Here in August of 2009, I led a team of 3 to Guatemala at the invitation of the moderator of the Presbyterian Church.

Following up on a presentation last year by another member of the PRMI ministry, we were invited to address their annual pastors training event at Mt. Zion Camp, about 45 minutes away from the airport in Guatemala city.

The whole story will be broken up into 3 posts (links active when others are published):

• Getting to Guatemala
• Sunday Preaching at Central Presbyterian
• The Pastors Conference in Guatemala.

Getting to Guatemala

My flight was a bit delayed, and the only other hitch was my ground connection was a little late.  My teammates came in on a Delta flight earlier in the day.

I was greeted by Pastor Alvaro (pictured below), the moderator of the presbtyery of Guatemala city.  We communicated well in spanish.  He spoke slowly with me, so that I could understand everything.

As we were driven to the camp in a beat-up 4 door pickup, I saw many familiar sights as typical in latin america. Lots of painted advertising on cement one story structures, lots of pedestrians.  What was different was seeing alot of the women wearing Mayan traditional clothing.  Guatemala city is built on mountains ridges so the descent to the camp was steep and fast.  This is one country that hopefully has a good brake inspection system.

Arrival at the camp

Mt. Zion camp is a beautiful but sligtly rustic camp.  We had indoor plumbing, but no hot water.  Some of the cabins had bathrooms in separate cabins.  Our toilet didn’t have a seat.

Daniel, the camp administrator welcomed us, showed us around, and turned out to be a great host.  With some instructions, he left us with word that he’d pick us up for dinner.

We used the afternoon to unpack, rest a little from the travel.  He also gave us a tour of the office, some introdcutions to staff and the like.

Most of the staff lives on site, and each staff member has at least two chickens.  We saw plenty of those chickens everywhere.  Lots of dogs around too.

The camp turned out to be more humid than expected, and no where near as frigid cold as Vida Joven’s camp in Matagalpa Nicaragua.  We expected overnight temperatures in the 50s from weather reports, but don’t think it ever got that cold.  No jackets were needed.  Sleeping bags were too much.  We would have been fine with blankets.

The scenery was its own beatuiful vista.  The camp overlooks a beautiful but polluted lake.  From our distance, it doesn’t look polluted, but it was.  Algae blooms gave it a green tint.  No boaters on it except the olympic team in training.  Fishermen might be on it, but only for catch and release.  Common words shared with me was don’t eat it.  This is the view from the dining hall.

However, mosquitos, roaches, spiders, bees, and flies were plentiful.  Bug spray is an absolute must, wearing it nearly every day to keep it at minimum.

Rainy season meant mud.  Mud tracked everywhere.  An umbrella would have been more helpful than a jacket.

In our cabin, flip flops were a must to keep your feet clean, but make sure they had bugspray.  I got bit something fierce on my right leg that may very where have been a spider bite.  About 10 welts on my right calf.

Food for the trip

Most of the food during the trip turned out to be wonderfully typical.

• Pureed black beans and cheese with everything.
• Platanos of some kind nearly every meal.
• Corn meal used rather frequently.
• Tamales, and they also liked some picante for their food.
• Lots of tomoatoes, fresh fruit, and fresh bread nearly every morning.
• The boiled corn on the cob, rubbed with lemon and a little salt was new, and tasted just fine.

We asked for typical food and had plenty of it.

After teaching at the Missions Institute in the Darien, the next day (Sunday) I get to preach at a different church.  The pastor of this church was one of the students, and some of his members are taking the class as well.

Spending the night

We had spent the night at pastor’s mother’s house, a new structure still being built, built out of cement block, decorated with ceramic tile.  

I unexpectedly find myself rejoicing at indoor plumbing.  In comparison with the outhouses I had seen at the church, and most of the housing I had seen and expected to stay in, staying in this house felt like being honored like royalty.  An audible gasp escaped my lips as we pulled up in the driveway, to the amusement of my driver. 

At night, from the back porch, I could see the Southern Cross – a constellation that is not visible from where we used to be in the US.  It looks like a giant kite in the night sky.  

The only sounds were of typical night creatures — frogs, crickets, locusts, with the occasional mutter of a horse or moo of a cow.  Quite the contrast from the city.

