Training, teaching and mentoring (W44,45,46)

It's been a couple of busy weeks around here but I'm focusing on three main things lately.

First one of these is mentoring and discipleship with Marcos. He started working with his uncle how is a construction worker. I started visiting him in the town where he was working with his uncle. We met for lunch, went over Proverbs, which has been great!, and prayed. He told me how we was doing and some challenges he had with some kids that were bullying him on the street, kids from another gang. I met his uncle and we talked about Marcos and how he needed guidance, the importance of learning to work and to keep studying. I continued to meet Marcos for another until he recently quit. Construction work is definitely hard but he said he quit because of the group of kids bullying him on the street.  He also learned that one of the friends, from the gang he used to hang out with, was killed. We discussed the dangers of hanging out with gang members.  He's also going through a hard time being an adolescent. He also shared with me with tears in his eyes about a break-up he had.  I listened to him and talked to him empathizing with what he was going through. We prayed.  Now I'm looking for opportunities to get him involved in other activities and connect him with good friends. We talked about different options like learning a trade or getting into sports.

I caught Marcos looking outside the window. I think it was a very emotive moment after our conversation.

The business training I have started with women hasn't really been consistent because not all the women come every day and it's been about three every week. I decided to start "visiting" the groups that also come to the municipality to receive cooking classes and gave them one lesson about sales and factors to consider when selling (People, Product, Price, Place and Promotion). I've visited 5 groups during this time and I'm happy to have shared this with about +50 women. I will continue to see how the attendance is during the next week to the business training class but I'm thinking we have to promote this more next year.

The kids at the "home" are now on vacation and I've been coming to watch the Bible series and have a little reflection with them while having a movie time with popcorn. We've talked about Noah and how his obedience to God translated in he and his family surviving the flood.

I've also continued to help my friend Luis to partner with my local church to get support for the Join Foundation and help sponsor more kids' education.  Lately 3 kids where chosen to be sponsored for scholarship and though I could not be in a trip they organized to celebrate the first kids graduation and a welcoming for the 3 kids I heard amazing stories like one of a boy named Yonatan who literally cried when given a certificate welcoming into the program.  I wrote a little bit about Yonatan in an earlier post if you want to check.

Finally, I started teaching English to a group of volunteers from the ministry in San Bartolo where the women come on Wednesday.

Week 43 - Saving lives

This was a short week as we had a holiday on Tuesday. This national holiday is to celebrate the Revolution of 1944 where the modern Democratic era of Guatemalan begun. Due to this holiday we didn't have the business meeting. However, during this week I had the chance to spend a good time with my friends from the kids' home. During my time there I had the chance to talk with Tamara, the orphanage director, who was visiting from the US, about Marcos. Both of us also talked with Marcos and he opened his heart to us, in tears, about how he felt about what is going in his life and hurts from his past. He is in difficult age and hurt from his past sometimes holds him from pursuing those dreams he has for the future. We talk with Tamara about how to support him, which literally means saving his life from acting out of the hurt from his past and destroying his life or letting those dreams and plans God has for him flourish. This will require effort from his part and ours but we are willing to support him. Please keep Marcos in your prayers.  I believe every time poured into the lives of all these kids is an investment that with God help will save their lives from destruction.

Sharing time with the kids from the children's home

Week 42 - Full Week

I started this week by visiting 4 families that will be beneficiaries for a sponsorship from the Join Foundation, an organization started by my friend Luis from Guatemala and now based in Wisconsin.  We visited their homes and filled out applications so we can decide who will be the beneficiaries of this program. I visited them with my friend Luis' family and it was great meeting these families who had been preselected by the school we partner with for this. All of these families have a need for the sponsorship but we had to choose only three because of the budget we have for 2016 (School year in Guatemala runs Jan - Oct). You can learn more about our work in www.thejoinfoundation.com

Yonathan showing us the way to his house.

