I am on my way home from Ukraine, where I covered an historic event. It was the International Evangelical Missions Forum, sponsored by Russian Ministries.
The forum was the first of its kind to address a crisis in the church in the former Soviet countries.
The crisis is difficult to completely explain, but I will try. First, the church is on the decline. There are fewer people attending churches in these nations and it stems from a number of reasons. Many believe it’s because the church is stuck in tradition/legalism and not interested in providing worship that reaches and touches young people. Other suggest restrictions on religious freedom is causing part of the decline. Other suggest the emigration is causing part of the problem. And, yet other say evangelicals aren’t working together — not talking about these issues to help end the negative growth.
This forum saw nearly 200 leaders from many organizations and denominations from many countries in the former Soviet Union and they began talking. While no decisions were made about what to do about these issues, the groundwork was laid to see even more discuss to take place.
I’ve uploaded a short video for you to see what I saw. Obviously, it’s not professional, but it was fun to do.
What an incredible week we had in Guatemala! There were 26 of us from Michigan, Illinois, Texas and Edmonton who traveled to Guatemala to reach out to kids and see what Orphan Outreach is doing with orphanages, churches and communities.
Days one and two took us to Mrs. Patricia Arzu’s schools for poor children. Many of them are considered orphans by the U-N (they’ve lost one or more parents) and are either living in single parent families, or being taken care of by relatives. Mrs. Arzu, is the wife of Guatemala’s mayor (and former President of Guatemala) and has established child care center and schools to provide a place for poor adults to bring their kids to, to get an education, health care and most importantly, the Gospel.
Day three and four took us to Panabaj. We drove three hours west of Guatemala City, to see the work of Pastor Diego at The Good Shepherd’s Church. His church see more than 600 children in church. He wants to start a school. He’s also reaching out to the needs of those displaced by the mudslide of 2005 where an entire village was wiped out. The government says the area isn’t fit to rebuilt, so they’ve been abandoned.
Day five took us to Antigua where we visited an orphan called Casa Aleluyah, founded by Mike and Dottie Clark. They over see about 600 kids from infant to over 18. Their desire is to teach these kids how to be kids, give them an education, point them to Christ, encourage them to lead their peers in discipleship and church planting. The older kids now want to build a church for the community, so they can reach out with the Gospel.
Below, you’ll find a video about the entire week. Enjoy it and continue to pray for the kids of Guatemala!
Thank you all for praying for me. I found out my problem with my health wasn’t really a ‘health’ problem, it was an elevation problem. We were at almost 12,000 feet and I am susceptible to elevation sickness. However, unaware of the elevation, I wasn’t concerned or even thinking that was an issue. So, all in all I’m very happy to know that’s all it was. I’m feeling great and had a wonderful day today.
I’ve produced another video for our final day in Guatemala. Today we traveled to an orphanage outside of Guatemala City, near Antigua. It’s called the Casa Alaluya Orphanage and it’s run by Mike and Dottie Clark from Louisianna. They have an incredible story of following God’s direction to run this orphanage which is home to about 600 kids.
Click here to see the video.
After we left the kids, we did a little shopping and came back to the hotel for our farwell dinner. I’ll have one more video to post showing everything we saw on the trip.
Well, things have gotten a bit hetic here in Guatemala. For those of you who know me, know that I have a blood disorder. It makes my blood clot easily, well. I had to go to the hospital here in Guatemala because I THOUGHT I had a clot had moved into the deep veins, which is a bad thing. Dr. ‘Peppi’ as he wanted me to call him, gave me his card and told me to call any time night or day if I had any trouble.
The group left without me, heading to Panabaj. Carol (one of our interpreters) stay with me because she is a hospital professional. She ran the hospital up until two months ago. She was able to get me right in and see a very well trained vascular surgeon. He took blood, and checked me out with a dopler ultra sound. Fortunately, the clot I currently have is in a superficial vein and everything was good.
Carol and I were driven two or three hours to meet the team just after they had finished lunch. We then got on a boat to travel the rest of the way to Panabaj, which is on the banks Lake Atitlan. Beautiful is an understatement.
After the boat ride, we checked into our hotel rooms. Carol and I ate our lunch (very late) then headed to the Good Shepherd Church where Pastor Diego is the pastor.
For those of you who are regulars to this blog you know back in November I had a ’bout’ with something that the doctors weren’t able to identify. While standing in church in Panabaj I had a MAJOR bout again. Heart pumping, lightheaded, dizzy, feeling like I was going to pass out.
