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

Our House

Some of you have been wondering what our house looks like. Many of you have been here and saw it before we moved in. Well, here it is with furniture (or at least some of it). Most is self explanatory. Where it looks like we have several cats...we don't. She just followed me from room to room as I took the photos. We do, however, have a dog now by the name Xiba (Sheba). She loves to sleep on top of the well.

Love to all,

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

Soccer Players to Guatemala!

For the last two days, we hosted part of a women's soccer team from Northwestern Nazarene University. These 7 young ladies, their coach and his wife (the assistant coach) helped us around Centennial Camp with the little things that needed doing but just hadn't gotten done yet. You know, those things on the "honey-do" list. They included:

painting the inside doors, putting in window screens and hanging curtains,

helping Antonio and Pedro tie wire to make cages for the wall we are building around the papifut and basketball courts,

and moving construction trash to a dumping site. (Like our new truck? Thanks to our friends at FBC) They also dug a burn pit for us but, sorry girls, I didn't get a picture of that.

The girls worked hard and were a tremendous help! Thanks NNU - we will be keeping up with you next soccer season!!

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

Visiting Family

It has been a whirlwind, but I have enjoyed the last two weeks! On April 30th, I flew to Birmingham, AL, and spent almost a week with my mother in Sylacauga. During that week, she and I made a trip to Decatur and Pensacola, FL. There was a quick visit to First Bible, among other places, while we were in Decatur, but no time for anything extended. THEN...on May 6th, Mother and I flew from Birmingham to Atlanta, meeting up with our eldest daughter and her husband, Lindsay and Micah, and continued on to Guatemala City. Mother and Micah had never been to Guatemala before, so we visited several villages around Lake Atitlan, including Panajachel, and stayed nights at the Camp. We arrived in Antigua yesterday and have had a great time shopping, touring ruins and...

fishing! They will all return home on Sunday, but since Mother's Day here was May 10th, we celebrated Guatemalan style!

I hope to update you more often. We have had considerable trouble getting enough of a connection to download email, let alone update the blog! Continue to pray for us to be able to get internet at the Camp. Keep us posted with your news! We love hearing about your everyday lives!

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

A True Missionary Experience

You will have to forgive that this is so long, but it was a long day! Last week, it was decided that we (Johnny, Samuel Caen and I) would visit two churches on Sunday that are so secluded that they have not been visited by missionaries, church counsel or anyone in several years! In truth, we would need the 4WD to get in there! We were asked to go, partly because we were trying to visit all of the churches in the consejo and partly because we had the 4WD. So the day started at 3 AM for the 5 hour trip. Two brothers from Nahuala would be joining us, but when people started arriving for our 4 AM departure, it ended up being a total of 12! (Three we picked up enroute, but that is beside the point). The trip would take 4-5 hours to get there and was on the coast side of the mountains we live in. About 3 hours into the trip, we stopped for "breakfast". Actually what happened was we stopped at a restaurant, brought in our own food and only ordered coffee! But the owner was gracious and they tipped her nicely. The reason for the quotation marks around the word "breakfast", was what we had to eat! It is called patin and is made up of beef and small, whole fish, about the size of minnows, and served on a banana leaf. It was also picante.

Thankfully, I got away without having to try it, but Johnny didn't!

We then proceeded to the first church, which was the hardest to get to. We understood the need for a 4WD when the highway turned into a smaller road, which turned into a track, which disappeared almost altogether!

At one point, the road was blocked within a village where we had to practically beg for permission to pass. Finally they moved the poles and we continued on.

To make a long story short, the road gave out, so we walked...

UP...

DOWN...

Over the river (they called it a river)...

And thru the woods! We walked about an hour from the truck to get to the church.

We were the service for the morning and two of our party were preachers that could speak Quiche. Johnny and I understood little of the service, but I was asked to play the keyboard and Johnny was asked to sing!!! He always said he was part of the "joyful noise" section of the choir at home, but did a great job singing with all of the group.

