Friday Night

We are blessed to have served our Lord and Savior together and now are ready to head home. Today we visited the village of LaLucha where DCC and LBC helped build an extensive water line of approximately 6km. Being there and seeing the fresh water running was a real blessing g to all.

Above is a photo of Bill Scott praying a prayer to dedicate the work and one of thanksgiving to our Savior.

We ate our traditional departure steak dinner and said good byes as tomorrow we begin our long trek home.

I join with our Guatemalan friends to say thanks to you all for interceding on our behalves and just ask you pray for our final travels home.  Mike

Celebrations

We arrived in the morning to still running pump, realizing that the well produces more than the 10 gallons per minute capacity of the pump. We lifted the tank and finished the plumbing including a connection for the future church building and a spout to draw water from.

The church's pastor, and an inner circle of the leadership came to pray for the well, the local church growth, the CHE communities, and LBC and its teams. They invited us to a celebration at their church building.

While the well drilling team was resting the ladies lead the kids in a final Bible school. After some interesting conversations with the locals, which were challenging because of my five word vocabulary in Spanish, about living conditions, prices of education, and buildings in Guatemala, the US and Austria, I explored the area around the church. I found a lot of wonderful views and beautiful vegetation of God's creation.

The ladies were blessed with over 80 kids who were tentatively listening to their stories and enjoying the creative crafts.

The service was very interesting, as I was not used to everybody shouting prayers and thanksgivings to God simultaneously. The pastor of the church told us the journey of his church from having no church or water to the point of receiving both within the same year through God's provision. After some exhortation by Mike, Hugo Sr., and Abel the church honored Mike and the team with a diploma.

Since Bill misunderstood Junior we thought we were stranded without navigators/drivers back from the village to the hotel in San Marcos. Mike, Dave, and I took the challenge upon us and we found way during the 20 min drive in the dark back by combining our memory of interesting buildings, street signs and colorful looking tombs. 15 minutes later our translators arrived at the hotel and were surprised that we left without them and that we actually made it in one piece back to the hotel.

We are planning on going to a different village tomorrow, to which Mike and a team traveled a few years ago.

It will be hard to leave the friends we made this week behind as we heading back home soon.

-Emanuel

Wednesday-Hump Day

Well your stuck with Mike writing again.  Not very creative but informative.  There is no doubt that the team is getting tired because the rides from the job to the hotel is very quite.  But the fruits of their labor will be seen in heaven.  I will let the pictures do the talking:

We had hands on deck today as the ladies helped cut slots in the well casing to let the water run into the PVC pipe so we can pump water.

The tower crew were busy erecting the water tower as we continued to drill and clean the well to receive the casing.

Putting the casing in the newly drilled well is always one of the most nerve racking parts of the process; because it so easily can be dropped.

The kids continue to listen attentively to the gospel stories told by the ladies and translated by Stephanie. Below Jay Folk and his best friend Elmo have been a wonderful addition.

Tower built, pump set and water running, we are full of praise and joy.  Tomorrow we will put the tank on the tower and wire and plumb it for the villages use.

Pray for some of our team members as they wrestle with upset systems.

There are tender moments also as I'm trying to work and Sam wants a hug.

Tuesday- Big Day

Today couldn't start without a hitch and as it is always is in Guatemala the main thing you have bring with you is a good dose of patience.  To start off with we had no electricity to build the tower with or water to drill. But in time God honored our petitions and we got off and running.

Anna did the lesson with 40 kids and Stephanie translated.  What a blessing it has been to have Stephanie with us to do our translation.  She has doubled as a part time well driller be tower builder.

Florinten the CHE dentist came today and his two assistants they set up in the church and saw 10 or so patience.  Cleaning and pulling teeth.  This is another reason you should think about coming next year we could arrange anything you want done.

Bill and Sam Scott got to work building the tower with some slightly modified plans; of course they had help from Hugo Junior, Stephanie and Dave Hopkins.  As you can see we had our heads in the clouds literally, the village sites at about 8500 feet.

