February, 2003

Greetings from Guatemala!

This new year has had some exciting moments already.  We found a larger building to rent that will be more adequate for raising up the new church in Villa Lobos.  It is a "fixer-upper" that will require a lot of manual labor on our part to get the place in shape, but everyone is looking forward to working together and seeing the Lord do miracles through our faith in Him.  Our first step was to get everyone together in the building to pray His blessing on our efforts.  We hadn't been there more than 15 minutes when one of the women screamed, "Fleas!" and began beating her clothes furiously.  I looked at my pants and they were covered with more fleas than I had ever seen.  The neighbors must have thought we all looked pretty funny, jumping around in front of the building as we tried to get rid of the cloud of fleas that were attacking us.

Mike the mighty flea killer

The previous occupants had kept a couple of guard dogs in the unfinished part of the building that has a dirt floor, so that is probably where the fleas made their home.  A few days later another man and I borrowed an insecticide spray tank and doused the area thoroughly with flea insecticide.  Two weeks later we did it again to get the eggs (someone told us that each flea lays about 500 eggs in a short period of time) and as of this writing we appear to have won the battle against our first adversary as we take possession of our new area of ministry.

Praying in front of the new church meeting place after the flea attack

The building will hold 200-225 people when we have it reconditioned.  That means raising about Q.20,000.00 (the equivalent of $2,700.00) to lay concrete floor and raise the front wall with windows, door, etc. on the first floor.  We will begin Sunday meetings provisionally as soon as that first phase is finished.  The second phase will be to finish the second floor which will be the best location for the meetings, but that will take a lot more money and time.  In the meantime, we continue to be a part of the mother church in Zone 11 and are working hard at raising up the leadership that we need to handle the new church when the time comes.

Every weekend we get the men together and work at the new church site to complete the remodeling.  We began by knocking out a wall to make the first floor more spacious.  Now we are digging the ditches for the walls and bending the rebar for the metal reinforcement.  Several of the men have experience in construction so we will save a lot of money on labor by having them show the rest of us what to do.  I am looking forward to this because I have always wanted to learn to work with concrete and lay block.

COUNSELING SEMINARS
We need your prayers for a new ministry that the Lord has given Sandy and I in the area of counseling and equipping laypeople to "set the captives free". The teaching is called Theophostics (check out their webpage and get the free introductory tape: www.theophostic.com ) and without exaggerating it is one of the most important biblical teachings that I have ever received.  It was developed by Dr. Ed Smith as a result of over 25 years of pastoral and counseling experience.

On March 14-15, Sandy and I will give the basic seminar in Spanish and again on April 4-5, but in English.  Both times the seminar will be given at our local church and we are doing the publicity on an interdenominational level so that we will reach as many people as possible.  Depending upon the response, we will be giving the seminars in other areas of Guatemala, and, Lord willing, throughout Central America and Mexico.

Thank you for placing these dates on your calendars so that you will be reminded to pray for us.  And pray that people will receive the truth so that they can be free indeed (John 8:32)!

PRAISE TAPE
We had hoped to be able to share with you by now that Sandy's praise tape was finished, packaged and blessing Guatemala.  Well it almost is.  The master tape is in our hands and as soon as the cover art work/photography is finished we will be able to make the copies and package them.  Have we learned patience through this project.

God is good and faithful,

Dr. Mike