Driving can be hazardous to your health

As Johnny and I were driving to Guatemala City today, we came across what has become a usual occurance - a construction cola. These colas or lines of traffic have been a common occurance since the government started widening the Pan American Highway. Today's cola was typical, although it lasted longer than usual. Let me see if I can help you see it thru my eyes:

It started as a typical stop in traffic when there is construction ahead. We are sitting in our lane, about 7 or 8 cars from the front of the line.

Also, as usual, the vendors collect and go from car to car, or bus in this case, selling whatever they have to sell. This young lady is selling tamales, which are wrapped in corn husks. The bus was full of hungry folks because she shucked corn husks out the door as she put the tamales in plastic baggies as she sold them. There were a pile of corn husks!

There is almost a carnival type feeling today. We are at an intersection that has a couple of vendors on a regular day. Today seemed extra-special! Note the kid on the homemade stilts.

When it was our turn to travel the construction area, all of the buses, vans and delivery trucks started going around the line of traffic, headed for the front of the line! In doing this, they blocked the last few vehicles coming the other way. We ended up with three lanes of traffic across the road. Where we are sitting is the actual lane.

Farther down into the construction area there was a detour. Apparently the guys stopping the traffic coming toward us went on break because we met a mess of trucks and cars at the detour. Here we are actually crossing the line of traffic coming toward us to take the detour!

The detour was a muddy mess! There is an orange truck in front of the red one that gets stuck in the mud. People have to get out and push him through the last of it. We had to go into 4 wheel drive to get through it ourselves!

Here we are crossing back through the line of traffic, back on pavement. It was the strangest driving experience I think we have had! And remember - this is the Pan American highway that goes from Canada to South America! One of the major thoroughfares in Guatemala!

Well, we made it to Guatemala City in 4 1/2 hours, usually a 2-3 hour drive! I am not looking forward to returning to the Camp through all of this, but then...that's Guatemala!

Maria

This would get you a ticket in Alabama!

Just a few of the driving "techniques" seen here in Guatemala. All I missed was the chicken bus with the "helper" climbing out the back door, up and across the roof and sliding in the side window, all going 60 miles an hour down the highway! By the way, the flat baskets in the top picture contains chickens!

Your smile for the day!

Maria

Finally, the sun!

Many of you got an email requesting prayer for us. As the rainy season closes, it tends to rain a lot, but we have had solid rain for 5 days. We were coming down with colds and, frankly, felt pretty miserable. It is hard to feel useful when you just want to go home. God is good, though, and answered your prayers. Today, we had the first sun we have seen in at least a week and are both feeling better, even though the colds have not gone away completely. Thank you for your faithfulness to our Lord, and to us, in your prayers. We are still a little homesick, but since this is not our "home", we probably always will.

Maria

Catherine Adams

This is Catherine Adams, our newest intern! Actually she was just here for the week to scout out locations for a six month internship for the first of next year. She is from our home church and we watched her grow up. She's like one of our own kids!

Catherine wants to work with children next year, so we looked at several orphanages and children's homes. Here is a photo of us checking out New Life children's home in Villa Nueva. Kara and Daniel Harris (from Atlanta) are two-year missionaries there and gave us a great tour of the place (complete with Southern accents)!

At Kids Alive in San Lucas, one of the housemother's daughters attached herself to Johnny and wouldn't let anyone else hold her! She's actually giving Johnny a hug here - and he loved it! He always did attract the women!!

Pray Catherine finds the location God wants her to be at. She is now back in the States starting her support raising.

I hope you like the changes on the blogsite. I needed a change!

Maria

New Basketball Court

The new basketball court is almost finished! In late August, the basketball goals were put in place and painted. Lines won't be painted until after the rainy season, late October or November, but that hasn't stopped the games!

We have already had one church visit and use the court, but at any time during the day, you might find neighborhood kids out there playing basketball or soccer.

And some who are no longer kids!

Aren't they beautiful?

Johnny has his work cut out for him! Today I bought 13 rose bushes for the Camp. When they are the equivelent of about $1.50 each and so very beautiful, it's very hard to stop at one.

But you have to come visit to see them for real!