As Johnny said, "What went up, must go down", so as we returned to the truck, we realized how much of the walk in had been downhill. Upon arriving at the truch, we were thankful to be back on wheels again and I was assured that at the next church, the road went all the way to the door! We had to use 4WD to get to it, but the road did indeed end at the church door. We were two hours late for that service, so we only held them over another hour with our portion of the service! Due to a miscommunication, they had expected us for lunch, but served us supper instead! This put us after dark on some foggy mountain roads going home, but we arrived back at the Camp around 9:30 PM. We were exhausted, but jubilant that we survived the day!

Thank you for your support in allowing us to minister to these two churches. We are recuperating today, but wouldn't have missed it for the world! Wish you could have been there with us!

Love to you all!

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

Farewell to the Lohrenzes

Last Wednesday, we (including the whole Solola Consejo) told the Lohrenzes goodbye. John and Jan were our first guests in our guest room on Tuesday night and we celebrated with a rousing game of Dominoes, which Jan won! Wednesday started early, with breakfast for 10 (coffee for many more), and the arrival of a little over 200 for a day of dedication and worship. In this photo, John is cutting the ribbon dedicating the guard's house at Centennial Camp to the Lord.

Part of the service included a music program from an area church. This men's quartet did a fantastic job, followed by their church choir. I am scheduled to play for the choir at their church on May 27th! The legacy continues!

This was a tearful moment toward the end of the time together. Many of the different churches had gifts and kind things to say about John and Jan. Jan and I cried through most of it!

Johnny did a presentation (in Spanish, of course) about Centennial Camp toward the end of the program. Many of these churches had not even been on the Camp property in years! They were excited to see what has been planned for the Camp and how they can use it!

We were sorry to see the Lohrenzes go but pray God uses them mightily in Spain!

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

Internet access

Please pray for our internet access - we drove all over Solola today to find somewhere that would let us hook up the laptop to their service. Finally I found a place only to find the internet doesn't work very well. But we were able to send some emails and finally able to access the internet. It has been frustrating not to have internet and we feel a little cut off. We are currently checking on internet in the area of the Camp. Keep this in your prayers for us! Thanks.

Maria
jcoker@caminternational.org

The End of a Great Week!

This week has been phenomenal! The youth on the team did the clown skit from the Vacation Bible School program "Fiesta!", which went over very well not only with the younger kids, but with the youth and adults also! Everyday was spent doing a program for the kids in the mornings and a program for youth in the afternoons. The clowns performed twice a day all week long! We also had exhibition "papifut" (half court soccer) games, basketball games, music program and crafts. You should have seen Johnny and Mark Vanciel playing basketball! (They were the "old guys" in the group) Needless to say, we had a great week! I hope to be able to post some pictures in the next day or two. Until then...

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

This week's prayer request

Boy, not having internet has put a crimp in my blogging! Thanks for being patient and checking back often!

I have a prayer request for this week. We are currently hosting a team from California who will be doing evangelistic programs for kids in different locations throughout the week. My request is for open hearts and receptive spirits for those who come to the programs. Being Holy Week, the focus is on the Gospel and the Resurrection. Our programs will involve skits, music, games and crafts. We hope to see over 600 kids this week and would love to see God's hand at work. Please pray with us!

Maria
jcoker@caminternational.org

Why did the chicken cross the road?

We still don't know but it seemed she was hitching a ride. It went like this:
We were driving through Solola, with its narrow and steep streets, when a chicken wandered off the sidewalk and into our path. Johnny, already going slow, stopped, honked, then began inching forward. I expected to see the chicken on one side or the other but she didn't appear. A man down the road (in front of us) kept staring back at us. We didn't know why until about halfway down the block, the chicken jumped off the front bumper and was scooped up by a man and hustled back up the street! We still don't know if he thought we were stealing her!

Maria
jcoker@caminternational.org

Uh-Oh

Yes, Big Bird fell sick on us in the middle of downtown Guatemala City yesterday. She is currently recuperating at the taller (repair shop) and should be able to come home Monday, we hope. Meanwhile, we are staying with the Lohrenzes and spent the last 3 days having a yard sale to help them get rid of things. Hope your weekend was better!

