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