Until then, enjoy the pictures.

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

Another Status Report

Johnny and I have spent 3 1/2 wonderful days in Tapachula, Mexico! We had to renew our visas and it required leaving the country for 72 hours, so we chose the closest border - Mexico. We have spent every morning by the pool, just sitting, reading and swimming, and every afternoon listening to the thunderstorms! Sometimes we were out in them, sometimes we stayed in the room. But it was a relaxing time and accomplished our visa renewal at the same time. We will head back to the Camp this morning, before the rains have time to start. We will be crossing the border around noon, so keep us in your prayers.

While we are in Tapachula, we had internet access and saw where another hurricane will be hitting the eastern border of Guatemala and Belize. Please pray for the people in the lower, coastal areas that will be hit, they have a tendency to flood. Also, we in the mountains will get rain from the outer bands of the hurricane, even if it doesn't come this far west. Pray we don't get so much that it causes landslides. We will keep you posted as we are able.

Maria
jcoker@caminternational.org

Hurricane news

As far as we are from news, sometimes we depend on you to keep us posted on what is happening in the world! One of our daughters called and notified us of Hurricane Dean and his progress across the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, we have had several calls and emails about how we were doing. So this is an update on the Cokers - we are doing fine, it is raining at present, but we really haven't seen any more rain than is usual this time of year. I believe they were expecting more rain for the western part of Guatemala, which could have caused landslides and flooding. But we had a couple of beautiful days Sunday and Monday, with rain that started about 2:00 PM yesterday. So thank you for your prayers and emails of encouragement! It's nice to know that when someone hears "Guatemala", they think of us and how we are being affected!

Please do be in prayer for our government elections here, to take place the middle of September. There have been more demonstrations in the Capital, although we are not affected by them out here in the country. But the change in the government (President, VP, even mayors and such) can affect us, for better or worse. Your prayers for God's will in Guatemala is greatly appreciated by all of the missionary community and the churches of Guatemala.

Maria
jcoker@caminternational.org

Our latest projects

This is what Johnny and I have been working on for the last couple of weeks. Yesterday, we planted about 20 plants, including bougainvilla, roses, azaleas and gerber daisies. The rain started about the time we finished, about 1:30P. It seems to be raining more each day and we can expect more with Hurricane Dean coming. But the house doesn't leak!!

For those of you that will ask: the plant in the front of the picture is a ground orchid.

We hope to get the basketball goals made and put up next week. We'll post pictures when they are in.

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

The newest wall

Well, so much for blogging! The internet was running faster this morning and I hoped to get some pictures put on but it slowed down after I got one posted. Oh well! For those of you who haven't been here for several months, this is our new wall that was added to help with the grade of the land down to the garage. Coming down these steps is so much easier. I have canna lillies planted in front and some plants on top. This is one of our "August" things. I'll show more next time!

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

We aren't "resting"!

I had such great plans to post pictures of our garden and the "wall" we made around it and pictures of the birthday party of our guard's children. Alas, the internet access where we are at present will not allow this, so I will have to do it later. Although this is a month of "rest", we are not resting! We have no teams, but we have been working around the Camp. As I mentioned, we have been working in the garden that was formed when a wall got moved. I took advantage of all of the dirt and decided a garden would look great! We bought plants in Antigua on Monday and will take them back to be planted today. I guess I will just have to take a picture after all of the planting and post it instead!

We were invited to a birthday party for the children of our guard last week. All of his family attended and lunch was included. The women had on their best huipiles and looked like a flower garden. I took balloons and a craft for the kids to do. It was a good thing that I had plenty of materials because almost every adult joined in and did the craft also! The craft a very simple, but the Guatemalan people love to be creative and are very artistic. That's a good thing because the craft involved neon green and pink pipecleaners and beads! We all had a great time!

I hope to be able to get online again later this week. Maybe I can post pictures then!

Maria
jcoker@caminternational.org

Ready for August

We had a wonderful week with our team from our home church of First Bible in Decatur, Alabama! They left early Saturday morning amid hugs and tears (and lots of car horns honking!). Johnny and I were blessed by their visit and the work they did for us. After completing the basketball court, they leveled out our yard and moved some plants - all because they knew I would like it! What love!

