Friday, January 30, 2015

The Tabitha Ministry Featured in Ethics Daily

I am a bit slow in getting around to posting this on my blog, but I had linked to it earlier on my Facebook account.  Brian Kaylor, my Churchnet colleague, has followed up his earlier piece this week in Ethics Daily about our recent training trip with another article (which appeared on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2015 in Ethics Daily) that features the Tabitha Ministry.  This is a ministry that is near and dear to my heart after having visited it on each of the many trips I've taken to Guatemala in the past 9 years or so.

Here's the link to the article.

I've also translated it into Spanish and posted it on a new Spanish blog that I've recently begun.  It can be found here.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Ethics Daily Article on Guatemala Training Trip

Brian Kaylor, my Churchnet colleague who accompanied me and shared the teaching responsibilities during our most recent trip to Guatemala, has an informative article in Ethics Daily this morning about that trip and the work of Guatemalan Baptists.  At the end of an article is a further link to photos that Brian took during the trip.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Wrapping up a Great Week in Guatemala

My Churchnet colleague, Brian Kaylor, and I will be returning to Missouri tomorrow morning after spending the week in Guatemala.  We had a shift in our travel plans last Monday morning when a defective motor that controlled the flaps off one of the wings of our plane in Kansas City forced us to return to the gate, unload, and board another plane.  By the time all of that process was completed and we took off for Houston, we were late enough that we missed our connecting flight.  Rather than arriving by noon that day, we were re-booked on a flight not scheduled to arrive until 10:00 p.m. that night.  After doing some inquiring and pleading, we were rerouted on a different United flight to Mexico City and from there on an Aeromexico flight to Guatemala City.  We arrived by about 6:20, some 40 minutes before our rescheduled flight would have even departed from Houston.  

We stopped to eat dinner in Guatemala City before heading westward to Quetzaltenango after seeing that the traffic was basically at a standstill.  The meal was delicious and the traffic had cleared out enough by the time we finished that we were able to arrive in Quetzaltenango in just a little under 3 hours--good time for the winding roads and some dense fog we encountered in a couple of stretches of the highway.

Brian and I led 5 different training sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday for a group of 80 pastors and leaders from across western Guatemala.  He focused on the area of communication--speaking of communication as the foundation for how we relate to our world and to God, later speaking on sermon delivery, and finally wrapping up his presentations with one on the use of social media in ministry.  I led two sessions on how to share our faith with Roman Catholic friends.  The sessions were well received and there was good feedback and interaction following each one during a time of Q&A.  

Today (Thursday) we started the day with a visit to the Tabitha Ministry in Guatemala City before spending just a few hours in Antigua this afternoon, doing some sightseeing since this was Brian's first trip here.  I'm including a few pictures of the children whom the Tabitha Ministry cares for by providing a safe, loving environment for their care, feeding them, and providing early childhood education up through the 3rd grade.