Thursday, July 13th

Today was great day, we woke up really early to head out to the cafeteria where we had our breakfast, came back to our dorm where we prepared pb&j sandwiches to take on our trip to Patzun. It was a long trip, we got to see a lot of Guatemala that we hadn’t yet seen.

When we got to Patzun, the Milagro community and Pastor Jorge welcomed us. He told us a bit about the community. Their main source of income is farming and in many cases it is not enough to support them, regardless of their conditions it was an encouragement for us to see many of the women in the community be fully devoted to the Gospel and willing to help with the work in church. Stephen, Jerry and Lily met a woman on one of their house visits that was the leader of a local prayer group. She was an encouragement to all of us as we prayed with her.

After this we went back to the church to eat our lunch, then we set up for the VBS. As we waited for the kids we spent a really good time talking with everyone in church. We had a lot of fun sharing time with the kids. We read them bible stories and played games with them. We also did an experiment with them that showed how Jesus takes sin out of our lives, and made salvation bracelets with them that taught them the plan of salvation. Mrs. Pat McCann put together an amazing women’s bible study for the mothers of the children at VBS. After VBS was over, we handed out small stuffed animals and canvas bags made by our Women’s Ministry, which the kids were very excited about. Pastor Jorge also shared with us a beautiful testimony from Cesar who was 6 years old and early in his life he suffered from gastroschisis where Pastor Jorge and Jaime helped the family to attain medical attention and more importantly salvation. Through God’s amazing work Cesar today is fully recovered.

During the long drive back, Emma, Jaelene, and Lily were sprawled across their seats taking naps, and Stephen was showing one of our interpreters Johnny Cash and Ray Stevens. We stopped at a Wendy’s for dinner, Jerry, Jaelene, Lily, and Emma had a deep conversation about being yourself around other people.

Please continue to pray for us as we spend our last days here in Guatemala.

Jaelene, Lily, and Emma