Whew!!

The title says it all! We have been back from the States for a month now and have been going wide open! As I have previously mentioned, we have hosted our daughter and her husband, a friend from Alabama and Johnny's sister and attended the CAM-Guatemala field conference for 3 days. After that, we had meeting at our house of 4 Guatemalan men interested in starting missions programs in the local churches. They started the meeting with supper (yep, guess who cooked?) and lasted until 1:30 AM when Johnny had to take one of them home (20 minutes one way) and the other 3 stayed the night. Well, when people stay over night, you need to feed them the next morning, right? So breakfast was included! Several days later, we had old friends from the capital and Antigua and new friends from Florida and Texas join us for lunch (we were 12). We had a great time showing off the Camp to those new to Guatemala and visiting with those from here. This Saturday, we will have 150 prejuveniles or middleschoolers at the Camp for a day of games, Bible study and a movie. Sounds like fun, huh! Below, I have added some pictures for you to see what is going on at LBN and the Camp.

As you can see, construction continues at Las Buenas Nuevas! The area of construction here will house offices, storage areas and 6 apartments for guests. We are excited about the update! Those of you coming this summer will see more of this as it progresses!

One of the projects we had proposed (and really needed!) for this year were drainage ditches. These were needed because in the road widening of the highway that splits the property, the construction crews routed all the overflow water from the highway onto Camp property. Last rainy season, Johnny had to use 4-wheel drive to exit the driveway a couple of times! So this was a project needed before the rainy season started this year. These shots were taken last week as they were laying the concrete tubes in the ditch. I love this shot because there are three guys standing there watching two guys work!! Johnny has an excuse, but the picture says it all!!
This shot is looking toward the highway, in all, it was about 125 feet of backbreaking work! But it is almost completed just as the rains are beginning. Praise God!
While the ditch was open, this was our bridge to get across. I didn't like driving over it and was sure I would fall in one day! Thankfully I didn't and it is all closed up now.

Just had to add this one! Elda is our guard's daughter and loves to have her picture taken. Xiba does too but we had problems getting Xiba to hold still and not kiss Elda!

Also, the driving lessons continue as do piano lessons for two young men from one of our local churches! God has been gracious, though, and given us several days of rest. We look forward to attending a week-long leadership conference in Dallas starting April 19th. Thank you for your prayers and continued support.

Maria for the Cokers