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

Announcing...

I am happy (thrilled, overjoyed, and all around giddy) to announce that I have a washing machine! After living two years doing laundry wherever it was possible, I now have my own washer! We had bought a gas dryer secondhand and finally got that set up too. After returning from the States to find an inch of dirt on everything in the house, it was wonderful to wash clothes on Wednesday. I washed and dried 5 loads, used almost all of the water in the well and a bunch of gas. I never had that much fun washing clothes before! And all before I remembered I had to cook lunch (gas stove) for 20 people the next day! It all worked out - lunch was cooked and I had clean clothes. It's amazing what a little cleaning will do for your frame of mind!

Hasta luego,
Maria
jcoker@caminternational.org

Victoria and Macario's wreck

For those of you that have met Victoria and Macario (the Bible Church in Panajachel), they had a wreck Monday the 5th, while on their motorcycle. They were hit by a truck carrying block. Victoria was knocked off and broke her leg, Macario is a little banged up but OK. The doctors are waiting on the swelling to go down before they put on a cast so she is bedridden at present. We visited today and they were well cheered up by the gifts that were sent by the Mentor, OH, group! Thank you for thinking of these folks!

Maria
jcoker@caminternational.org

We're Back!!!

I knew I had not blogged in several weeks, but I didn't realize it had been so long! Since our last blog posting, we have been to the States for doctor's visits, mission conference, rest and relaxation. We spent a glorious two and a half weeks in Decatur, Alabama, being pampered by the members of our home church! It was great!

On our return to Guatemala, we "hit the ground running"! Immediately after arriving, we met with a Canadian woman whose husband had had a stroke while they were here on a workteam. There was no hope of recovery, short of a miracle, so her time was spent sitting at his bedside waiting. He has since passed on to be with the Lord. Please keep Lois in your prayers as she learns to live life without her partner and deals with the details of her loss.

After returning to the Camp, we found 4 of the lamina (roof sheets) had blown off in a windstorm while we were gone and need replacing. Thankfully, rainy season has not started yet! We were also about a half inch deep in dirt inside the house and everything has had to be wiped down or washed. The kitty was skinny, as she didn't eat well while we were gone, but purrs constantly now that we are back! We also spent last Friday visiting 6 - 8 churches around the Lake, introducing ourselves and setting up for future projects. We certainly need a 4WD vehicle! Many of the roads we were on couldn't technically be called roads!

Yesterday, we had a group of teens from one of the area churches visiting and having an outing at the Camp. We joined them for part of the time and had great fun teaching them to throw a Frisbee! It was a beautiful day with lots of sun! I now have lots of sunburn!

Hasta luego!

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

Our past week

Moving Day!! We had a lot of help from John and Jan Lohrenz moving the big things and lots of boxes.
















Lunch on moving day. The national is Samuel Caen who is the administrator of Centennial Camp. He is the head of the committee over the Camp.













With a team from Mentor, OH, we worked with a Bible church on children's ministries. We had 48 kids the first day and increased to over 70 by Thursday! It was a busy and hectic week!












The upper floor is the construction project that was done by the team also. The pastor and family lives on the first floor (7 kids) and the second floor will be children's ministries. They have 40 kids every Sunday and no place to meet!










Most of the Ohio team. Macario and Victoria (far left) are the pastor and his wife.










We are on our way back to Panajachel after sending the team off on their plane. We will be at the Camp for 3 days before returning to the capital to fly out to the States. Keep our travel in your prayers. Also, at the Camp, only the bed is set up - everything else is in boxes. Pray we find all we need before our flight.


Maria

First night at the Camp

Last night we spent our first night at Centennial Camp! This morning was the coldest morning I have spent since I went camping with my family as a young girl! We noticed that it has been very cold in the States and we weren't that cold, but you have heat in your houses, we didn't! Anyway, other than some water pump problems and a leak in a wall, we spent a chilly but enjoyable first night. We had a fire laid out for this morning and with a hot cup of coffee, it was bearable. We will finish moving stuff today and get the house almost put together before returning to Pana tomorrow for our work team's arrival. Thank you for your prayers for us - we survived the first night!