I continued my business training classes this week. Attendance was low too but it was good to dive on the topics I want to share with the women. I’m glad that a woman that has come since the first day of classes has already been putting this concepts into practice and has seen her business improve. She was first selling fantasy jewelry on the weekends inside a parking lot but  she wasn’t selling much. We talked about selling what people are looking for, so she started noticing people asking her if she sold any food.  The next weekend she started selling food and has seen her business improve since then.  This week, we talked about 3 factors that indicate what a good business idea is.  During the the Wednesday meeting I saw some of the women that had signed up/come to previous trainings and motivated them to keep coming to the trainings.

Some of the women at the business training in San Bartolo

I met with Marcos again this week to continue the discipleship. He told me, with a sad tone, that this might be the last week he could me with me.  I was already going in my head why he was saying that… He then explained to me that we has planning to move out of his house to go work with his uncle and learning the construction trade. I wasn’t sure this was a good idea or not so later this week I talked to the orphanage director if she know anything about this. We talked with him and it seems he thinks this is a good decision. Even though he is not interned at the orphanage, he is supported in part through it. I prayed with him for this and continued to read through the book of Proverbs. What an amazing pool of wisdom that is! I was able to get him a Bible in a contemporary translation so it’s easier for him to understand. I will be in touch with him and try to visit him where he will be working.. With the support of the orphanage I will try to work closer with him and get him involved in other activities like sports or a vocational training.

Marcos and I.

It was haircutting time also. This is an activity I enjoy doing with the boys.
Finally I helped the Juillards do their border run to have their visas renewed by going out of the country, so I took them to the bus station for this and picked them on during the week. Their good to go for another 3 months!

Week 41 - Mission Trip October

Finally the team has arrived to Guatemala. We are pleased to have a team from Conduit Church visit us this week. I had the privilege to go pick them up at the airport with the van we rented. We had a team of 7 people come along David Christopher, our missions director.  The plan for this week was using the mornings to visit different orphanages with the Ruiz family, as they feel called to serve in a ministry for orphans. We visited a total of 4 orphanages, 3 of which I had never visited, and though I had called to arrange the meetings I didn’t really know what to expect. However, we were all surprised by God when hearing stories and visiting this places. All of these stories of were provision, protection and miracles. People facing dangers and God miraculously protecting people even after being hit with machetes but not having even a single scratch, stories of power being cut (literally) because they weren’t able to pay for it and power continue to run into the house, stories of God providing +$30K monthly for the budget and stories or dreams and plans to serve over a 100 orphans in one place.

The rest of our days was spent visiting families and praying for them. Charity, a hair dresser, used her gift serving school teachers and kids by cutting their hair.

The Ruiz Family talking to an orphanage director

 This week I also continued with the business training in San Bartolo, however, due to misinformation, I only had 3 people show up this time. I was happy to be able to talk to each one of them about their challenges and dreams and then giving them tips to start creating business ideas right away. We talked about finding business ideas by finding out what people need, want or have problems with.

Kids from another orphanage doing an activity with students from a local high-school

This was a great week over all.

Week 40 - Preparation

This week I have been preparing some things for the upcoming mission trip of next. We will have members of conduit it come to Guatemala and engage in different activities here. There will be a family visiting us who is interested in learning more about orphanages so, we will be visiting a few of these around there area where the team will be. I'm contacting these places so we can visit them. I'm also arranging other things of the trip like transportation.

This is the first week of the business training in San Bartolo and I'm really excited about this. It wasn't a good beginning though. It poured down rain while I was on my way there and it was so much that the road flooded. I was stuck in traffic for an hour. Some women came before the rain started and they were gracious enough to wait for me (though they were trapped in the too ;) ). I honored them with my words for being there. We had 6 people come despite of the rain. We talked about ourselves and the business or business ideas they have. I gave them an introduction of what I was going to teach them and that was our first lesson.