We spent the weekend in the capital and plan to head back to the Camp in the morning. Due to a generous gift, we went to eat at Applebee's (yes, we have one!) today for lunch! Tomorrow it's back to cooking again or eating Steve Bateman's favorite, peanut butter. Lots of soup and sandwiches around our house!

Please pray as we get to rest the month of August. We have no teams scheduled although we will not be sitting around twiddling our thumbs. There are several church visits already planned and I hope to talk to two ladies about starting a prayer group in their homes. My language skills are always a concern for me. I also plan to get curtains finished this month. The house will look much more finished with the sheets down and curtains up!

Also, Happy Birthday to Johnny tomorrow, the 30th!

Maria
jcoker@caminternational.org

Folks from home!

Well, First Bible arrived safely on Saturday noon, after a long morning of travel. The first order of business was lunch where the guys were the hit of Pollo Campero!

Sunday morning was spent relaxing because church didn't start until 3 PM! But here we are, enjoying a great time with Guatemalan brothers.

Yesterday, Nancy, Joy and I went to the Argueta church and had a VBS type program for the kids. We were only expecting 7 but 12 showed up! We (and they) had a great time!

Bob Dishman, Jerry Namie and Jon Moore wired the garage for us. We can now see without turning on the car lights at night!

They moved rock, dug out dirt and leveled the areas for the bleachers...

And worked concrete!

They were tired puppies after this day!

This basketball court was finished!

Xiba kept waiting for someone, in this case Chepe, to drop something at lunch!

Thank you, FBC, for sending your best! We are enjoying having them!!!

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

We're still here

Thank you to all of you that have so patiently checked the blog regularly on the off-chance I have posted something! It's been two weeks since our last posting, and much has happened. We continue to have difficulty getting to internet access and sometimes when we do have access, the service doesn't allow us to get to web pages, only email. Welcome to Guatemala!

Jon and Jamna stayed an extra day with us to help with 150 prejuveniles (12 to 16 year olds) who spent the weekend at Centennial Camp. It was about a disaster with trash thrown everywhere and kids up and running around all hours of the night. Since our garage was the only place to meet (or sleep), our gate was open for the weekend with the poor dog on a chain. We have decided that overnight activities are not possible yet, until we get the cabins usable up on the mountain (and far away from us!). We will still work with groups wanting to use the Camp for day activities.

Work continues daily on the Camp property. We are in the process of pouring concrete for a basketball court. This is what the team from Louisiana started and what First Bible, Decatur, Alabama, will work on next week. We have had different groups coming in the meantime to work on pouring also. We had a group working last Saturday when, at 11:15 AM, I was asked if I could supply lunch for the workers. Johnny was amazed that I came up with something for 13 people in 45 minutes! Frankly, so was I, but our God is amazing!

Also a work in progress is the stone wall that will separate the house from the basketball court.
As you can see, it is about 1 meter from the fence, but now the fence has been moved to the top of the rock wall. This gives us a little more room in the yard, our private area. We are also in the process of planting fruit trees and other flowering plants in the yard. Seems like everytime I plant something, though, someone decides to move something and I have to move the plants! Camp Do-over!


We have had lots of rain, but haven't floated away yet. We live under umbrellas when we are outside and in sweats when we are inside! Yes, even though we are south of most of you, with the altitude and the rain, it's cold!








Saturday we went to a church to show a film to a group of kids with the leaders of the prejuveniles. They use our projecter (we go with the projector) and this week, asked us to supply a movie. Out of all of the choices we had (not much for this age group), they chose The Chronicals of Narnia, which has a Spanish track. None of the leaders had seen it but after watching it, we will probably be showing it again. They absolutely loved it! We are always on the lookout for good movies, both for kids and adults, in Spanish. Since many of the people we work with cannot read, we have to find films with the Spanish language, not just subtitles. If you know of any good movies, let us know!

Sunday, we spent the day in two different locations in two opposite directions. Needless to say, much of our extra time yesterday was spent in the car. When we got home, it was time for the sweats! We enjoyed a DVD and just decompressed!

