Beginnng to look a lot like Christmas....?

Christmas here in Guatemala is different than in the states. There are few Christmas turkeys, LOTS of explosions, and most obviously, no snow. Yet despite all these differences I found myself enchanted once again by the air of Christmas (albeit smog-filled from the busses). Heather led the Children's Christmas presentations at church. All the guatemalan children were standing still, paying attention, and singing with all they had; three traits that all 4 of our children showed their "cultural differences" in. Ours were the stereotypical figgity children who wiggle, grab things, and sing their own tune. Yet with Heather strumming the guitar and the kids singing silent night in Spanish, it all still felt exactly right. At times when I was a kid I would get tingles feeling like I had entered a Norman Rockwell painting; and though I don't believe Norman ever traveled to Guatemala, I found myself in one of his paintings once more.

The kids also played as the "heavenly host" in our Christmas play at church. A group of angels with halos of bent coat hangers singing "Gloooooooria". Then they didn't want to come down, for fear or just enjoyment, but stayed up there singing over and over, "Glooooria" until Dorita finally went up there and lead the kids down by hand.


Our old friend Patricia was able to join us as well as some new friends, a couple from the states that were adopting and didn't know anyone in Guatemala. The season was beautiful as we were able to attend one of the most beautiful Christmas eve services I have ever seen and were able to see the Christmas eve fireworks. I wish we could have been home with family. I wish we could have spent it with Poppy, but one thing I learned this Christmas is that Christmas is more than about my experience of it, it is about sharing the extravagant love of God with those around us, whoever they may be.

Fiesta 3!

Heather ran the final pass of her "Fiesta" VBS in the coastal town of Chipilapa. It was scheduled to be a one day event with 150-250 kids until 600-800 of them showed up!! It was a tiring day in the heat. They were able to minister to the kids but the adults had become accustomed to people coming in and giving things to themso they were constantly asking for equipment, soccer balls, extra chips...Pleeeeeeease. Heather even saw the mothers taking the candy away from the children! There is a line in charity between help and enabling and we have found it is always a hard line to find.

VBS San Lucas

December 4-8th marked my third VBS (this year) with my church in San Lucas. Also titled “Fiesta”, myself along with a team of about 15 Guatemalans and missionaries spent the week doing crazy stunts and acting like 8 year olds in order to bring the love of Jesus to the children. The first day we had 95 kids and by Friday we had 200 kids. 62 kids made a first time decision to walk with Jesus and all 62 kids came back the following Sunday to experience church for the first time. One little girl asked me, “so we come back every Sunday at 10:30 a.m.? Most of the kids had never set foot in a church and we were blessed by the Sierra Bible team to be able to give out amazing hard cover bible story books about Jesus to all the kids who made a decision for Christ. For many of the children, this was the first book they had ever received.
-Heather

VBS Zapote

November 6-10th the kids and I spent the week in a little village called El Zapote where we ran a VBS for the kids in the village in conjunction with the local church. The VBS was called “Fiesta”, which is Spanish for “Party”. It was an amazing theme as many of the children in the village are accustomed to party meaning drinking and dancing, and hopefully now they have redefined the word “Party” to mean singing, games, hearing about Jesus, and being at church with your friends. 10 people partnered with us from Sierra Bible Church in Reno, Nevada to spend the week in song, games, crafts, and Bible stories. We had to drive on a dirt road through 4 rivers and up a very steep and rocky road before arriving at the church each morning to begin VBS. The first day we had 200 kids and we grew to 350 by Friday (try doing a piñatas for 350 kids). 87 kids made a first time decision to walk with Christ. It was an amazing time!
-Heather

Heather turns 32...

For Heather's 32nd birthday we had planned a trip to use someones timeshare up at Lake Atitlan. Unfortunately, my project trip to Ocosingo was rescheduled to overlap her birthday and I couldn't go with them but Courtney, a friend of Heather's was more than happy to take advantage of the chance to 'get away'. They enjoyed a beautiful setting and relaxed by the pool at the edge of the lake. The hotel is very nice and Zoe said, "I would like to stay here a thousand years!" Abi retorted, "If you did, you would be covered with dirt." The kids are learning about Egypt in school and how dust covers things over time.

...Happy birthday you two...

HEAR YE HEAR YE...
The girls are 5!


They actually turned 5 during their time back in the states but their party was rescheduled and we had a great time. They had a princess party and all the guests came in royal attire. The domain of their castle and kingdom was shown from our couch being made into a castle to the castle piñata and of course the cake of this year was a purple and pink castle. All the kids were either dubbed 'lady' or 'knighted' and presented with a sword or princess hat. we had games and cookies. Heather's 'childrens director' nature came out and we had stations for the kids to rotate through to break them up into smaller groups. Everyone had a blast. There was even an appearance from Jacque the french chef.

