“...And because of His Glory and Excellence, He has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share His divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.” --2 Peter 1:4
The Lord gave us the first hint of what 2014 would hold for Life of Promise Ministries back in November of 2013. At that time, we were at the mission house cleaning up water damage and addressing flooding problems. It was the end of rainy season and the mission house took a major hit due to the fact that we had no roof on the second floor. God instructed us to plan on pouring the cement roof when we returned after the Christmas season. He put confidence in our hearts that He would make this happen, despite the fact that we had no funding available for this project. Flat concrete roofs in Central America are a major endeavor because they are extremely labor intensive and they involve more than 20,000 pounds of supplies. Nevertheless, the Lord instructed us to go ahead and plan without funds or work teams in place.
A Tale of Two Houses
When we returned to Guatemala in January of 2014, we began investigating the time, labor, materials and funds needed for the roof. We consulted with our contractor, who gave us estimates for all of these things. Throughout February, we worked on preliminary projects at the mission house, and on March 17 we began 5 weeks of labor-intensive preparation for the big roof pour. This was when many of the materials were delivered, hauled up to the second floor, and put in place (iron rebar, sand, rock, thick wooden planks, etc.). It’s difficult to describe this type of construction process, because it’s completely different from the wood and steel structures built here in the states. But with a very small amount of funds and manpower, we began.
In the meantime, a man we have known for years from the mountain village of Pinalito asked us to build a concrete block home for he and his wife and their eight children! The cost for this would be about $3,000. We prayed, “Lord, we have no funds for the mission house roof. How will we add another home to our construction projects?” As we asked this, we knew God was inviting us to step out into the deep even further. We knew we had to say yes to God! To make a long story short, the Lord kept His promise and provided the funds needed for both houses!! We never did have an official “team” come down to help us, but our son Mike had four friends come down at different times throughout the process. Those boys, along with Tom and our two Guatemalan contractors, did the work of many men over the course of the five weeks. God multiplied their strength and efforts just as He did with the loaves and fishes!!
The Big Day
April 25 was a day that defies description. It was the day of the roof pour! A cement roof must be poured in one day to prevent major cracks and buckling of the structure. We worked until 1 am the night before making the final preparations (running electrical lines, tying down the iron rebar grid, putting the last wooden planks in place, etc.) At 6 am on the morning of the 25th, a team of five men from a church in Guatemala city arrived to help us. Along with their pastor, they made the 4-hour journey in a very old pickup truck. They thanked us for introducing them to mission work, which is a major step for the churches which have always depended on American missionaries to help their own people.
We all worked together from early that morning until 2 am the following morning when the last wheelbarrow full of cement was dumped on the far corner of the roof. Once again, God multiplied our strength and our efforts in a way that was purely supernatural. He proved His faithfulness to keep the promise He made to us several months earlier -- that HE would provide if we would just step out in faith when we saw no way to get this job done. Plus he added one more house to our agenda, just to make SURE we knew it had to be HIM ALONE. Ok, God, we get it! Oh, the blessings of our inadequacy!!
Miracles Abound
Many miracles took place during our time in Guatemala during 2014. Our calling is to build and run a crisis pregnancy center, and also minister to families in the mountains and at the city dump. But we still consider it to be a miracle each time God allows us to work within our calling. We were able to help two pregnant mothers to safely deliver their babies. One mother is Concepcion, whom we brought down the mountain last year to have an emergency C-section at the hospital. Through this experience, the Lord spoke to our son Mike and inspired him to take the leap of faith to apply for medical school. On May 15, Mike’s 25th birthday, we drove Concepcion and her family up the mountain after delivery of her second son. This really spoke to Mike, and the Lord gave him reassurance that he was following the divine path laid out for his life! He said he was blessed to spend his birthday serving in a calling that he hopes to return to after medical school -- touching individual lives on the mission field.
Another miracle we experienced was made clear in a conversation we had with Nicolas -- the man for whom we built the concrete block home in the mountains. After the house was completed, he borrowed a cell phone and called us to say that this was the greatest thing anyone had ever done for he and his family. He invited us to his home for a celebration, and made sure to tell us that he purchased a chicken especially for his wife to make dinner for us. The only time the mountain families eat chicken is at Christmas -- if they can afford it even once a year! We could tell he was crying as he thanked us. His voice trailed off in choked -up emotion, and we are sure he called rather than visiting because he didn’t want us to see him cry. You see, this is our Gabby’s biological father. He was the hardest, meanest, and most feared man in the mountains for years. He would get drunk and have frequent machete fights with other men. He has a deep scar on his neck from ear to ear from one of those fights. Michael Beene stitched him up and in his words, “...had to practically sew his head back on.” Tom led Nicolas to Christ three years ago, and he is living evidence of God’s power to save and change lives!
