for our supporters

Many of you have asked via e-mail or in person how to support us. And here is how it works. You need to go to this site. It has the information you will need to follow for supporting us in this ministry. This is a page for AMG Guatemala. It is pretty self explanatory. It shows all about the other missionaries that we will be serving with in Guatemala as well as what the ministry is about for those of you who are not clear on what AMG does. I am not sure what level we are at yet, but I will try to let you know as soon as we know!

What have we been up to? It has been a whirlwind month! We have had a lot of physical illnesses and set backs in our family this month and not all in our immediate family. It started with my nephew who is 12 (the same age as our Betsy, and they are very close) he was hit by a car while he was running across the street. God had His hand on the whole situation and it is amazing to look at how He had it all under control. I could give you a big long story of this but, I will spare you of it. He has 2 broken femurs and was in a wheelchair up until this past week. He is WALKING!! (with help of a walker!)this was originally thought that it wouldn't happen until sometime in January! He is doing great! Keep praying for him he still has a long way to go...rods need to come out of his legs sometime in the spring!

Next my grandmother has been seeing the signs of old age (she is almost 92) many different illnesses are taking over her body and she "just wants to go home". She does have her moments that she has us in stitches!! but mostly she is in bed sleeping and just biding her time! She has been in and out of the hospital many times in the past few months. Most recently a few days after Alex's' accident.

After the calm of all that happened between Alex and Grandma, Meg decided that she would allow an abscess tooth to take over her face. It was very bad. I knew it was bad, but had no idea what some of the side effects from this could have been. Praise God she is fine!!
The first picture here was the Saturday evening right after the tooth was pulled, the second one was her second day in the hospital. See the difference...We spent 3 days in the hospital having IV antibiotics! Not much fun for her! But she is doing much better now! (after 2 weeks!)

These things seem to have taken over our lives for the past month!!

So that was our little update for you all to know where we are.

Thanks for keeping us in your prayers!

what can you be praying for?

Here is a short list of things that we as a family would cherish your prayers for.

1. Meetings!! We need them and we also, have the potential of being involved with 3 back to back Missions Conferences. (ours being one of them) Phil is heading it up we are not speaking at our own.

2. Sale of our house! We really would like to be out of this house and be able to focus more of our time and energy on deputation. Phil needs to work right now to pay the mortgage so if we were out from under it, it would free him up a bit for other meetings!

3. Home schooling the children. So far we have had a great few weeks. It is so much easier schooling 4 of them that just 1 and trying to juggle all the other things in around it, with everyone on the same sort of schedule it makes it much easier!

4. Unity in the family. We are all overwhelmed with the changes that God has been bringing into our lives, as parents (and adults) we can often see what God is doing. As children (teens especially) I think it is hard to understand what is going on and can make for some difficult days!

5. Our new Pastoral candidate at church. He will be coming up this weekend with his family for a time to meet the people at the church. We will be able to hear him preach on Sunday. And a jam packed weekend for them with Q &A time, dessert night, ladies brunch, men's breakfast, afternoon visiting, fellowship...I know it will be an exciting time for all and an exhausting time as well.

I think that should do it for now...I just needed to post and let you know where we are.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and see where we are in our process. And thanks for praying with us!

We are on the "move"

Our house officially went on the market last week. It's not too easy keeping this house clean and ready for a showing. But, we are learning to do the final walk through every time we are leaving the house. It is not as stressful as it was a week ago, however ask me next week or even next month and I may be singing a different tune! We have gotten rid of a bunch of things and repainted a bunch of rooms so that they are more appealing to the eye. I guess lime green isn't a good seller for a bedroom, unless you are 10! Funny how when we put the house on the market things got done quickly. You know those finishing touches to a room, the things that only take a few hours to do but never get done. I need to remember that when we move into the next place. **Just finish things to completion!!**

What else? Phil is sharing at the men's breakfast on Saturday. He spent the day at Panera Breads today working on his notes and also working on our deputation package. There is never a dull moment around here.

Well....for now I guess that is all! stay tuned

here is what's happening here...

Phil is working on our deputation package and getting ready to start sending them out. We are going to be visiting churches starting this coming Sunday. We want to meet people and let them know who we are before we walk into their church and ask for support. We know most of the pastors of the churches that we will be visiting however, we do not know all the people there so we want to develop a relationship with them. The kids are very excited to be visiting their friends and families at their places churches. I must say it is going to be an exciting time. I am sure it will be tiring too!



We decided on the "sitting" picture. (which was the one that I really wanted too!) Now, we are waiting for the preview of it .



Other news...check out the Dennetts blog Dennetts blog. We are so very excited and happy for them. And can't wait for our blog to have that exciting news!!

