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I miss my daddy.

I was getting ready for bed tonight and found a photo of me and my grandfather when I was like 4-5 months old. It is a really great picture and I looked at it with such joy that we got to meet and that I have one or two memories of the man. He was apparently a great man. He died when I was 2, but at least I have pictures.

Then I realized that Madeline will have no photos of her with my dad. Deacon will have very few, but at least my dad got to meet him. I am heartsick that he never got to meet my beautiful daughter. He would have enjoyed her so much. I was his baby girl and a daddy's girl, and he would have just loved to meet his baby girl's baby girl. I am so saddened by this. he didn't get to live to a ripe old age with a full life, knowing all of his grandchildren and even his great grandchildren. I feel like we got cheated. We all got cheated big time. Most of you didn't know my dad, but he was so cool. He was ornery, but super cool.

Madeline never got to sit in his lap, never got to hear his voice, and my dad never got to see his own face and his own curly hair on our little girl. Que tristesa. How incredibly sad.

Sorry to be a little depressing. I am still grieving this. Maybe I will always. This evening was incredible difficult. I know that the Lord is lord of all of this, and that my daddy is with Him right now, but I can't help but feel like he shouldn't be. He should be here, getting to know my children better. He should be here getting photos taken with them. He should get to see Deacon dance on skype like the other grandparents. Madeline should get to ride around on his wheelchair when she gets older. He should have gotten to teach them his funny phrases and silly jokes. But that is gone. At least until Christ brings us all home to be together again. I'm sad. I want my daddy back. I want to pray to God to please turn back the clock a while so that I could take better care of the time that we did have. And it is so frustrating that I can feel it in my bones that I can't have him back again.

I am so tired, so I have to go to sleep, but I hope that I dream of him. Here are a couple of cool pictures of my dad and Deacon. The sad thing is, these two of VERY few photos I have of my dad with my child. Please, all of you that still have parents alive, please take lots of photos.

I like it a lot.

Pure Genius! Watch the attached video to see a really cool Guatemalan thing. This could be in other parts of the world, but I have never seen it in the US. Tell me what you think!

Un Dia con La Familia Lopez

We had lunch today with a Guatemalan family in their home. They are Rene and Nelly, and their three children: Rene, Daniella, and Pablo. They had a very large home that was laid out very interestingly.

We ate a delicious typical Guatemalan meal: Chicken in a sauce of blended tomatillos (little green tomatoes), cilantro, green pepper, and green onion with potatoes and zucchinis with a side of rice cooked with veggies. This along with tomalitos (tamales w/o any meat...so just steamed corn mush). All this took Nelly all day to make for us. She also made us sweet empanadas for dessert. They are little fried bread pouches filled with a homemade fruit jelly, made with papaya, peaches and apples. And to drink, we had atol de fruitas, or fresh squeezed juice of papaya, peaches and apple. Everything was so delicious, and we ate it in the traditional manner of the town of Salcaja (where they live). We sit down at the table, and they serve us bowls of the rice and chicken and soup mixture.

We know them b/c they are working with a CAM missionary couple (the Ekstroms) who have been in Guatemala since 1952 and are currently working in another town about 2 hours away on a project called the mega-voice. It is a little audio device thing that is solar powered, and has the entire Bible on it. There are buttons to go from book to book, buttons to skip chapter by chapter, and buttons for verse by verse. Go to the website for more info...it is super cool and they are working to get the Bible in the native Mayan languages on the cool device.

Anyway, they have become some of our good friends here (the only other Christian couple that we know). Nelly was telling us about the over 1,700 children who live in the communities that they work in. Most of the children are so poor that they can die from a fever b/c they can't afford a dose of Tylenol or Advil or some other medicine to get their fevers down. It is difficult to imagine this kind of intense poverty this close to our home. We see lots of poverty, but there is no one in that community that has any kind of wealth. Everyone is so poor.

They are getting ready in a few months to move to the town that they minister in. Evangelism in Salcaja is so incredibly difficult, b/c it is a relatively wealthy community. Most everyone has work of some kind and so they don't have particularly great needs. Sound familiar?

Brandon gave a little Bible study in Spanish in Psalm 100. They have another machine that has the music for all of the hymns in their hymnal and we sang 3 hymns in Spanish with a digital accompanyment. (Mighty Fortress is Our God, Holy Holy Holy, and some other one that I can't remember.) Then we read the Psalm, made some observations, and did a little interpretation and application. Those of you that were in the college ministry while we were there would have felt rifght at home! It was great

It was a fun day. Don't you just all want to come and join our little adventure? Come on down! We have plenty of fun for everyone.

A Re-Post - Guatemalan Orphan Video

This is the video that I wanted to put on my blog last week. SUCCESS! Watch it and please pray for these little ones. It may take a bit to load, but it is worth it.

A day in Guatemala

Well, we went to church this morning. Acutally just Sunday school b/c Brandon didn't sleep much last night, and he was just to tired to translate a church service in his head. Every Sunday after class, they sell "refracciones" or little snacks for 2 quetzales ($0.25). They are SOOO good. Today it was enchiladas: tostado shells with a tomato salsa on top with minced cooked veggies (carrots, celery, onions, peppers) and a sprinkling of dry white cheese. YUMMY!

When we went to lunch, we went to the famous Pollo Campero (the KFC of Guatemala with the popularity of McDonald's) and this very old lady stopped us to tell us how handsome Deacon is and she said (in Spanish of course) : "Look at my fingernails! Look at my red fingernails! I'm 80!!" It was really funny, and really odd, and Deacon was so sweet to her. He just said "Hola" and smiled as she presented her very long, bright red fingernails to our son. He-He.

Then, tonight as I was nursing Madeline in her room, and right before I put her down, we heard 5 very loud, quick gunshots. It wasn't on our street (we live in a gated condominium with 24 hour guard) but it wasn't far away. This is why we don't go out at night.
Note: Parents, don't get freaked out...we are very safe here, as safe as anyone is in their homes.

All in all, a pretty cool day, some good food, funny ladies, and a little adventure.

James 1:27: Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress...

I have been trying to load this video onto my blog for almost 3 days, and it won't load. Please go to the link and watch it. These are real photos of Guatemalan orphans. The video was made as a petition for prayers for these little ones.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4744696279395710845&hl=en

There was an orphanage here in Xela several months ago that our language school did some work with. The name was Jerusalem. It was run by an evangelical pastor. Our school sent groups there to volunteer and to play with some of the children. Last year we bought some toys to take there for Christmas (we didn't go, just sent the toys).

Anyway, the orphanage has now closed because there was some concern when the boys and girls were heard crying loudly during the nights. At one point, the police went to find out what was going on, and discovered that the pastor has been sexually abusing both the little girls and the little boys. That is raw, and gross, and so incredibly sad. The saddest part is that it is a true story that really happened to real children, just like Deacon, and Madeline. Anyway, I can't go see those exact children, because the orphanage has since closed and the children dispersed among other locations. I just can't help but think about all that those children have gone through without anyone to love them and care for them. Some of them disabled, mentally and physically, some with parents who can't care for them, some without any family at all.

I am going to begin (hopefully this week or next) going to visit an orphanage to love on the children there. I can not let my desire to have routines, be rested, get my to-do list done, have "personal time" get in the way of ministering to these people.

Please pray for them as this video says. Please pray for me that I can be the hands of our Lord in the lives of these children and in the lives of those that work with them.