One miracle that took place in the spring was completely unexpected. The mountain villages of Pinalito and Volcan had been at war with each other for years. Recently, Volcan obtained guns by joining forces with a gang of drug traffickers. So they had the people of Pinalito (armed only with machetes) living in constant fear, as their girls were raped, their grandparents were murdered, and their property was stolen mercilessly. The pastor and his church members in Pinalito prayed for this decades-old feud to end. Finally they were directed by the Lord to go to Volcan to preach the Gospel!! In fear and trembling they obeyed. Again, to make a long story short, the people of Volcan repented and the two villages are working together to build churches in Volcan! Our son Mike was able to hike to Volcan with Michael Beene, as they became the first two white people to ever enter that village! What an amazing miracle by our Lord who answers prayer!
The Lord of Our Hearts
Although construction of the mission house is a very necessary and exciting part of our ministry, for us it’s really all about the people. The times we love most are when we can actually sit down with the people of the mountain villages and get to know them as precious individuals who are so dear to the Lord. So many times we are running around, trying to give out as many donations and fill as many urgent needs as we can before the sun goes down. Those times are a real blessing, but the days that touch our hearts the most are when we can throw away the schedule and visit with them. We have done that at the city dump on Easter Sunday with the people who live there and forage for food every day. We have done that in the mountains with the young mothers who are frightened about raising their children. We have visited with the widows who are raising their grandchildren and cannot afford medications for them.
We find that although their life circumstances could not be more different than ours, they are surprisingly like us in many ways. They love to laugh, they like to give, and they need to cry. They can tell the funniest stories, smile the biggest smiles, and give in ways that are extravagant for them. We always leave the mountains with a bag of eggs and a stack of homemade tortillas -- gifts from the heart given by just about every family we minister to. The Lord is all about loving relationships. We consider ourselves immensely blessed that He has given us the precious Mayan people of the mountains to love.
Prayer requests for 2015
The Lord gave us the first hint of what 2014 would hold for Life of Promise Ministries back in November of 2013. At that time, we were at the mission house cleaning up water damage and addressing flooding problems. It was the end of rainy season and the mission house took a major hit due to the fact that we had no roof on the second floor. God instructed us to plan on pouring the cement roof when we returned after the Christmas season. He put confidence in our hearts that He would make this happen, despite the fact that we had no funding available for this project. Flat concrete roofs in Central America are a major endeavor because they are extremely labor intensive and they involve more than 20,000 pounds of supplies. Nevertheless, the Lord instructed us to go ahead and plan without funds or work teams in place.
A Tale of Two Houses
When we returned to Guatemala in January of 2014, we began investigating the time, labor, materials and funds needed for the roof. We consulted with our contractor, who gave us estimates for all of these things. Throughout February, we worked on preliminary projects at the mission house, and on March 17 we began 5 weeks of labor-intensive preparation for the big roof pour. This was when many of the materials were delivered, hauled up to the second floor, and put in place (iron rebar, sand, rock, thick wooden planks, etc.). It’s difficult to describe this type of construction process, because it’s completely different from the wood and steel structures built here in the states. But with a very small amount of funds and manpower, we began.
In the meantime, a man we have known for years from the mountain village of Pinalito asked us to build a concrete block home for he and his wife and their eight children! The cost for this would be about $3,000. We prayed, “Lord, we have no funds for the mission house roof. How will we add another home to our construction projects?” As we asked this, we knew God was inviting us to step out into the deep even further. We knew we had to say yes to God! To make a long story short, the Lord kept His promise and provided the funds needed for both houses!! We never did have an official “team” come down to help us, but our son Mike had four friends come down at different times throughout the process. Those boys, along with Tom and our two Guatemalan contractors, did the work of many men over the course of the five weeks. God multiplied their strength and efforts just as He did with the loaves and fishes!!
The Big Day
April 25 was a day that defies description. It was the day of the roof pour! A cement roof must be poured in one day to prevent major cracks and buckling of the structure. We worked until 1 am the night before making the final preparations (running electrical lines, tying down the iron rebar grid, putting the last wooden planks in place, etc.) At 6 am on the morning of the 25th, a team of five men from a church in Guatemala city arrived to help us. Along with their pastor, they made the 4-hour journey in a very old pickup truck. They thanked us for introducing them to mission work, which is a major step for the churches which have always depended on American missionaries to help their own people.
We all worked together from early that morning until 2 am the following morning when the last wheelbarrow full of cement was dumped on the far corner of the roof. Once again, God multiplied our strength and our efforts in a way that was purely supernatural. He proved His faithfulness to keep the promise He made to us several months earlier -- that HE would provide if we would just step out in faith when we saw no way to get this job done. Plus he added one more house to our agenda, just to make SURE we knew it had to be HIM ALONE. Ok, God, we get it! Oh, the blessings of our inadequacy!!
