and we're trying to keep the social calendar to a dull roar!

But, one of the biggest changes we had during these 2 weeks was a temporary addition to our family in the form of a little boy named Clinton who was placed with us from the emergency courts here in Antigua from the streets. We met Clinton through our soup ministry around Easter time here. He was living with a group of homeless people in an area of Antigua called "La Polvera" (basically the vacant lot). He did have parents or anyone with him, he was by himself, working when he could in the market selling toothbrushes and toothpaste.

We were concerned about him, understandably, and spent a few weeks trying to find out his story. What concerned us the most was when we found him starting to sniff glue. Glue is a huge issue here in Guatemala (it's a cheap drug), and few people understand the danger. It really is more dangerous than a lot of street drugs. Mark and I knew we had to act quickly. We had a lawyer who attends our church find out about the system for getting a child off the street and started that process.

After sitting with Clinton at the courthouse for 4 hours, we were told by the judge that they had made at least 15-20 phone calls to orphanages in the area and none of them would take him. The choice at that point was to return him to the street until they could find something or taking him home with us. It was a clear choice. At about 1:30 am, we were sitting in the back of a police truck driving back to our house with Clinton.

Now began 2 weeks of total change for a little guy who had been on the street for a while. Taking a hot shower was something fun for him and we couldn't get him out! He just loved the clean feeling. Brushing his teeth regularly was also something he liked. Waking up and knowing he'll have 3 meals and play time with kids was new. Watching kids do school work was interesting to him--he'd never been to school. Just family life in general was a lot of fun for him to experience.

We had just watched the movie "The Blind Side" and I remember the scene where they are having Thanksgiving dinner and they all take their plates into the family room to watch TV and Michael Oher takes his into the dining room and sits there and starts to eat. That happened with us! I remember all of us dishing up our dinner and heading into the living room (we were used to this since we hadn't had a dining room table for a while) and Clinton sat at the dining room table and started eating. We all gathered up our stuff and sat with him and enjoyed sitting around a table together.

So many things we take for granted.

Clinton is now in Casa Shalom, happily living with 5 other boys in a house with his house dad. He's in school, attending church and chapel, getting 3 meals a day, sleeping out of the rain, playing soccer and basketball, working with chickens and having fun. He's happy! We're so blessed to see him be able to make something of himself and have opportunities to grow and learn. God is good!

Medical Outreach

It's been a crazy week! Our church here, Iglesia del Camino, is hosting a team of nursing students from Sacred Heart University to do a medical outreach into a neighboring community--Pastores. We've been helping out as a family to provide evangelism, helping with the kids, translation, cooking, and just helping where we can! It's been a lot of work, but, we are loving it. Here's some photos from the week we're having!

Market ministry

Another Saturday, another outreach!

We took the team out to the market here in Anitgua during an afternoon on market day. After getting permission from the police there to do a drama and for Mark to share the gospel, they did the drama "King of Hearts" and then Mark preached while Christopher translated. Mark doesn't necessarily need a translator, but, he wants Christopher to be comfortable with translating. Christopher does a great job!

Malnutrition Center Report from Bailey

There are about sixty to seventy kids there in all. Around 25 babies, and the rest are little kids. There are only three people working with the babies, and four or five working with the little kids. Some of the babies there look younger than they really are. Me and Alicia and two of our friends thought that one of the babies was six months old, but she was really two years old. All four of us were there when a little girl named Maria got there. Her mom stayed for a long time to see what they would do with her. She was about four years old, and was tall and skinny. She kept her little blanket around her all the time, and didn’t give any sort of facial expression, but every once in a while, she would look up at her mom and would cry a little. Her hands and feet were blown up like tennis balls, and she could barley move her fingers, and couldn’t walk. Because she couldn’t walk, she went in with the babies. When we went there again, about two weeks later, her hand and feet had gone down to a normal size, and she was able to walk a little! Alicia worked with her on that, and whenever she walked for a little ways, she would look up at Alicia and smile like she was proud of herself! She is now in the older girls and is almost ready to leave!

Mission Trip Report from Alicia

A year ago, I went to San Andres (a place in northern Guatemala, up by Mexico) with a team from Minnesota to be their translator. The team was going there to build a church for a pastor and his family who lives there. While we were there, we were able to do a small vbs for some of the kids who live in the area, and I was the translator for that. We got quite a bit of the church built while we were there, but it was finished after we went back home.
In November, the woman (Dot Schmidt) who led the team last year came to our house to drop off some things from my grandparents. She had come back to Guatemala for the dedication of the church that was now finished. When she came to our house, she asked me if I would go with her to San Andres again to be her translator. I said yes, packed my bags, and left 15 minutes later! This time, it was just us. She didn’t bring a team down.
While we were there, we went to the dedication and did a lot of prayer walking. We were going to do another small vbs, but that didn’t work out. Also, Dot asked me to co-lead a team to San Andres next year to do a vbs and I said I would. I`m pretty excited about that!

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!

I've been Busy!!!

