Update from Nebaj

Greetings from Guatemala!

Some of the adults who are with the C.A.G. Choir posted the following snippets to Facebook:

Yesterday was a full day for the choir. In the morning Joy Wilson Eisner led a singing workshop for the Nebaj choir (our kids helped teach), they sang on the Ixil radio station (that can be heard online all over the world) and they performed at the Iglesia Emanuel with their choir. -- Candy Siklosi

Another shared this:
The choir trip has been amazing so far. We've had amazing opportunities to connect with the Ixil choir which was formed after our last visit to Nebaj. The church service last night was beautiful. Several of our youth shared their testimonies and preached, and then prayed for many, many people who came forward for prayers. We have five more opportunities to share today and tomorrow. Please pray for us as our youth have a unique opportunity to share the reason for the hope the have with the youth here, many of whom feel alone, desperate, and hopeless in light of their circumstances. Parents, I love your kids! They are all healthy and doing well, and taking care of each other. -- Jessie Larimer

There are some videos as well - which I have reshared on my Facebook page.

April Update - only a month to go!

Yikes!

It is April 23rd - that means in one month school will be done. I cannot believe it! That will mark the end of our seventh year at C.A.G. We continue to thank God for each and every one of our team members who have faithfully supported us over the past seven years.

It dawned on me (Ken) recently that this year's graduating class is the class I started with when we arrived in 2009. Wow - time flies.

Yesterday was a busy day. Joy and her choir students departed C.A.G. for the city of Nebaj in the Quiche area.

This is the second trip for the choir to the Nebaj area. They will be performing many concerts both live and on the local radio station. Also this year their local missionary contact, Mr. Mike McComb, requested they do a series of choral workshops for the locals. The choir group was very excited to return to Nebaj.

They left C.A.G. at about 8:30 a.m. and arrived in Nebaj at about 5:30 p.m. Joy said it was an uneventful trip - which is a blessing.

Last week our little Sara decided it was time for a new dew... yup she cut her own hair. As it turns out she might have a future in hair dressing as she did a pretty good job at keeping it straight. Unfortunately she cut a lot off the left side and only some off the right. Last night we got her "evened up" with the thanks of our local hair-dressing-friend, Jen!

Thankfully curls are not all gone... but it really was time for a trim.

Also this past week Emma participated in the Elementary drama production, "Where the Wild Things Are." The show was done entirely by the Independent Study Drama class (three seniors) which was co-coordinated by Joy.

Where the Wild Things Are Cast (Emma front right in Pink)

This coming summer Joy and Sara will be returning to New Hampshire for three weeks (May 25th through June 16th.) She will be attending her niece's wedding and also hopes to meet with supporters. Right now we are hoping for a dessert night or pot luck event held in Dover. We hope to have more details about this in the coming weeks.

Well, that about wraps up another update.

Blessings and thanks to all!

-knme

Blessed Semana Santa

Oh Semana Santa - how we were so glad to see you come... now we are sad to see you leave.

Happy Easter to one and all! Last year at this time (almost exactly) we were in attendance at the Union Church of Guatemala Son Rise Service on the C.A.G. campus. This year, with no Son Rise Service, we took our time getting ready for our Easter service. The Easter Services was really nice. Worship and message were on point. An afternoon of final resting before the final push of the school year.

Easter 2016

I stand amazed that one of the most difficult things for us to accomplish has been to get a "nice" family picture. I've been trying to remember about every Sunday for the past month. Well - finally this morning we were able to accomplish the task.

Just before Semana Santa began Emma had an unfortunate incident with her roller blades and her soccer ball. Apparently, as the story goes, Abigail thought it would be great fun to play soccer whilst wearing roller blades. Needless to say it was not successful. She fell and hurt her wrist. Nothing serious, praise the Lord, but since the pain had not subsided by later that evening we decided to err on the side of caution and took her to one of the ERs in the city.

ER in Eskala Mall

She was a real trooper. Personally speaking the best part of the evening was when the doctor asked her if she wanted her pain med orally or by injection. Unsurprisingly she took it orally.






Backing up to before that Abigail sang a solo at the Middle School Banquet. She sang "Ever Be" and did a fantastic job!

Tuesday we will say goodbye to Joy's father. He has been with us here since the middle of November. It has been tremendous having him here. We will miss him and hope he will have safe travels back to New Hampshire.

Before signing off we wanted to say a heartfelt "thank you" to everyone who continues to support us (prayerfully and financially.) We continue to feel as though we're in the center of God's will here. None of what we do would be possible without our awesome team. Thanks to one and all!

-knm/jr/ac/eb/sje

Calling our Prayer Warriors

Good evening,

We would like to ask that you join us in praying for friends of ours here.  A close relation of theirs was severely injured in a horrible accident today.  

Please include them in your prayers.

Thanks,

AnotherMonth Down

A pleasant evening to everyone!

Had some free time so I thought I would take a few moments to share how January has come and gone... And I can't believe it is practically gone already!

We were very sad to say goodbye to Jon, Cheri, and Ian on New Year's Eve. We had a great time with them and are very thankful for them choosing to spend their holidays with us here. So far, seven years into service in Guatemala, and we have always had family around for Christmas (whether here in Guatemala or in the States.) We are very thankful for this!

Emily was able to stay with us through the middle of January - and that was also incredible. She was able to serve with us at C.A.G. for a couple of weeks. She even got to share a training session on "Technology in the Classroom" with the entire teaching staff!

We had previously posted about the mudslide near our area... and how it had affected traffic. Well in anticipation we moved our school start time to 7:30 - hoping we would be ahead of the traffic... well, that was epic. Not the good kind either.