Goodbye Poppy...

Heather was able to have a great two weeks with her grandfather. Eli, Abi and Zoe were able to play games with him and celebrate their 5th birthday with him. He passed away about a week after Heather and the kids returned home to Guatemala. Heather was able to share Christ with Poppy many times and tell him that he cannot "ride the fence" when it comes to God. Unfortunately his response was one of "well if I haven't done enough to get to heaven yet then I won't be going because I can't do more." He couldn't understand that he didn't need to do anything to recieve eternal life from God. It is his free gift to us through faith in Jesus so we can be reconciled to Him through Christ's payment. We pray that during his final moments he was able to understand God's grace and acknowledge that there is nothing he could do to earn God's love. We place him in the loving hands of God knowing that He loved Poppy even more than we did. He was a kind old man who was liked by all who met him and loved by all who knew him.

Heather was also able to see her best friend Holly and visit with her dad and grandmother (GG) on her father's side.

Lava flows...

While Heather, Eli, Abi and Zoe were away Anzo and I were able to spend a lot of time together. He was very quiet and unsure of the whole thing having almost everyone gone but him. One evening we decided to take a trip up the volcano Pacaya at night to see the lava glowing. We went up with a few people from eMi and made our way to the top in the dark. Anzo enjoyed being carried up while I sucked wind. At the top we were able to see several lava flows and walk right up to them (about 5 or 6 feet) because of their orientation. I forgot my camera but we did get this one picture.

During our time alone we were able to make dinner together (and cookies), sleep together, play just the two of us, and do special things that are difficult to do with 6 people (like the volcano). But even still he was very glad to see eveyone come back!

Poppy...

Heather's grandfather Skeet (affectionately called Poppy) has cancer and was given 6-9mo to live. We were planning on spending lots of time with him at Christmas. Yesterday, we learned that after falling and hitting his head, and having a gran mal seizure, the doctor said that if he is bleeding in his brain he only has a day to a week to live. Tomorrow early morning, Heather, Eli, Abi and Zoe are flying to see him. Anzo and I will stay here because he is not fully adopted and cannot get a visa in time. While we lived in Roseville we saw Poppy 3 to 4 days each week. He has been a large part of the children's life and they still talk of him often. We are unsure about his spiritual state and a saving relationship with Jesus although he has lately been saying that he believes in Jesus. Be praying that Heather can arrive in time to see him, that he will be receptive to the gospel and that the kids will handle the goodbye well. We do still pray that the Lord would give him more time just as he gave Hezekiah 15 more years while on his deathbed. Please be praying.

Bob the lizard...

We had some good Guatemalan friends from San Lucas over for dinner. It was great to see them, they are amazing Christian people. They brought their two daughters Jael and Ianina and pet iguana. We asked them the iguana's name but it still had none. They wanted to name it a common american name and I suggested "Bob"! Me and Bob

A visit to San Juan Bautista...

Each time that I visit San Juan Bautista the women there ask about Heather and the kids. I made a visit there that you can read about on the EricEMI.blogspot.com site.

Our family is always the center of attention there as they are all blond and can speak Spanish. One of the families we built a home for is having a baby. Luky had received bad news that there were complications with her pregnancy. Heather shared the burden with Luky during the VBS week in June by praying with her and talking with her of God's faithfulness. Heather has been praying for Luky and she has been anxious to talk with Heather about her progress asking me about her next visit each time I went to San Juan. Finally they were able to get together to talk.

a fresh change...

The two main developments this month are our move to the new house and the kiddos starting school.

August was our first month in our new house. It has been very rewarding for the kids. We are safe in our neighborhood which has no walls around the individual homes but around the whole neighborhood instead. We have a slew of kids come through the house each day as several of our neighbors have kids the same age (particularly next door with Camden and Cambria). Because of the kids’ interaction, the adults come by much more often as well. It is nice to have neighbors out from behind walls that you can walk up to and talk to.
Eli is always out and about with the neighbor boys on their bikes.

There does seem to be a social grouping of the foreigners and the Guatemalans. I guess this has a lot to do with language. Heather and I are trying to be more social with the Guatemalans but the Guatemalans in this neighborhood tend to be more wealthy and to themselves. They are friendly enough but seem to want to run in their own circles. Be praying that they will be more open to integrating.

Heather span instarted this years home school. The kids have been learning lots. Anzo has seen the most improvement as his attention increases and he can focus more. Each of the kids were able to pick a country to learn more about and Anzo picked the "States". He is eager to go and visit.

Along with the school Heather put the kids in soccer for PE. They have had lots of fun running around kicking the ball. They go 3 days a week.