I got out of the church because I didn’t want to create a scene in a church who didn’t know me and decided to go sit down in the nearest room. That would be the room with kids making crafts. I just sat there. Fortunately, someone in our group went and got Lori Koorndyk, who’s a physicians assistant. She suggested we call Dr. Peppi. He told me to stop taking the medication and get back to Guatemala City in the morning so I could see him.
I left the group again, and traveled with Lori, Amy Seale (Orphan Outreach) and Carol back to Guatemala, leaving the group again. I just finished meeting with the Dr. and he doesn’t think it’s anything serious (good news), but wants to to rest today before doing any more traveling. So, I am following his advice. I’m sitting in my hotel room relaxing — writing on this blog.
I don’t feel real great right now, so I would like you all to pray for me.
In the mean time, enjoy this video I put together before I started feeling bad. That will give you a good idea where were are and how we got where we were.
The team is on its way back to Guatemala City, while I rest in my room.
I thought I’d make it easy on myself today and try my hand at making a video. This is my first attempt, so pardon the poor quality and abrupt changes of direction. Now that I know what I can and can’t do with my basic video editor, I’ll chose video more carefully.
So, here is a video for you to enjoy.
Feel free to post comments. They are moderated, so it does require me to approve them. Since I’m traveling, I may not be able to approve them as soon as you’d like.
MNN/WCSG team gets ready to head to its first stop in Guatemala.
Today was day one of our Guatemala trip. There are 26 people on the trip, which is made up of Mission Network News and 91.3 WCSG listeners. We all met for breakfast at 8:30am. The hotel we’re staying in is one of the nicest hotels in the area. The owners are Christians and they give Orphan Outreach a great rate. So, we stay here. Breakfast is your typical American breakfast — eggs, bacon, french toast, you name it. It was good. Soon after we ate, we met in the lobby for our first stop. We were split into two groups — group A and group B (original names, I know) and boarded our buses. Much of the bus trip was spent shooting pictures.
A view of the dump from the school/day care center.
We traveled nearly 45 minutes to a dump. That’s right, a dump. The reason? To visit a school Orphan Outreach is supporting NEXT to the dump. Because there’s such poverty, people (many single moms) go through the dump looking for anything of value. They collect it and try to sell it to provide for their families. They’re street people. In year past mothers would take their children to the dump. But, now, there’s a school/day care center that’s allowing the kids to go to school, while mom works sifting through refuse. They work hours just to find enough ‘stuff.’ We were told it amounted to nothing more than a $1 a day. A few months ago, there was a collapse in the dump that killed more than a dozen people.
A little girl at the school by the dump.
The school is actually run by the wife of the Guatemala City’s Mayor, who is a Christian. It’s a government run school, and Christians are welcome. Obviously the children are very happy. The children are dropped off at school/day care every day. They’re cleaned up, put on school uniforms, given a healthy meal, given a good education and they hear the Gospel by either staff members or volunteers from the local church who are actively involved in the ministry. It costs a parent 50-cents a week to put their child in school here. Since their parents only make about a $1 a day, that’s a significant contribution to helping their kids break the cycle of poverty.
Mandy Phillips helps this little girl with her lamb puppet.
As part of the trip, we spit up into groups to hold a modified daily vacation Bible school. One group told a story about the lost lamb. Another group did games. Another help kids with a craft. They made lamb puppets out of paper bags. And, the final group did a fun activity like painting the girl’s finger nails, blew bubbles or some of us just took pictures of the kids so they could see themselves. Digital cameras were the best invention when it comes to interacting with kids. Most love getting their picture taken. There was lots of laughter and even a few tears when some came to the realization that ‘school’ was actually the only safe place they had each day. This was the place it all finally ‘clicked’ and got ourselves focused on the task ahead.
From there we went to lunch. Then, we traveled to a girls school. There were 200 girls registered, but only 90 were in school today. We were told that gas prices prohibit these girls from coming to school every day. We did similar activities at the girls school.
I am getting ready to head to Guatemala for a mission trip. Mission Network News teamed up with 91.3, WCSG in Grand Rapids, MIchingan and Orphan Outreach. I’ll be traveling with 22 others. We’re going threre to share the Gospel with needy kids.
There are about 370,000 orphaned children. Many of these kids are living on the streets.
We’ll be working with local Christians offering vacation Bible school, carnival games, crafts and more. We’re excited about God may be doing in the kids already.
I’ll try to post something here every day following our days events.
Greg Yoder 