What’s better than winning the Super Bowl? WINNING THE BATTLE FOR YOUR SOUL! Surama Paredes did what the New England Patriots couldn’t do… she beat the Giants, not the NY Giants, But the Giants of sin that Satan was using to enslave here life. Just 10 days ago her ex live in boyfriend Manuel was baptized as they both decided that they were willing to do ANYTHING in order to right their relationship with God. It was a joyous and emotional time. After Surama’s baptism Karen Manuel’s youngest sister began studying the Bible with the teens inspired by the changes that Manuel and Surama have made.

Surama is the fourth person baptized in our region this year and the fifth in the Guatemalan church.

Shared with Flock - The Social Web Browser
http://flock.com

For the second year in a row the Guatemalan sector leaders met en “El Filon” to pray plan and worship together. This year the 50 sector leaders were joined by 30 of the ministry coordinators. The integration of ministry coordinators has brought the church’s top leadership to an unprecedented 90 members who lead our churches 25 sectors and 20 special ministries. Alex Paiz shared a class on Powerful leadership, Bill Ellis gave a workshop on team building and mutual respect between different ministry roles and Jose Luis Estrada and Paulo Balcarcel taught on real manhood while Andrea Paiz shared with the women on their role in leadership. It was definitely a time of spiritual meat. Saturday night ended with a prayer walk which was organized by the South Region’s singles sector leaders. On Sunday morning Edwin and Jenny Mejia encouraged us to walk with Jesus and to recommit to fasting and prayer as they shared the Lord’s supper. At the end of the afternoon we had our annual soccer tournament where our South Region was victorious for the second consecutive year winning the coveted branch with a hat on top!!!

“In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His Kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.” 2 Timothy 4:1-2

This was the charge given to Bill and Wendy Ellis, Jose Luis and Elizabeth Estrada and Alex and Andrea Paiz as they were appointed Evangelists and Women’s Ministry Leaders before the Guatemala City Church at the January 23rd Congregational Midweek Service. After sharing about each couple and their contributions to the evangelization of Mexico and Central America as missionaries and the steps that they have taken towards spiritual maturity Josue Ortega, Evangelist from the Mexico City Church, who oversees the mission work in Central America, exhorted each of the newly named Evangelists to have confidence in order to accomplish God’s vision for Central America and to call the church in Guatemala to embrace whole heartedly the mission to grow in number and spirituality.

It was truly a historic event as it marks the first appointments of this kind in the thirteen and a half years of mission work in Central America.

Steven has been learning about the Spanish Colonial Period in school. On Tuesday Wendy and I joined Mr. Osborn to Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala (or Antigua Guatemala) to learn about this historic city and transport us back to the 1500’s. Santiago de Guatemala was named Capitol of the Kingdom of Guatemala, which stretched from Chiapas State Mexico to Costa Rica in 1543. Much of the city was destroyed by an earthquake and later rebuilt in the late 1700’s and the capitol was moved to modern day Guatemala in 1775. This city was declared a “patrimony to humanity” and was included in the list of the Convention of World Culture in 1985. Many of the ruins are still in place. We had an amazing time discovering this city which was founded just a few years after Columbus’ first voyage to the “New World”.

Shared with Flock - The Social Web Browser
http://flock.com

Last Sunday the Family Belteton Aceituno, the Teen Ministry and all of God’s Angels rejoiced as Brian Belteton was baptized. Brian is brother to Luis Belteton, Karla Belteton and Alejandro Aceituno, all disciples in the Guatemala City Church. Alejandro and Magaly Aceituno lead the church’s teen ministry and are doing an outstanding job. Check out their blog (Spanish) and see what they’re up to.

Saturday or singles headed to the beach, well almost, we hit the H2Olas water park in Monterrico. What a great time of fun and fellowship.

One of the most rewarding things in God’s Kingdom is the relationships that we build. Paulo Balcarcel who leads the church in Xela, Guatemala along with his wife Mirtha have been two of our best friends for the past 10 years.  In April Paulo invited his brother Manuel to attend our annual Men’s Day, “Strong Men in Times of Crisis“.  The very next day Paulo called me and asked me if I would like to study the Bible with his little brother.  For the past eight months we have studied, prayed, shared, played and drank coffee and sweet bread from the “Fake German”.  In this time Manuel has become one of my very best friends as I have seen him struggle with the decisions that were necessary in order to put God first in his life.  Last month Manuel decided to move out of his home with Surama, his live in girlfriend, so that they could get their lives right with God.  Please pray that Surama’s husband will send divorce papers (he abandoned her and her son Javier 9 years ago) and pray for Surama who should be baptized next week.  Join us as we pray that she can be divorced soon and together with Manuel can come back together as a family.

We had a blast roughin’ it at the CAG annual Father Son camp out.  87 boys and their dads set up camp on the school grounds.  We ate pizza than had a time of worship and a devotional afterwards the “Fantastic Fathers” beat the “Bad Boys” at the traditional Capture the Flag tournament (the first time that the dads win in 8 years).  After which we watched the movie “Yours, Mine and Ours” before calling it a night.  Early Saturday morning us dads were up, mostly because we couldn’t sleep on the ground, and ready to make griddle cakes for the sleeping army of boys.  By 10:00 AM we all had our tents packed up and headed back home determined to “be good lads and to make our heavenly Dad glad and not sad by being bad or getting mad”.

I really don’t think you can call it a sleep over if you don’t actually sleep, but the single women took advantage of the fact that the boys and I were on our Father Son Camp-out at CAG to have their own special time of bonding.  Devotionals, singing, prayer times and beauty masks were all on the bill for this Pajama party.  Saturday morning came and it was time for fruit and homemade waffles, just in time to head home to get some sleep.

This year’s International Leadership Conference in Los Angeles, California was not only a great time of worship, learning, planning but also an outstanding time of fellowship. I was blessed to be able to stay with our good friends Will and Lee Ann Neel in San Dimas. Will tried in two days to get my golf game up to speed, which proved itself an impossible task (even to him). ;-). We did however have a great time with Troy Criss and Terry Folker from the Gainesville Christian Church (Terry and Steve Stephenson asked me to come into the ministry 16 years ago in Orlando).

We are very grateful to the many brothers and sisters in Los Angeles who through personal and congregational sacrifices made it possible for leaders from Guatemala, Honduras (San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa), El Salvador, Costa Rica and Belize to participate. For most of the leaders in Central America this was the first time that they had participated in the yearly leadership conference.

Once we got home we were ready for the home stretch of the year which included a blood drive, a marrieds retreat, a Teen camp and a Singles conference all on the same week! It was all made possible by our incredible team of ministry coordinators, most of whom hold secular jobs, who lead Guatemala’s 20 different ministries at a congregational or at a regional level. It is this leadership team that allowed the church in Guatemala to have 85 baptisms/restorations and grow for the first time in four years after laying off 70% of the church’s full time staff.