SER Trip Summary - June 2012

Good evening sisters and brothers in Christ,
I recently returned from a month ministering to the Mayans in the mountains of southwestern Guatemala. My wife, Sally, joined me for the first ten days of the trip.

During my trip, we held two conferences for Mayan pastors, church leaders, future leaders, and teachers. The first conference was held for pastors only, on June 30, 2012. Approximately 50 pastors and future pastors were in attendance.

The newest member of our team, Edilzar Aguilar, taught the morning session and David Stoddard taught the afternoon session. Edilzar teaches pastors at SETECA (as does David) and the pastors in attendance were excited and thankful to have such high quality teaching brought to their community.

At the February seminar we noticed that many of those attending had difficulty reading our handouts due to poor eyesight. Therefore, we provided eyeglasses to be used at the seminar and returned to us at the conclusion of the seminar. A great number of those in attendance used the glasses so we will be providing eyeglasses at all our future seminars.

The second seminar was held on July 14 and was for pastors, church leaders, future leaders, and teachers. There were approximately 75 in attendance. David Stoddard taught the morning session and Benjamin and his wife, Damaris taught the afternoon session.

Benjamin and Damaris have a unique way of sharing the Good News. They travel throughout Guatemala and Latin America sharing the gospel through puppets. They recently returned from two months in the jungle of Peru sharing the gospel. They used the puppets to teach their sessions and those in attendance loved it (so did our team!).

While David was teaching the morning session, Benjamin and Damaris did a puppet show for the children at the Mayan school with whom we work. The children had never seen anything like it and were totally mesmerized.

One of the hi-lights of the trip was the dedication of the additional classrooms and desks those supporting SER made possible through their giving. SER provided the materials for the classrooms and purchased 42 desks for the children. The men, women, and children of the Mayan community did the labor. The labor consisted of manually digging out the foundation for the new building, constructing block walls, running electrical wiring, and mixing and pouring cement. In other words, back-breaking, hard work!

I want to express a heartfelt thank you from SER and the Mayan people to all you who participated in this project. The school now has nine classrooms for the 200+ students rather than three. Believe me, both the students and teachers are excited and appreciative.

It was a blessing to have my wife Sally with me at the dedication ceremony. It deeply touched all of us on the SER team. The teachers and students had practiced for weeks on skits to perform for us. One of the skits consisted of the children performing a variety of movements to a song about Jesus. I thought it was hilarious when the teachers were asked to perform the skit. I didn't think it was so funny when they asked Sally and me to perform it but the kids sure did!!!

While all this was going on the ladies continued to work tirelessly preparing a feast for us. They had been working hard since dawn to prepare our food. This is all done outside without modern cooking aids, such as mixers, food choppers, microwaves, or even a stove. All the food is cooked over an open fire!

These are the same ladies who prepare our meals and snacks at our seminars. By the way, they do not receive any compensation, and little recognition, for their hard work.

Thank you for your continued support through your prayers, encouragement, and financial giving.

In Christ's love,
Larry