I crash pretty quickly from teaching in Spanish all day, so visiting was not something I got to do well until the next morning.  

Fog covered the farm fields.  The cool damp morning air smelled clean and refreshing.  The only sounds were chickens clucking for some food, cows, and the occasional gunshot where farmers were scaring away birds.  

After a small breakfast, we travel across the rutted dirt roads, around several farm fields to arrive at the Foursquare church right on the main highway.  Our vehicle is covered in clay mud from the trip through the soggy road of red clay.

The pastor leads two churches on a circut, but for this occasion of my visit, he had the churches meet together.  

Like the one I taught at yesterday, this church is a one room structure.  For Sunday school classes, they uses some open sided gazebos that also serve as classrooms for a private school during the week.  The school has about 200 high school students that meet 1x a week in a collection of these gazebos.

I took the picture above to show a sample classroom.  It had been full of youth group aged kids.  

During the week in my devotional time, praying for this Sunday, I felt led to share a message on having a daily time in the word of God.  Sermons are fine, but we each need to spend our own time in God’s word.  We pray for our “daily bread,” not weekly, monthly or yearly.  

I had written out a manuscript ahead of time, as that is what I still must do for preaching to help weed out lots of grammar mistakes in Spanish.  Where I got stuck with a word (some words don’t just roll off the North American tongue), the congregation pitched in.

After the service, we were invited back to the pastor’s house where we shared a meal.  The house didn’t have a stove, so the meal was prepared in a pot over the open fire in a lean-to off the back of the house.  

It was still good, but I found myself deeply grateful for the effort they were making to honor this American guest.  I felt humbled at their meager living arrangements, yet grateful that we don’t live that way.   We are still very blessed economically.

While waiting for the food to be prepared, I was given a lasso, and a task to try and get a fence post.  What cowboy’s make look really easy, I discovered was near impossible for me.The gentleman who drove me on this trip is trying to do this particular task.  It’s not as easy as it looks, I promise.

Join us in Prayer and Support

Continue to pray for our ongoing work.

Continue to pray for growing comprehension and communication ability.

Finally, continue to pray that we increase our levels of monthly support to continue making teaching like this available to churches and regions that are like the Darien.  

Would you consider joining our monthly Support team or make a special gift to help us continue?

Travel by bus

One class was about a 4 hour bus ride away.

Rising at 3am, quite groggy and hungry, I left to catch a very chilly bus ride to this little town.  The air conditioner was on overdrive.  At least this time I was prepared with a hat and fleece jacket.  (I learned how cold the overnight buses are when I went to Volcan).

Trying to sleep was impossible.  I passed the time praying for this country (which just had new presidential elections) and for the class I was going to conduct in Spanish.  I wanted the Holy Spirit to touch hearts and ignite a passion for evangelism.

The class

About 20 had gathered for the class that began at 8.30am.  The disparity in education levels stuck out — some with MD degrees, some with only 6th grade.  All with a passion to share the grace of Jesus.  One pastor needed 2 hours to get there for class — his little church was more remote than the little town I was in.

We spent 6 hours on personal evangelism training in cooperation with the Holy Spirit.

At times, the Lord moved us from the teaching into spontaneous worship, times of confession, repentance, and intercessory prayer.

We made sure that we finished on time to catch the last bus to the city to make our connection home.

The impact

On the way home, my host began to share with me how this teaching deeply impacted his life.  Santos had been meditating on it for days.

“I felt like an evangelistic failure.  I had been trained in many different styles, but never seeing any fruit.  You helped me see that Evangelism is a process and I’m just a part.  Conversion is God’s work, not mine. I can learn to trust the sovereignty of God.”  — Santos.

He went on to share with me the impact on his life, outlook about ministry, and confidence. He recalled recent experiences of sharing his faith with family members and in the hospital ward where he ministers.

One of many

He’s a small group network leader in one of the largest churches in this country and is beginning to share these principles in his network.

Continue to pray for these students. I’m continuing to interact with them, encourage them, and equip them to passionately fulfill their callings.  Pray that this teaching will spread and reach into networks I’ve never dreamed.