Greetings From Gikomero! ~ Church Building Update

The progress on the church construction is moving forward partially due to the $12,000 gift from the Apostles Rwanda Fund.  The government several months ago told the parish that they needed to complete the construction by the end of July or risk the old building (still out of building conformance) being also closed.  The government has witnessed the progress and is not planning to take any such action now that the new building is moving forward so well.  Praise!  Much of the work is done by members of the congregation - the money is mainly for materials and some special sub contractors.

Words below from Marcel Sebahire at the Shyogwe Diocese and good friend of Apostles:

Greetings from Gikomero, your sister church.

We are very excited to share with you about the construction progress that we have done so far.

1. We have finished elevating the walls: The walls are now elevated and well finished;

2. We are done with plastering: The inside walls are all plastered;

3. We have put/installed all doors and windows;

4. We have installed the electrical wires: The rest is to connect the lambs and connect the church electricity system to the public grid;

5. We have finished digging the toilet pits: We are seeing how to construct the toilet building;

6. We have done outside finishing activities for all doors and windows

WHAT IS BEING DONE RIGHT NOW?

1. We are laying stones for pavement with cement

2. We are building the front (altar) and we will continue with tiling.

3. We are putting metal tubes in the two up-sides of the church building where the glasses will be installed.

Guatemala Team ~ June 21, 2019

Receiving a Partnership Certificate for the Church of Apostles from Potter’s House.

Guatemala Team 
Having returned yesterday to Guatemala City from our work in Chiquimula, our morning began with a short drive to Potters House. The ministry, now 33 years old, is a beacon of Light in its neighborhood, adjacent to the city dump. Meeting the staff and seeing the well-established programs and the medical clinic encouraged me to pray and believe God will accomplish the same at the Potters House satellite in Chiquimula.

After our tour, the team had the privilege of walking the neighborhood. We were welcomed into the homes of some of the Potter’s House families, where joyful, tearful reunions of Guatemalans with team members who had worked with the families on prior trips occurred! Before leaving each home, we gathered around and prayed together for them.

We finished our time in Guatemala by traveling to Antigua Friday afternoon. We enjoyed leisure time in this beautiful city.  Active, smoking volcanoes sit on the very near horizon. We leave Guatemala early Saturday morning (alarms set for 3 AM!) with renewed love and gratitude for our Lord’s heart for our brothers and sisters in this beautiful country.  We will look forward to our return next year. Our hope and prayer is that others from Apostles will join us. It’s a privilege, not to be missed. Adios!

Christo vive,
Susanne Berger

Guatemala Team ~ June 20, 2019

A view from the future site of the Potter’s House Expansion Field Office in Chiquimula, Guatemala. 

Team One 
“Team Avery” had an awesome final day at Casa de Jeronimo. We did final touch-up work on the hygiene unit and installed the high efficiency stove. Better than that, we had the opportunity to dedicate the unit to Rosa, Leonardo, Francisco, Esperanza, and all the other precious family members in the name of Jesus Christ. We prayed together and said tearful goodbyes thanking God for each other and for our time together.

It’s remarkable how quickly time can pass, especially when you are working, joking, and enjoying life together with some very special friends you met just a few days before. The bonds we share in Christ have such an amazing way of instantly cutting through differences in culture, ethnicity, economic status, and language. We are all equal at the foot of the Cross of Christ, and this week was an incredible demonstration of this.

Thanks so much to Avery, Patrick, Ethan, and the Potter’s House staff of Josue’, Annbella, Monica, Jose’, Carlos, and all who made our time in Chiquimula so special. You are all treasures in the eyes of God, and I am so grateful to have had the privilege to spend the week with you. To God by the glory, great things He hath done!

~John Rustin

Team Two
This morning, our last day in Chiquimula, our team arrived at the Escalante’s home, feeling more and more like family.  We spent the morning installing a stove, which comprises one quarter of the new integrated hygiene unit and touching up the painting we did on the unit the past 2 days.  