At our church, one of the helpers in Sunday school had a baby. She is young and still in school. Her mother wanted to keep the baby but must work so she doesn't have time to care for the baby every day. Heather agreed to bring the baby here on Thursdays to care for little Daniella. Heather is enjoying her baby fix and the kids all love having the baby around!

On an interesting side note, we have had some severe thunder storms. Not days of rain on end like Stan but short severe storms and one day we got large marble sized hail!

Some pictures from July

August

I will get back to July but here are some pics of August

Finally back

Last month while I was building a home in Pixebaj, Heather and the kids stayed in Chichicastenango with Carlos and Heidi Fernandez. I joined them each evening. One day Heather and Heidi went to the world famous street market there.
Heather also made her first trip on a motorcycle. She went a couple blocks down to a friends house. She was in a hurry so she had no time for instructions. "Just tell me where the clutch, brake and gear shifter is" she said, and off she went. She didn't crash, it just fell over once she got there and wanted to park it.

The boys got their karate video. Anzo wasn't too interested but Eli watched it every day for a while. The girls got Ballerina videos

Welcome Nick!

My nephew Nick came to stay with us for a month. He was able to come with me to Tabacal several times and help me with the construction of 4 homes.

During July we finally ate "the Duck". For those of you who remember, I was given a live duck as a gift from the pastor in Zapote. TKO bit and killed the duck and I cleaned it and put it in the freezer. Here is the girls going their "duck dance" because they were sooo excited to finally eat the duck.

Nick was excited because after dinner we let him dye his hair blue... with food coloring!

We had lots of fun with Nick. He was a big help for me with work and we were able to go several places. After our busy time building in Pastores my schedule freed up so we took a trip to the waterpark Xocomil at Irtra (the guatemalan Disneyland). It was amazingly fun!

There was a huge waterslide for the family there where we all could get in a giant raft and go down the slide together. The kids were terrified at first but they all loved it once we were down. Well everyone loved it but Anzo. It took a couple times before he was excited to go again. We were able to stay a couple nights right there on site. It was like going to Disneyland and staying at the Disneyland hotel. The park was probably the nicest water park I have ever seen! Unfortunately I wasn't able to take many pictures but it was a "water" park.

Not even the afternoon rains could dampen the kids fun. The day we went to the water park we stayed right to closing. Heather and I even still went on a couple slides after it started pouring rain.

A day at "the lake"...

During a project trip to Pixebaj the family stayed in Chichicastenango with friends and the week culminated in a nights stay at Lake Atitlan. I find this lake to be the most beautiful place on earth. It was nice to have a days vacation even if it still was associated with work.

The kids love playing in the lake

Anzo turned 5 on Saturday. Unfortunately most of our friends were unable to attend so mostly it was a family affair. I don't think Anzo minded very much though it was a bit sad for me. He wanted to have a train birthday and Heather had brought back some train stuff from the US. Obviously she couldn't bring back a piñata which is manditory for birthdays here. Finding a train piñata proved to be difficult and we ended up buying a shoe piñata and pasting paper on it to make it look more like a train. Heather and I kept up the tradition of themed cakes and we made a train cake with a coal car, caboose and even an animal car. Anzo and Eli have been playing with the imaginext castle ever since they opened the box

Moving when?...

Many have asked when we are moving to San Cristobal and the answer is exactly that we don't know. Our friends who live in our future house are building a home just a couple doors down and were planning on moving in to that house. Unfortunatley his father has cancer and they will be moving back to the states. The home they are building continues to not be finished and due to the change of plans, the unsureity (if that is a word) of the move date has just increased. Hopefully we will move there at all. This coupled with the previous post has made quite the stir.

New Van?

We purchased a "new" 97 Mazda MPV. Heather loved the idea of a normal van and getting rid of the 12 passenger 4 cylinder diesel tourism van. She was in the lap of luxury with power windows, air conditioning, and seatbelts in each seat so each child can have their own window. Unfortunately Guatemala caught up with us. Just after we bought it from some friends who had returned to the US I brought it in to the shop to check out the "check engine" light that had been on so we could get it set up right before driving it too much. We found out that 4 of the 6 cylinders were bad (100 psi instead of 150 which means bad rings hence rebuild). We now are looking for a used motor to put in and our "new" van remains parked in the shop and we continue to drive the 12 passenger van. But praise God that we have that 12 passenger van still!

San Juan VBS

Heather did a two day VBS in San Juan Bautista with a few of the other ladies from EMI. In typical Heather fashion it was a raving success. All the onlookers mentioned how amazed they were at how good Heather was at leading children. I was busy building the prototype home so I didn't get to participate much outside of playing my guitar for worship. we had both Heather's micraphone and my guitar plugged into our Ipod speakers but it was pretty much loud enough. 13 children trusted Christ and will be attending the church there.

It was a boiling hot day and our kids kept themselves cool by the local pila (clothes washing cistern)