We are revving up for this week and our home church's arrival this coming Saturday! This blog was a little long and I hope to be able to post again before 2 weeks! Until then...


Maria
jcoker@caminternational.org

Jon and Jamna

We have had the honor this week of hosting Jon Tucker and Jamna Abdalah. Jon is from our home church of First Bible Church in Decatur, Alabama, and Jamna is from Nicaragua but is currently a student at SETECA, a seminary in Guatemala City. They are living with us for the week and discovering how cold it can get in the mountains!

We are celebrating the 4th of July today, but yesterday was back-breaking work of clearing an area for a garden,

digging a latrine for the 200 kids we have coming this weekend,

and moving rocks to build a wall within our fence. And that's just their first two days here! We will see tomorrow what the weather brings and what's on the list to do!

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

Two Hundred Trees

At 8:00 AM this morning, we had a hundred kids from a local school at our gate. They had plans to plant two hundred trees on the Centennial Camp property, around the area of the river and picnic area. It was a pleasant surprise, since they were not from a church school but the public school! The whole community is wanting to be a part of Centennial Camp - what a wonderful ministry!

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

The basketball court is started

As you can tell, we had the help of almost all of the team members! Four-year-old Maddy digs to "help" level the dirt before the concrete could be poured. Because of rain, the team spent three days preparing the area before they could begin with the concrete. But during the week the team was here, we had beautiful sunny mornings and some overcast but dry afternoons. God is good!

We are excited to have the basketball court started. There will be several local churches that will come and put in some "sweat equity" in the next couple of weeks to further the work on the court. Due to several large gifts to the Camp, we are excited to see the work progressing so rapidly!

Here is our team from Iowa (pronounced I-o-way), Louisiana! It was great to hear southern accents all week! They worked well with the local workers, even learning a few words in Quiche.

Justin, our intern, leaves tomorrow for Texas. Johnny enjoyed having a "son" around the house and they worked well together. Justin seemed to enjoy his time here with us and is spending his last day climbing the volcano Pacaya. Thanks, Justin, for all of your hard work!

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

Meet Justin

Say hello to Justin Freels, junior at Texas A & M, and our intern for the summer! He is the first intern we have had and has set the bar high for following interns! He is a hard worker and I can tell his momma she raised a good son. One thing nice, he eats anything I put before him! He has been with us for the last two weeks and has seen the inside workings of hosting a team. Now he is working hard with our team from Iowa, Louisiana! We have had a lot of rain in the last week and a half and today the team spent hours digging and leveling the field for the basketball court. (It was supposed to have been done with a tractor over the weekend but the rains stopped that!) Hopefully, they will begin laying the iron and pouring concrete tomorrow! Thankfully the rain held off today and lots of work was done without injury!

I just had to add this one so their wives could see what they could do!

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

Back to Guatemala

We arrived back in Guatemala on Monday, the 4th, but have been without internet until this evening. Johnny's sister's wedding was gorgeous and we had a wonderful time of visiting with family that week. Tallahassee was the first stop to see Jennifer and Andy. We spent almost 2 days there before driving to Chattanooga (by way of Sylacauga, AL, to have lunch with my mom) for the wedding. The whole week was busy, we saw everyone in the family at some time or another! I thank God for the break in our schedule.

In the next few weeks you will hear about Justin, our intern from Texas. I'm sure he will be mentioned more than once, since he will be with us for several weeks and involved in all we do! Then we will have two teams in the next two months, with lots of little things in between!

Until next time,
Maria
jcoker@caminternational.org

Watson Family

As we traveled from Atlanta to Tallahassee, we stopped off in Douglas, GA, to visit friends Chris and Trish Watson and boys Conner, Cameron and Caleb. For those of you not from First Bible Church, Chris was the Youth Pastor there when our girls were growing up. Chris also performed the wedding of our oldest daughter Lindsay and her husband Micah. We enjoyed visiting with them for a few minutes, hearing what was going on in their lives and discussing possible mission plans between their church and Centennial Camp. The boys had grown considerably in the last two years, although Chris and Trish hadn't changed a bit!

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org