At the kids' home, it was my second week meeting with Marcos*, the boy I'm discipling. I asked him how he was doing when we first met and tears came out of his eyes. He wouldn't tell me what was going on but this was a good opportunity to pray with him. From the children's home leaders I know he's been through abuse situations so I know there is a lot of his story that could be affecting him. However, I'm so glad to hear that he is no longer getting involved with gangs as he was before. They told me he has even changed the way he is dressing and he doesn't try to dress like the gang members too. We read through proverbs 1 and 2 and it's amazing how in this chapters it talks about avoiding people whose intentions are to rob and kill. God's always at work. This is such a privilege for me to be part of

*Name has been changed to honor the confidence they have had to meet with me personally

Week 39 - Discipleship

This week I started meeting Marcos* to have the discipleship, and though I don't call it like that, this is the first time I have the chance to do something like this; one-on-one. I came out really excited after our first meeting with Mario. I decided I to go over how the Bible is divided and gave him a quick overview of each book of the Bible. We also read some proverbs together, as Marcos seems to have some problems reading on his own. He was amazed to see how the Bible those topics of proverbs which are very practical. We prayed together and agreed to keep meeting once a week for this.

This week I attended a training about entrepreneurship at the Guatemalan Association of Engineers which I am part of. It was good to refresh some of the things I learned in Honduras and to see them from a more professional perspective. I also signed myself in for a once a week course in Finances. I will be doing this once a week during the evening until December. I want to learn more about this concepts which I have found I like and that are essential in any business. This will help me translate some of this concepts too.

It's always great to share with the kids at el Amor de Patricia. Diego and Elsa are two of my good friends there. They always ask me to push them at the swing. This time they were asking me to push them "hard" (duro, in Spanish).

Click on the link below to see the video if the above doesn't work https://goo.gl/photos/UoozcVEvyQzP1MvF6

I also visited another orphanage this week. This one is called Casa Shalom. My sister-in-law has been going to there for a couple of weeks to help out with the little kids. This other orphanage is huge compared to Amor de Patricia. Casa Shalom has about 100 kids! They say they want to have more men to be mentors and a good influence to the kids. I didn't commit to anything yet but since they are building a vocational training program we talked about the possibility to do a business training along this.

*Name has been changed to honor the confidence they have had to meet with me personally and to comply with Guatemalan law of not publishing protected children's name

Week 38 - Independence

This week we celebrated Independence on September 15.  During this month and the past couple of months there has been a movement against corruption, the president and vice-president resigned and we held general elections. All of these happened in peace, no major violent incidents during these activities and it brought many people together as Guatemalans.


This week I also contacted Julia, a lady I got to know and visited during the last mission trip we had in July. She's 40 but only has 20% of her sight left. Her oldest son was abused when he was a kid and was left with psychological trauma for which he needs treatment but she can't afford it as she's not able to work. Her youngest daughter is sponsored at the Luz y Vida School near Antigua, that's how I got to meet her. I've been trying to help her by connecting her with some people I know from organization that could help her.  Juan Carlos, the school director, told me that this month she decided to give her life to Jesus and last time I talked to her she seemed more encouraged and said that was going to continue to look for help to get surgery on her eyes. I've just been following up with her case and she has been grateful for that.  I offered to drive her to a hospital where she can get her eyes looked at but she said she was going to ask a relative to take her there. I will continue to follow up on her case and pray God keeps working in her life.

I contacted Oscar* this week to follow up on his decision to become a child of God. I visited him at the children's home where he is currently living with his family as his mother got surgery and is recovering.  I congratulated him on his decision and told him I'd like to meet with him on a weekly basis to talk more about his decision and guide him in this new season of his life, now walking with God.  Wendy, the chief nanny, told me that they've already seen some change in him. He stopped meeting with gang members and he's even changed how he was dressing.

On my continuous for people to do the business training, I got word of an activity organized by the local municipality in San Bartolo, where some of the women who are in the cooking classes would be selling food.  I was impressed to see many of the ones that come to the meetings on Wednesday but had never expressed interest in learning about business. I talked to them and encouraged them to join me for a training course once a week. We agreed to start in two weeks as I arrange a space in the municipality to do this. There's about 15 women who said they were interested so I hope at least 10 come and we can start this training.

*Name has been changed to honor the confidence they have had to meet with me personally