It's the rainy season...

As many of you know, we are in the middle of the rainy season. So...when you are digging in the dirt, it gets messy! Here are some photos of the First Bible Church/St. Paul's Lutheran team from Decatur, Alabama. They had various projects, one of which was to level and sod the soccer court. Needless to say, a lot of digging was involved!

Each day, a different local church came and helped.

So they dug...

And dug...

and dug...

and dug...

and dug...

and dug!

They leveled a muddy field...

and sodded...

after first having to dig it up...

(Notice who is doing the work here!)

and move it up the hill!

They strung fence...

and added a roof on part of the porch!

I have no picture, but Steve and Evan also put shelves up in my kitchen!!!!

(Teams are great for getting things done that my husband doesn't do!)

All kinds of things were learned this week:

Team work helps!

Take advantage of break times!

Always supervise those women!!!

And finally, never run in the mud with boots on!

Power Girls!!!!

Maria

Recipes - Taco Stew

I have been asked to post some of my recipes on the blog. I need time to organize the pictures from First Bible/St. Paul's work team so I will post a recipe today and start posting for the team tomorrow.

Taco Stew

1 lb ground chuck

1 medium onion, chopped

1 can Bush's Chili Hot Beans or black beans, kidney beans

1 can tomato soup

1 can whole kernel corn, undrained

1 can Rotel tomatoes or equivelent amount of salsa, I use Pace's

1 package Taco seasoning mix

1 cup water

Brown the ground beef. In a large pot or crockpot, put all the ingredients together, including the meat, and let simmer. If you have the ground beef already cooked and frozen, it is easy to put it all in the crockpot on low in the morning and let it cook all day. It will be ready for supper!

Serve over taco chips, topped with grated cheese and sour cream. It is a great recipe for groups because you can always add an extra can of beans or corn to help it go farther!

This recipe serves about 6.

Hope you all enjoy!

Maria

We miss you already!

We put the team from our home town on the plane this morning and miss them already! It was so nice to have a touch of home for the week! This was a group from two churches in Decatur, Alabama, who worked together like they had known each other for years. Check out the blog in the next few days for pictures of their adventures!

Maria

Bits of Home

Saw this truck in a gas station in Guatemala City! Makes you homesick!

I promised them...

that their mothers would never see this! Imagine that...a missionary lying! What happens on a mission trip stays on the mission trip - unless it's good for the blog!

Sorry Jordan and John (the other Jordan).

Maria

Filter systems

The Visalia, California, team had two parts. One that worked at Centennial Camp and one that installed water filtration systems in two of our local churches. Here are some scenes from that:

These are pictures from the Iglesia Centro Americana "Emanuel" in Panajachel. Each church had to provide some of the parts, men to learn how to build the system and maintain it, women to learn how to teach the community how to stay healthy with clean water.

Some of the men from Emanuel who learned the system.

This system was put into la Iglesia Centro Americana "Esmirna" in San Pedro La Laguna, across Lake Atitlan from Panajachel.

A teaching session with the men...

learning how to build and maintain.

And with the women on teaching the benefits of clean water. There were activities for the women to learn so they could teach...

and hands on (off?) visuals of what dirty water has in it!

One of the women, Ana, from the Emanuel church learned so well that she was taken to the Esmirna church to help teach the women there. She was a great help!!

There were lots of photos taken and these were only a taste of what work was done. Each church had a celebration of thanks service where all in the congregation got to taste the clean, filtered water. Diplomas were given to each of the women and men involved and great fun was had by all! We look forward to the return of this team and their work around the lake!

Maria

Lots of Work

Photos of some of the work that First Presbyterian (and friends) did at Centennial Camp. They also put in two water filtration systems in two of our churches, but that is for another blog!

We now have curtains! Remember last year when I bought material and was going to make curtains? Well, I took the material out, looked at it for about an hour, was scared to cut it and put it away. But we had a wonderful lady from California that was not scared to cut my material and made my curtains!!!!!!!

Both our bedroom and the guest bedroom now has curtains.

Marge is 83 years old and a whiz with a spatula and sewing machine. As much as I appreciate their help in the kitchen, I appreciate the work she and Jean did on my curtains more!

Outside, a french drain was put in behind the wall around the soccer field...

dirt and rocks were moved (poor Tyler never wants to see dirt, gravel, sand or concrete again! But at 6'3", he ate enough that we had to get a lot of work out of him!)...

the gable of the garage got closed in and now it is dark enough inside to show movies during the day!...

spectator bleachers were cut into the side of the hill at the soccer field (Jordan, Samuel is still offering you a job!)...

fencing was put on top of the wall...

and block was laid to make bathrooms at the corner of the wall!

One workday, the whole team went to the Camp for work and one of the projects was to level the future soccer field!

Rich, we missed having you here, but, thanks to you, we were able to rent the tractor and saved ourselves two weeks of moving dirt by hand! Hope your wife's arm is better!

This is just a taste of the work that was accomplished! Most days, we had volunteers from the local churches working with the team and new friends were made! Thank you for all of your hard work at Centennial Camp!

Maria

Happy Anniversary!!

It's our 18th Anniversary today and we are blessed!

Two weeks of ... Fun!!

We just finished two full weeks of work with our two teams from Visalia, California! It seemed some of them loved us so much they wouldn't leave, but we finally threw them on a plane yesterday and locked the doors! Actually, part of the team stayed for two weeks with others coming and going as they pleased. Below are the two teams:

We had a great time and actually did a lot of work! This is the church that, other than our home church, has adopted us and visits twice a year. We always look forward to their visits and love to see them come back. They got a kick out of our Southern accents, "fixin' to...", and Pea-pickin' Cake. You'll have to visit to taste the Pea-pickin' Cake!!

Maria

Alma and Arthur

Two storms, one in the Pacific and one in the Carribean, wanted to meet. For this meeting, they chose Guatemala (and parts of Mexico, Belize and Honduras). Because of this tumultuous meeting, we have had almost 10 days of solid rain! Here are some bits of our lives in the past week that included water, mud, more water and no sun.

Some of you may be familiar with the waterfall between Solola and Panajachel. We have seen it worse, but not by much!

In preparation for our First Presbyterian team from Visalia, CA, we had things delivered from the local hardware store. In return, we got to keep their truck for almost 2 days!

Because of all of the rain, not much concrete has been poured at Las Buenas Nuevas (LBN). This picture was taken today while we saw about 3 hours of sun! We will be living at LBN a lot in the next 2 months so maybe I can update the pictures more often!

Maria