Tonight, after our friends left, we searched high and low for our cat, Casper. She’s a little like a dog who comes when we call her, but she was nowhere to be found. Even though Todd told me he checked the balcony, I went out there just one more time. And that’s when I heard it. A faint meow.

Turns out Casper was stuck in a tree behind our house in a gated lot. So at 11:00 at night Todd climbed the fence, had the kids help pass him a ladder, climbed two stories with the ladder insecurely against the tree, to save our cat.

If we are willing to do that for a cat, what are we willing to do for the hurting and lonely people around us?

That is the question I am pondering as I go to sleep tonight, with my cat sound asleep on my bed.

Do you know a doctor who has gotten sick and had to be the patient? How about a physical therapist with an injury? It is very hard going from being the one with the knowledge and control to being the one needing the services. This is the situation I find myself in right now.

In the states, I was a teacher. I liked what I did, was good at it, parents and students liked me, I was creative and I felt smart and confident.  I was also a Northern Virginia mom. I chauffeured my kids around and got them where they needed to be all while driving in my Honda Pilot. Without me they were often trapped to the confines of our own neighborhood.

And then I moved to Guatemala.  I’ve gone from being a teacher to a student. I am finding Spanish school difficult and am often questioning my intellect. I speak childish Spanish and often get my verb tenses wrong. The other day my teacher was calling out large numbers in Spanish and I had to write them. I got a few of them wrong! This is an activity I did with my 5th grade students while teaching place value, and here I am, like a 10 year old student, writing out my numbers and not fully succeeding. It is humbling at best.  In Guatemala, I do not drive and I never go anywhere alone. I have been stripped of my independence.

These are not bad things in and of themselves as I am liking my life in Guatemala. These feelings are also not unique to me, as I have talked with many amazing women here who feel the same way I do. But I am finding that God is using these experiences to strip me of everything that I clung to as my identity.  So, as God peels away, layer by layer, the “Self” I am full of, I am encouraged by II Corinnthians 12:8…

“But He [Christ] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

This is what God is working on in me, what is He working on in you? I would love to hear!

(Maureen)

Friends, I have shopped me some FINE Black Friday sales in the past. This year the one TV channel we get from the States has been letting me know of the bargins. Kohls opens at 4:00 a.m. Target opens at 5:00. I’ve been joking with a dear Guatemalan friend that we are going to start Black Friday here in the market!

Of course I had to explain what it was first.

Yes, it is true, Black Friday has not made it to Antigua, Guatemala…

In reality, a lot of things have not made it here.  Good schools, access to a dentist, clean drinking water, safe stoves and homes for widows are all things that have not fully made it here.

Sometimes even living here I forget…I offered to lend a movie to a dad the other day and he said, “I’d love to borrow it when I get a dvd player!” Well-educated teachers tell me that they don’t make brownies because they don’t have an oven.

And as I watch the hilariously annoying target lady run down the aisle with a parachute on her back, I think to my self “Not too long ago, I shopped on Black Friday and had no idea or just tuned out the needs of so many people.”

But God is not letting me do that any more. If I were home this Friday I just don’t think I could watch people fight over a camera or an mp3 player, when I know people here who can’t afford vegetables or meat.  I’m not passing judgement, I am just sharing how God is rocking my world.

So, what if…..

For every store you go to on Black Friday, you also buy a water filter.
Or you don’t go to any stores at all and instead buy a house for a widow.
What if, as a family, you decide to buy dental equipment.
Or instead of a ski vacation you go on a mission trip.
It is radical, I know.

Servants 4 Him has a gift catalog that will allow you to do just that!

Six months from now the clothes you buy your kids won’t still fit, the iTunes songs will be old news, the camera will have broken and the earrings lost….but impacting their world view is a gift that will last a lifetime.

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” – Colossians 3:17

(Maureen)

We have been here in Guatemala for a few months now and we are working hard to learn the language.

In my mind, ministry would not really start until we learn the language enough to communicate in Spanish. But, in school, we started making friends. We found out that many people are not here in Antigua permanently like we are but are here to learn the language before moving to their permanent destination.

Since we are in our permanent destination we are one step ahead of those in transition.  Our wii, skateboard and american girl dolls are already here, we have lots of space in our home, we have everything we need in the kitchen to whip up a good meal, and we have internet.

As we started meeting people, we realized that this was not the case with other people. Many are in transition homes or live with a Guatemalan family. Some don’t have space, others don’t have internet, and others don’t have friends nearby.

That is when God showed me that opening my home to other language students, cooking for people, letting people wash their clothes here, use our internet and come for dinner was a ministry.

I know that God has us here to impact the people of Guatemala and to change our lives as well, but for now I know that he also planned for us to have a ministry that lets us speak english, eat foods from the states, play with our wii and bless people at the same time.

One family said their daughter had not had a friend to play with in four months.

One couple said if it had not been for us they probably would have already gone back home.

One couple asked us to host a birthday party because they did not have enough room.

God is amazing that while He is molding us, changing us and teaching us how to reach out to a country that is totally foreign to us, He is using what we do  know to minister to others now.

What unexpected ministry is God using you to do?

(Maureen)