It's been a busy few weeks! I cooked Thanksgiving for a LOT of people at the cafe, cooked Thanksgiving for our family (we like the leftovers and there isn't any with the cafe meal!), started school back up with the kids again, had a party for our lit class where we studied Pride and Prejudice, did a party for the Kid's Club at the base, made and decorated a wedding cake for a customer at the cafe, and still found time to decorate, shop, and start our Christmas baking. Whew! I feel like super mom!!!!! (not quite)

Here's some pictures of our recent happenings:

The first is the party for the Kid's Club. The second is the group of girls we had for our "Pride and Prejudice" class we did. This was the party we had. They had to dress up if they could and bring a food made from a recipe of the Regency Period in England (about 1810-1830).

And the third picture is of our kids and the neighbor kids posing in front of the gingerbread house we made. How long do you think that actually lasted? I can tell you that it was less than a week!

Family Happenings

We are coming up on our 3rd anniversary of moving to Antigua, Guatemala and we are amazed at what's happened in such a short time! Not only have we been busy with ministry (see the post below), but, our kids have grown up a lot! They've been busy with all that we do here as well. Here's some highlights!

Alicia

Alicia is now 14 and is really getting involved in what we are doing here in Guatemala. She helps teach a Sunday School class at our church on Sundays, she's working with groups of kids at our Kids Club on Saturday mornings, and she's going to be helping out a team from Minnesota with translation and children's ministry in November (without us, I might add!). She's doing so well at Spanish and is really studying hard so she can translate effectively while she's with the team next month.

Bailey

Bailey is now 12 and very busy with her horseback riding, her school work, and helping out in the ministry. She has a job working at the stables where she rides to earn lessons. Here's some pictures of her!

Christopher

Christopher is now 10 and also busy with school, friends, and ministry help. He helps out in his Sunday School class when they need someone to translate at times, and he also helps us with Kids Club.

What do the kids do?

What do they do? Well, pretty much what they did in America only not as easily!


We homeschool. They get up by 7 am, do chores, and then start school by 8:30. We do school all morning and eat lunch together at about noon or so (depending on our morning!). Sometimes in the afternoon we have some school work to finish. We also will go to Higher Grounds, our YWAM cafe in Antigua, to do some work or just hang out with people, or, on Wednesdays, we have classes at our house for other missionary kids who are homeschooled. Mark teaches the boys a Bible class and I am teaching a literature class on Pride and Prejudice.


Alicia babysits a lot! She loves that because she's earning her own money. She also will be starting back to Spanish school 4 hours a week soon. She finished 2 years of high school Spanish in one year last year. She translates for people and teaches a Sunday School class in our church on Sundays for girls ages 6-12. She teaches in English and Spanish. She will be doing a missions trip coming up in November with a group from MN where she will translate for them and help head up their children's ministry in a village about 3 hours from our house.







Bailey rides horses! That's what she does. She loves it!!!! We have been blessed with a supporter who has paid for her lessons once a week for about 2 years now. Her instructor came to us and asked if she could come a second day a week to learn dressage and more jumping. She offered Bailey a job at the stables one hour a week to groom horses and clean tack in exchange for one more hour of lessons. Bailey was so excited! Not only can she ride more, but, she's earning it herself. She loves that. She jumps these horses over really incredible jumps. She's learning show jumping and will be starting competitions soon here in Guatemala and eventually in other Central American countries.







Christopher is a typical boy. He's probably the best of all of us at Spanish and uses it all the time. He loves to help out with his class in church and also will translate for the teacher for the boys who don't understand Spanish or if the teacher is English, for those who don't undertand English. He likes to help us out at Kid's Club and at home. He has a lot of friends here, which is nothing new since he's so social!







That's about it, except the sleepovers, parties, summer camp, play dates, school field trips, etc. So, it's really not much different as life in the US!

How they have grown!

Look at them! They've grown so fast I can't believe it. Alicia just had her 14th birthday yesterday. Bailey has her 12th at the end of this month, and Christopher will be 11 next May. Where has the time gone?

They are doing well here. They will be busy with us helping out with Kids Club at the base coming up in September and every Saturday after. They are learning Spanish and trying really hard to get their schoolwork done early enough every day to be able to play outside.

We are so proud!

This is our dog and cat. The dog is Shadow and the cat is Mish. We will be getting another dog, a little terrier at the end of the month named Lola.

We are getting another animal because, basically, Shadow belongs to Christopher (or Mark, depending on who you're talking to) and Mish belongs to Alicia. So, as you can see, there's a child not matched with a pet. Hence, Lola will be joining our family to give Bailey a little friend!

Shadow came to us because he was being abused and we bought him from the family who was abusing him. We were going to find him a home, but, he fit so well with us, he became part of our family. Mish was given to the kids when we were in El Salvador renewing our visas. The family we stayed with loved the kids and gave them Mish when we left their home. Lola belongs to a friend who will be leaving to go to the States and needs a home for her.

Mish and Shadow have very distinct personalities. Shadow is all dog, very playful, happy, affectionate, loyal, and sweet. Mish is all cat, proud, used to his own way, cuddly when he wants to be, and, believe it or not, sweet! We don't know about Lola, but, we'll let you know as soon as we figure her out!

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.