Maria
jcoker@caminternational.org

Moving Day approaching...

As moving day approaches, we are working frantically to get the house at Centennial Camp ready to move into. We now have power that runs from the transformer all the way into the house! And water that comes from the well and out of the faucets! With few glitches, John Lohrenz and Johnny worked hard for two days on these projects. We will have to take two days out this week for shopping in the capital for the team that arrives on the 3rd and two days to attend the annual regional meetings of all of the Solola churches. Then it is back to moving and preparing for our team. John and Jan will spend the first part of the last week with us before joining us to work with the team from Mentor, OH. It will be a hectic next two weeks, but the excitement of getting moved to Centennial Camp and then exposing a new team to missions in Guatemala is worth it!













I included this to show the "mountain" behind our house. We have met the owners, who want to build a house on top and assure us they will build a retaining wall (before the rains start?). They seem like a nice family who want us to help them with their English.






Maria
jcoker@caminternational.org

Almost ready!

Well, a couple of more weeks and we will be moved in! Johnny is working very hard on installing light fixtures, hooking up the plumbing and sewer and installing bathroom fixtures. (I never knew how much was involved in getting the water in a well to come out my faucet!) Thanks to your generosity, we were able to draw money from CAM to get these things done in lieu of rent for the next three years or so. With this exchange, we are not seen as "cash cows" to the Camp committee, the Camp still owns everything, but we could go ahead and get moved in and working.

After the move, we are prepared for a team from Mentor, OH, to join us in early February. When they return to the States, we will follow shortly for the Missions Conference at First Bible Church in Decatur, AL. We plan to see all of our area churches at that time also! Upon our return here, we have teams lined up to work at the Camp thru June! We are excited that we will be working with some new groups and some old friends! We are also looking into having an intern joining us this summer - there seems to be a lot of interest in camping ministry!

Thank you for your prayers for us! We are excited to be moving and getting the Camp ready for groups, even if it is just day camps to start!

Maria

jcoker@caminternational.org

Jesus El Redentor - Argueta

Yesterday we began our scheduled visits to area centroamerican churches. We, of course, had been attending the Panajachel church and had visited a couple of the other churches, but wanted to make scheduled visits to all of the "member" churches of Centennial Camp. Our visit yesterday was to the Jesus El Redentor church in Argueta. This is a small church close to the Camp. They have asked for prayer for two things: 1) a pastor for the church and 2) a church building. The building they are meeting in was once a medical clinic that Ruth Aju ran. It is very small and it would be difficult for them to grow any in this building. They have property adjoining the present building and plans for the future church. Also, a traveling pastor comes once or twice a month to preach, with the elders of the church covering the other Sundays. The elders are not seminary trained and they farm or hold other jobs during the week. Please keep this church in your prayers.

Maria
jcoker@caminternational.org

Reflections on a New Year

True to guatemalan form, midnight was ushered in with fireworks and firecrackers! Johnny and I went to the roof of our apartment (fourth floor, open to the sky) to watch the show and I have to say that Panajachel rivals Guatemala City in the fireworks department! But this time, instead of being on a roof overlooking the valley of bombas, we were right in the middle of where they were exploding! It was loud, smoky and totally exciting! Since Panajachel is at the "bottom of the bowl", right on Lake Atitlan with mountains ringing it, we could also see the fireworks of all of the little villages on the sides of the mountains. There was true enthusiasum in "ringing in the New Year"!

As I studied on Revelation this morning during my quiet time, I gained a sense of urgency in sowing the seeds of the Gospel and wondered at my enthusiasum over things of Christ. Do I get more excited over a touchdown in a ballgame or New Year's fireworks than I do over touching someone's life with the truth of Christ? Have I "left my first love", as the church of Ephesus, and lost some of my passion? As I start this new year, this is my prayer and resolution: that I focus on what is important to God and that I do so passionately. And when my time on this earth is finished and I stand in the presence of my Savior, He will say to me, "Well done, good and faithful servant".

Maria
jcoker@caminternational.org