The drilling went very well and Lord willing tomorrow we will be able to put the well casing in and possible temporarily set a pump.  I, Mike, was touch when at the end of the day a man came up to me and said he was very concerned that I was not eating enough and he wanted to have his wife make me something to eat.  When I had Stephanie explain that I just couldn't eat the food he insisted to bring us sweet rolls in the morning.

As you can see and tell from our stories there is an incredible beauty in this country when you look close; as demonstrated by the heart of the man who wanted to feed me to the amazing flowers.  Thank you for your prayers and we will continue to try and bring glory to the God and Savior we love!

Monday-A Day of Miracles

We started off the day with a great devotion on the power of prayer, which we soon saw proved in our lives. The truck wouldn't start, and after three hours of trying different things, there seemed to be no progress. Finally, the problem seemed to be fixed, and we all gathered around the truck for one final prayer. The truck started with no problem. As Kevin said, "It must have been that last prayer." We finally arrived at the drilling site around 1:00. When the drilling rig was set up, and it began running, the drill was turning backwards. A quick phone call back to the States, and then we began to rewire things. 

Once that problem was fixed, things went fairly smoothly. The drill went down to eighty-five feet. Near the end of the day, the drill bit began to clog. We had to pull out most of the pipes before it began to work again, but everything is ready for tomorrow. Praise God for his faithfulness!

The kids club went even better than the drilling. About seventy kids showed up. After a good game of fútball (soccer), we went inside, where we taught them a couple songs and had a quick Bible lesson. The kids didn't want to leave!

Team 2- Sunday night

Today was our traveling day.  We traveled 9 hours from Guatemala City to San Marcos.  Along the way we stopped in Xela to pick up the drill and all of our supplies for the week.  On our long ride I was listening to the book of John and thinking about how our work this week will benefit the village we're serving.  Three basic things came to mind. Their eternal salvation, freedom from sin and the joy in knowing and serving Christ.  The part that jumped out to me was the freedom from their sins.  Growing up as a Christian it's easy to forget how destructive sin is and how great it is to be set free from it!  I considered what my life would be like without Christ and what sins I may had fallen into.  It makes me so grateful for what Christ has done for me and it gives me extra joy when serving Him this week!  The work we're doing here will change lives forever and free people from their sins.  What a great call God has given us!

Dave

Thursday and Friday

Thursday and Friday were both late nights and long days. We ran into some unforeseen complications as one thing after another either broke, or stopped working. Yesterday (Thursday) we started off the morning with our drill in the hole, at 195ft, and cleaned out the hole by circulating out the cuttings that had settled. Next, we removed the drill and attempted to put pvc casing in the whole. But somehow, our well had collapsed at 75ft. So we tried to push the casing down, but it wouldn't budge. So we pulled it out, and re-drilled the well. After pulling out the drill a second time, we put casing back into the hole. But again, it got stuck at 80ft. We did our best to push in the casing as far as we could, but I wouldn't go any farther. Thursday, we also had a great Thanksgiving dinner. Mr. Adolpho's wife made us a Thanksgiving feast. A full turkey with mashed potatoes, meatloaf, pumpkin desert, and sweet tea. All of which were home made. It was a long day. Today we did not think would be a long day, expecting to finish our work in half a day, and have a bit of time to relax, but that was not the case. We finished our tower, complete with solar panels. We used the 80ft of casing we were able to put in (even though the plan was to drill to 200ft). We put on the pump, and watched it pump over 1400 gallons. A problem came up that when we dropped the pump to 60ft, it didn't pump anything. So we had to pull it out, manage it on the surface until it worked again, and put it back in the ground at 40ft. Working til late this evening, we had to work with a generator in getting the pump to work, because solar panels would not work after dark. We finally got everything working. Praise The Lord. Tomorrow we will be returning home, and Mr. Douglas will be going to Guatemala to help out with the next week. 

Our thanksgiving meal.

This is Mr. Douglas melting heat shrink around the wires at the hands of Mr. Adolpho holding a home made torch.

Putting metal galvanized pipe in our well. This pipe has a pump attached to the end, and is pretty heavy. So three strong men have to hold it from falling down into the well.

Our finished tower with solar panels on it. 

Putting the tank up before finishing the tower. 

Our team.