That is all for now...

We need your help!

We took a few pictures today, and well...lets just say that getting 8 people to be in a picture and smiling is not an easy task. Now, this picture will be our prayer card so we need to know which one people would like to see hanging on their refrigerator. What do you think picture in the tree or picture on the ground...PLEASE let us know...comment here even though no one ever does!! :)

More pictures

We visited this project the same day we were at Patzun. We were served lunch here. It was a typical Guatemalan meal one that is commonly served at weddings or special occasions. It is a soup that has a hunk of meat in it that you tear apart with your fingers and well...let's just say I am not very gifted with eating with my fingers, and I wore it well! While we were eating our lunch the children put on a performance for us. All the classes did something special about Guatemala. They sang songs about Guatemala they recited poems about Guatemala. I had a great time watching them with their expressions and the joy of sharing things about their country! From the youngest to the oldest they are so proud of living in Guatemala. This project has a church with it as well and this church has over 1200 members! Isn't that amazing? They take such care of their church building. It was very immaculate inside. A beautiful painting of a waterfall inside the church. We don't have many pictures of the children, but we do have a lot of video. I will try to get more pictures of the kids on here soon!

here are some pictures...

We visited a few projects this week. This is one that we had been to already, I wish I had pictures of it back then. They have repainted it since then and it is a beautiful school with a closed in court yard that has a church right next to it. The church has over 800 members! In Guatemala. That really got me thinking about how far some of these people really must have to go to attend church. They have services in the afternoon so that they can sell at the market before church and also get to church. It was so beautiful inside. There is a picture of it here. This is in Patzun. The people are so beautiful and we had a great time there. They had a play for us and the kids dressed up as different farm animals and sang "Down on Grandpa's Farm" Very sweet...the older kids played their recorders for us and also the xylophones. I can't remember the song they played for us, maybe Bob will remind me! (Hint)

These are some pictures of the children in Patzun and also of the church. A picture of the program they had for us too.
What a beautiful day we had. The Director of the school is such a Godly man who only wants the best for the children there. It was incredible seeing his compassion for the children there. He really wants to do his best and expects the children to do the same! They were all so very well behaved children. It was such a blessing to be there this week.

What great traveling roads

No pictures yet! but let me tell you about some of the roads we were traveling...steep does not describe what they were! Imagine traveling on a road that has switchbacks about every 100 feet, maybe not that often but it sure seems like it! If your tire goes off the road well...so do you! Dad if you are reading this, we are all safe and sound! We climbed a mountain and then I looked back down the side of it and saw a road below us, when I ever realized that we had just been on that road just a few minutes earlier it made me a little uneasy! Good thing I don't get car sick! that would have been interesting to say the least! There were cattle and horses in the road a very busy road for everyone and everything! I guess it was just paved in the past few years, I couldn't even imagine traveling on it as a dirt road. We are sitting and resting tonight and traveling tomorrow again so...more later!

Happy birthday Felipe

Here we sit in Guatemala, It is Phil's 37th birthday. We are enjoying our time here we finally got in at 5:00 am via LA. We were rerouted because the flight to Miami was full, we had fun learning patience yesterday. We were only 9 hours behind schedule even after our detour! And our luggage made it with us which we thought would not make it here! more later...

Tennessee is the place to be

It is so beautiful down here! The grass is green, the flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping and it is so warm! We have been here since Saturday, and have thoroughly enjoyed our time here and it is hard to believe that our time is quickly coming to an end here. The girls that we have here are enjoying the sights and also enjoying meeting the people that are here in the ministry. They have made some great friends. And Phil and I have as well. Some that have had many encouraging words for us, and others who are just as excited about this adventure as we are! We have seen a lot and learned a lot and are still learning so much and can't wait to see what God has in store for us as we continue on this journey that He has for us! More later when we are home! (maybe some pictures too)

One down...how many to go??

Phil finished his first Bible class this past Friday. The class was Missionary Practices and Principles. He needs to still take his finals but the class room part is done. It was taught be Mr. Henry Heijermans founder of Biblical Ministries Worldwide. (BMW) He is a seasoned missionary that has served all over the world. Our interim pastor went to South Africa with him 25 years ago, then to Argentina then they were separated from there they didn't see each other again until just last week! Phil really enjoyed his teaching, and getting to know him. It was great when he came home everyday excited about what he had learned, and ways that he was looking at things in the ministry now vs. just a few weeks ago. It has refined our understanding of what we have been called to do.



