Monday, August 1, 2011

Guatemala Campaign July 2011—Part 1


        Over the next few weeks there will be articles about the recent trip to Guatemala.  There were nine travelers total including Paul & Linda Miller, Kayla Waller, Terry Carr-Jones, Bryan & Casey McDonald, Henry (Enrique Sr) Colon, Ricky (Enrique Jr) Colon, and Mario Racancoj all the way from Madrid Spain.

On Thursday, July 7, we left Four Mile Hill parking lot at 3:30 AM.  We arrived in Guatemala City about noon and caught a bus at 2 PM to Puerto Barrios.  We checked-in to our hotel that night about 9:00 PM.  

Day two of our trip started out by helping with some building maintenance and home visits to wayward members.  At the building we moved dirt to help flatten out the church’s property and make the drive-way level.  The building had some water damage so we helped chip away the ruined plaster in order to prevent fungus.  After lunch we came back to the building and went to visit Amilcar Espana.  He preaches in Morales and recently came down with cirrhosis.  We also got to visit with his wife who was not a Christian at the time (more on that later).  He is doing well and is back preaching only 3 weeks after liver surgery.  After visiting we witnessed the baptism of a new sister, Sarah, whose husband was baptized three days earlier, Pablo.

          That night we had a worship assembly and a presentation on an effort put-on by the area congregations for training in personal evangelism.  The course will begin September 6th and will cover a broad spectrum of topics.  Biblical/historical studies will be covered including specific books of the Bible and time periods from Ancient Israel through the Restoration Movement of the church.  Denominational studies will also be studied to prepare people for encounters during studies with people.  Personal evangelism tactics will be learned specific to the culture in Guatemala.  We got back to the hotel that night about 10:45 PM after a long and fulfilling first full day in Puerto Barrios.  A general consensus among the team was to go down and help, but more than anything we went down and were the ones helped.  More to come in the following weeks…

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