Well we re-evaluated the situation and will start school later starting next week. There were some families in our school who were getting up at 4:00 a.m. to be to school by 7:30. Other families were forced to cut out youth group, Bible studies, and other activities because there were getting up so early. That is not what we, as a school, want to promote. We're hoping this change will help.

January is almost gone which means February is just around the corner. That means our anniversary is too. Cannot believe that 14 years has past. What a ride! I want to be the first to wish my wonderful wife a very happy anniversary! I love you!

Why not?

Normal life around here isn't as exciting as some missionaries, we get that.  We have even been told by some in our travels "Oh, you teach, you're not real missionaries."  (And we nicely smiled and moved on.)  But what we do is really important too.  We recently were discussing the importance of hope in someone's life in our Sunday school class and one of the other members sent us a note the next day.  In it she thanked us for bringing hope to our students every day. We help them discover gifts and talents they never knew they had, and challenge them to do their best and to use those gifts and talents to not only glorify God but to make the world better.  I often say to parents "your child was born to do" xyz, and this is what we were born to do.  So, to all of you who believe in the importance of our ministry here - thank you.  (For those of you who have no idea what we do, or why we need money all the time, see the links on the right of the screen.)

I feel it is important to remind you readers who send us financial or prayer support, that when we talk about "our" ministry we are including you in that.  We could not be here to do what we do without you.  You are working in this crazy world of Guatemala with us!

 We have often been asked by people why we do any of this, and my typical response is "why not?"  We have been given everything, we have been immensely blessed, we have the gift of salvation, God loved us enough to humble himself and come to earth as a baby to be born in a nasty stinky cattle stall - in light of that "why not?" After a while, when you live in a community like this, you say yes to things without a second thought that most people would think are crazy.  Yup, that's us.  We have lots of opportunities to do "crazy" things but are normally too busy, so we do them during our vacation weeks. Here is a snapshot of what we (and you) are going to do today.

We have friends here whose children are all part of the Creative Arts Program, and immensely talented.  (I honestly think all of them could have a future in theater if they choose to.)  These friends have been some of our biggest encouragers over the last two years.  We know that our working with their kids is part of what allows them to do the things that they do every day.  Those things fit the "normal missionary" mold much better than our teaching.  So, when they asked us (yesterday) if we want to go with them today to help in their ministry, I had one of those say yes without thinking moments.  This was not an uniformed decision, I know exactly what their ministry is, but I think you should know too.

Please....read this blog post to find out more about them.  The rest of our day won't make any sense to you if you don't.







Did you read it?  I mean it?  It might challenge you, and it should.  Please if you didn't read it, go back and do so.  And I highly suggest reading everything my lovely British friend writes, she's brilliant and honest.

If you read any other of her posts you would see that there is going to be a big party.  That's right, a party for prostitutes and their children.  Women who have a life that I would guess all of our readers could only imagine.  Children who spend their day locked up in their house so Mom can work.  And why are we going to do this, you ask?  Because it is EXACTLY what Jesus would have done.  It turns out Jesus wasn't known for hanging out with people who had it all together, people who gave lots of money to the church, people who were accepted by society.  If that is what you think of when you think of Jesus, then please read or reread the gospels.  If you call yourself a Christ follower and that is all you do, then please rethink what it means to actually follow Christ.  Find opportunities near you this season to serve the people Christ would have chosen to serve.

I am really proud to know Natalie and Shawn, and be part of supporting their ministry.  I am really excited to go and see that first hand today.  I am also really excited to be taking my sister-in-law and niece with me.  I am proud to have family that are willing to lay down their ability to sleep in on vacation, and go and do things like this with a willing heart.  I am proud to be able to be a little more like Jesus today, and allow our supporters to do the same.

(If we have opportunity to take pictures today, I will post them later...)

Recent Events

Wow - I just realized that we've had a lot of stuff going on recently. All good stuff, mind you...

Cast of Peter Pan (2015)

Many of you follow us on Facebook so you've likely seen recent posts about this little event we just completed in November, called "Peter Pan, the Musical" - yeah - it was a tonne of work, oh, and it was worth it!

It started as just Joy and Abigail (Michael), however, as usual it was a whole family affair in the end. Poor Sara didn't make it to the end at all.

Oh, but what an awesome event! We're so proud of everyone.



Right in the middle of Peter Pan was Sara's 5th birthday. Our little girl is growing up! As is tradition in our family when the 5th birthday comes we allow them to get their ears pierced. We did not know what sort of ordeal this was going to be.

So, when plan A for the piercing fell through we had to go with plan B - "The Doctor." He really was awesome - Sara was not so excited. But in the end she was a real trooper and now has awesome cross earrings in!

Sara, waiting for the Doctor

End Results

Emma Baptism

On November 29th we were proud to witness Emma making her public profession of her believe in Christ and what He has done for her. We're thankful for Pastor Conner and Union Church of Guatemala for everything they did for us!

After Thanksgiving, and some rest time, we realized that Christmas is pretty much right around the corner. What does that mean for a musician and a sound guy? Concerts - that's right!

For the second year in a row the C.A.G. Band and Choir went to play a live concert at the San Kris mall. It was another great experience. We, again, are so very proud of the students in the band and the choir - they did a fantastic job!

This coming weekend the annual Christmas concert will be held (Friday) and then on Saturday the choir will be performing at a nursing home in Antigua ...

In other recent and relevant news Volcan de Fuego, a very active volcano near Antigua (roughly 44 km from where we live), has been at it again... Please continue to pray for safety for us. 

Volcan de Fuego

We thank everyone for their continued prayer and financial support! We cannot be here serving the Lord without your help! Merry Christmas to one and all!

-knm/jr/ac/eb/sje