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.