Miracles Abound
Many miracles took place during our time in Guatemala during 2014. Our calling is to build and run a crisis pregnancy center, and also minister to families in the mountains and at the city dump. But we still consider it to be a miracle each time God allows us to work within our calling. We were able to help two pregnant mothers to safely deliver their babies. One mother is Concepcion, whom we brought down the mountain last year to have an emergency C-section at the hospital. Through this experience, the Lord spoke to our son Mike and inspired him to take the leap of faith to apply for medical school. On May 15, Mike’s 25th birthday, we drove Concepcion and her family up the mountain after delivery of her second son. This really spoke to Mike, and the Lord gave him reassurance that he was following the divine path laid out for his life! He said he was blessed to spend his birthday serving in a calling that he hopes to return to after medical school -- touching individual lives on the mission field.
Another miracle we experienced was made clear in a conversation we had with Nicolas -- the man for whom we built the concrete block home in the mountains. After the house was completed, he borrowed a cell phone and called us to say that this was the greatest thing anyone had ever done for he and his family. He invited us to his home for a celebration, and made sure to tell us that he purchased a chicken especially for his wife to make dinner for us. The only time the mountain families eat chicken is at Christmas -- if they can afford it even once a year! We could tell he was crying as he thanked us. His voice trailed off in choked -up emotion, and we are sure he called rather than visiting because he didn’t want us to see him cry. You see, this is our Gabby’s biological father. He was the hardest, meanest, and most feared man in the mountains for years. He would get drunk and have frequent machete fights with other men. He has a deep scar on his neck from ear to ear from one of those fights. Michael Beene stitched him up and in his words, “...had to practically sew his head back on.” Tom led Nicolas to Christ three years ago, and he is living evidence of God’s power to save and change lives!
One miracle that took place in the spring was completely unexpected. The mountain villages of Pinalito and Volcan had been at war with each other for years. Recently, Volcan obtained guns by joining forces with a gang of drug traffickers. So they had the people of Pinalito (armed only with machetes) living in constant fear, as their girls were raped, their grandparents were murdered, and their property was stolen mercilessly. The pastor and his church members in Pinalito prayed for this decades-old feud to end. Finally they were directed by the Lord to go to Volcan to preach the Gospel!! In fear and trembling they obeyed. Again, to make a long story short, the people of Volcan repented and the two villages are working together to build churches in Volcan! Our son Mike was able to hike to Volcan with Michael Beene, as they became the first two white people to ever enter that village! What an amazing miracle by our Lord who answers prayer!
The Lord of Our Hearts
Although construction of the mission house is a very necessary and exciting part of our ministry, for us it’s really all about the people. The times we love most are when we can actually sit down with the people of the mountain villages and get to know them as precious individuals who are so dear to the Lord. So many times we are running around, trying to give out as many donations and fill as many urgent needs as we can before the sun goes down. Those times are a real blessing, but the days that touch our hearts the most are when we can throw away the schedule and visit with them. We have done that at the city dump on Easter Sunday with the people who live there and forage for food every day. We have done that in the mountains with the young mothers who are frightened about raising their children. We have visited with the widows who are raising their grandchildren and cannot afford medications for them.
We find that although their life circumstances could not be more different than ours, they are surprisingly like us in many ways. They love to laugh, they like to give, and they need to cry. They can tell the funniest stories, smile the biggest smiles, and give in ways that are extravagant for them. We always leave the mountains with a bag of eggs and a stack of homemade tortillas -- gifts from the heart given by just about every family we minister to. The Lord is all about loving relationships. We consider ourselves immensely blessed that He has given us the precious Mayan people of the mountains to love.
Prayer requests for 2015
- Please pray for the girls who become young mothers at a very early age -- especially for those who become single mothers due to rape. Pray that the men would honor the Lord and learn to respect the purity of these girls.
- Pray that we will continue to build trust with the people of the villages, so that mothers will feel safe coming to our mission house.
- We need to improve our Spanish language skills. Pray that we can make time for lessons and also find a good teacher.
- Pray for healing for Tom’s hip, as we may need to stay in Guatemala for most of this year and once again postpone his hip replacement surgery.
- Please pray that we will be allowed to appear before the judge in Zacapa and obtain legal custody of Gabby this winter. We need the Lord’s favor because the Guatemalan government has several agencies involved, which has complicated our situation.
- Funds are needed for completion of the second floor of the mission house. When we are able to move upstairs, (along with interns) then the entire first floor can be used as a shelter and crisis pregnancy center. Approximately $22,000 is needed to go from the current concrete shell to full completion.
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