Admittedly, we are cheating with this week’s Photo of the Week. The shot above is from our school supply distribution day in El Tizate back in January. We’re posting it today to remind you that we need your help.

School starts in January for our friends in El Tizate and Santiago Zamora and we have over 25 students in need of scholarships this year. That means we need to have $4300 come in during December to help meet these educational needs and help break the cycle of poverty in these two small villages. If you’d like to help, click the GIVE tab and select scholarships from the drop down menu. I can’t think of a better stocking stuffer.

Gracias y Dios te bendiga.

Photos of the Week will show up cada semana in our Friday posts on Mission Erickson dot com. There won’t be much verbage because we believe in the old adage that “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Our hope is that each weekly 1,000 “words” helps you to better connect with our ministry in Guatemala. Enjoy.

In honor of the passing of Steve Jobs this week, we thought we’d show you one way to use the iPad….it is the perfect solution when you need to distract kids who are waiting in line for our dental clinic at Eagle’s Nest in Sololá.

Our Photos of the Week will show up cada semana in our Friday posts on Mission Erickson dot com. There won’t be much verbage because we believe in the old adage that “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Our hope is that each weekly 1,000 “words” helps you to better connect with our ministry in Guatemala.  Enjoy.

On Friday, June 3, 2011 the Christian Spanish Academy of Antigua, Guatemala presented me with a diploma indicating that I had satisfactorily completed de nuestro Programa General en Español como Segunda Lengua por un período de 32 semanas (572 horas).

What that basically means is that I spent a whole heckuva lot of time sitting in a beautiful garden setting trying to learn a new language. I walked through the doors of the Christian Spanish Academy for 143 days. Each day I sat across from my teacher, Merle, for 4 hour chunks. You’d think I’d be fluent by now, but at the end of my time in school, I feel like the proverbial “old dog” who is struggling to learn the “new tricks”.

In actuality, I think my diploma should have said “After 572 hours in the Christian Spanish Academy, Todd Erickson officially knows more Spanish than when he started, can efficiently and effectively order at a restaurant and is fully trained in the use of Google Translate.”

I still have a long way to go, but now it is time to head out and take the test that really counts: “El Examen de las Calles”.

What constitutes a bad day in your world? No coffee? A foiled snow day? A sick toddler?

For me, here in Guatemala, it is usually something like running out of milk and knowing I can’t get the kind I like for days, the internet going in and out, or maybe firecrackers at midnight when I am really tired.

Well, we know a dear older man who is always smiling. He works as a guard at our gate and he serves us faithfully. If he sees me in the market, he waves and smiles like he’s seeing a friend. He lives right outside of Antigua in a tin “house” with no water. This is the amazing view from his house:

The other day he had a bad day. Apparently, the town was cutting down a tree and it fell on his house!! Here is the current state of his house:

Here is his kitchen:

and here is his bedroom:

OK, so here is the problem, the municipality says they are going to fix it, but how long does he wait to see if that is true? We could build him a new house. We could even use cinder block, but we can’t verify if he owns the property. If he doesn’t own it, then as soon as it is built the landlord may decide to take it. That would leave our friend homeless. So, please pray with us as we decide how and when to move forward.

The interesting thing is that many people in all of our lives have houses that are crashing down. Maybe not on the outside, but on the inside. The exterior may look beautiful, but their marriage, finances, or hearts may be collapsing.

Pray that God shows you who in your life is having a bad day and I’ll pray with you that you too, will know how and when to move forward.