I have to share at a mothers group next week. If you know me at all you know that this is a little outside of my comfort zone! I have been praying about what I should speak on and the one theme that keeps coming back is faith. We have learned a lot these past few months of how when you step out on faith God really does have a plan. It is always something that is easy to say to someone, "you need to have faith that God will provide" or something of that sort. But these last few months have really been put into action. And it is the resounding theme that I keep having go through my head and I think sharing my testimony about this whole new step of faith is what I am going to speak on. Please pray for me when you think of it. I am a little shy (believe it or not!!) Standing up in front of a bunch of strangers looking at me is not my idea of a fun time! But, God is really stretching me. I have a feeling that back in September when I was asked to do this as terrified as I was God just nodded His head and said "yes you can".



That is our little update and there will be more to come so stay tuned!!

Not much to post on...

Well, really since we are still in the beginning stages of this it isn't like we have stuff to put on here everyday I do try to keep you posted on what is going on. So, our latest is we are going to Tennessee of a few weeks for our face to face interview. We are going to bring the 3 older girls with us so that they can see what is going on. This is after all a whole family decision that we are heading to the mission field so we feel that it is important for them to see and be a part of it.

Phil starts one of his Bible classes on Tuesday. It is an intense 2 week course that will be all day. He is looking forward to it! I think that he will be pretty exhausted when he gets home in the evening!

Oh, I almost forgot...our applications were sent out on Sunday. That was pretty exciting to get them in the mail!

Well...see that isn't really too much to post on but, it did give you a little update!

we are on our way!

OK, so not really! But we did purchase our ticket last week for our "survey" trip in May. It was really amazing how Phil found the tickets. After talking with a few people that had been looking at ticket prices for us and not finding any that were really affordable he jumped on the computer so that he could track the prices for the ticket and the first site he went on the tickets were so inexpensive. Basically they were the price of 1 ticket for 2!! God it so good!

We are heading down for 6 days. (two days of that are air time) But, we are heading down to chat with the Hastings about the field. Looking at different prospective areas. Pray for where God wants us (and not where we want to be) I already know where I want to be. But God may have a different spot than the vacant lot next to the Hastings ;)

So, that is our little update in a nutshell! Not much of one but one to keep you informed!

what about Faith?

Well, after the big announcement in church today I had many people come up to me and ask if I was OK with this. And the answer to that most definitely is "YES!!" I am thrilled to go. Scared, anxious, you name it but really I do want to be there. I know that it is God's timing on this. 6 years ago when we went down on our survey trip WAS NOT the time for us to be there and it is funny how you can see hind sight just how God works things out. Phil felt called to the ministry but we really were not sure what sort of ministry. We have talked and prayed about a lot of different options. Most of them were keeping us in our "comfort zone" We need to be walking by faith, and we have learned a lot about that in church and in other areas of our life. Read here in James it says:


Jam 2:14What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but have not works? can that faith save him?
Jam 2:15 If a brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily food,
Jam 2:16 and one of you say unto them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled; and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body; what doth it profit?
Jam 2:17 Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself.
Jam 2:18 Yea, a man will say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith apart from thy works, and I by my works will show thee my faith.


So it boils down to faith...and what you choose to do with it. If we have faith and we are being called to this and we do not act on our faith then what does that make us? We will have to answer for it some day. If this is where God wants us to be then we need to step out on this and help those in need...teach them, love them, live with them...
So I guess, with all that I must say that I am ready to head out to the mission field. Where ever that may be, yes we do hope and pray that it is Guatemala however God may change our hearts and who knows we could end up in Ecuador...stranger things have happened! ;) It is all about FAITH and knowing full well that as long as we are in step with what we feel God wants for us we are in His will and really what better place is there to be? OK, being next door to Mom and Dad is right up there too!

It's not a secret anymore...

Well, for those of you that are reading this. You are either saying "finally" or WHAT!! After much prayer and consideration Phil and I have decided to pursue Guatemala. We feel that God really wants us there. We both have been there, Phil more than myself. However, a part of us is left there each time we head down.

Let me just say we are in the very beginning stages of this. Meaning we just received our initial application that we need to sit down and fill out and send in before we really get the ball rolling.

We are so excited and all the kids are too. God is so amazing that He has placed this on our hearts. (even the kids hearts) It is such an exciting time to be starting this process. We laugh at the prospect of being there in just a few years with the kids. Then realize that Abby will be ready to graduate when we are just going to be getting settled. However, that is our human time frame. God may have us wait longer or hey, we may be even getting there sooner. Whatever the time frame, it is all in Gods hands at this point.

So, now that it is out there please keep us in your prayers through this whole process! We thank you for that.

And, I will not be the only one posting on this, I may have the kids randomly put things on here that they are feeling and Phil as things progress. I just want to keep it all written somewhere so that I can keep track of things!