There was less work than the prior 3 days here, as we only had a couple of hours in the morning before making the trek back to Guatemala City.  As we finished our work, we were able to spend some time with Amelida and her father, Marcel, who has been working alongside us all week. We ended our time together, praying for each other and enjoying the sweet fellowship that has developed between our team and these fellow believers so many miles from Raleigh and in such a different culture and situation, with the confidence we have in our Lord that we will have the opportunity to rejoice together for eternity as the Lord makes all things new.  (Rev. 21:5).  

~Bruce Berger 

Guatemala Team ~ June 19, 2019

Medical Team
Today we went to another neighborhood, outside of Chiquimula a bit, and put on a clinic there. A highlight was working with several earnest Guatemalan medical students who worked up patients and presented them to Farr. There is much to say, but a prominent theme was how much loss people have suffered. Multiple patients had lost children, including a woman whose one year old daughter died of a febrile illness last year, and a woman whose daughter was sent to jail three months ago. The people are carrying so much suffering in their bodies. A highlight was meeting a 74 year old man who has worked in the field since he was twelve years old and listening to him testify about how God has provided for him and his children all of his life, even as they have been incredibly poor by any standard. He spoke directly to the medical students about committing their ways to the Lord, and seeing that he will give them the life they long for. Amazing. We spoke about how we might have been attending to angels unawares. Finally, we saw painfully how little access people have to the healthcare they need. For example, the last patient was a 25 year old woman—the one whose daughter died last year—and she had a problem with uterine bleeding. She needs a careful gynecological evaluation, but to get that will cost her maybe a month’s income (~$200). So it won’t happen unless God works a miracle. We are praying for that and hoping to bring Stacy Boulton with us next time!

~ Farr Curlin

Team One

Today during our time at the work site, we painted the hygiene station in the baking heat. While we were painting the station, we were able to experience the effects of God’s work in our lives and how it is expressed through others. We were able to pray with the family, lead by Avery, for God’s will to be done in their lives as well as ours. The will of God was shown through the gratefulness of the Jeronimo family and the work we have put in to the hygiene station by being the hands and feet of God. We are very grateful for the work we are able to do in our short time here and to experience the love of God and how he shows us how much he provides for us and our brothers and sisters in Christ when we are in need.

~ Ethan Morales


Team Two
Today was the final day of all-day-long construction in Chiquimula.  We had a sweet time of fellowship with Amelida’s family and continued encouraging them that the Lord is good and He will continue to provide all they need.  If you are getting our updates, please pray for our friends here, that they would receive rain. We also pray for Amelida’s husband Hugo, who is not a believer.

We worked hard and today was really hot, but Jesus sustained us physically and kept us all healthy. I hope these pictures convey the fact that the relationships we have developed with this family are really precious, as well as the fact that the hygiene stations we have had the privilege to help build are really cool. (They have a sink, place to wash, a shower, and toilet.)  Tomorrow, we will assemble the stoves and finish touching up the final details.  We are all pretty exhausted, but very encouraged. 

The Potter’s House staff are so fabulous;  they love the Lord with all their hearts and love their neighbors fiercely.  It’s been such an encouragement and challenge for us to be here.  Their witness and the sacrifices they make daily make us want to be better neighbors when we get back to Raleigh.

~ Sarah Alexander

Guatemala Team ~ June 18, 2019

Medical Team
This morning Susanne and Farr saw 10 more patients. Again the predominant complaints are pain in the back, shoulders, knees, and feet, as well as trouble with digestion and stomach pain. We met a young woman who seemed to have a more serious form of peptic ulcer disease. She had lost 20+ pounds from loss of appetite, and she was the thinnest person we have seen in these two days. Please pray for her for healing. Farr treated her empirically for a type of infection that is common with peptic ulcer disease, but we of course do not have the means to confirm that that is what she has. that reminds me that yesterday we were able to get a telemedicine consult from Carrie Alspaugh for a skin condition. That was pretty cool. Thanks Carrie! We were confronted again by how much we depend, both as patients and as healers, on God‘s healing. It’s a miracle that our bodies heal at all, and we are praying for each of our patients that God will bring the healing that they need.

~ Farr Curlin

Team One
Hola from Guatemala! Day two with the family of Amelida in Chiquimula saw us mixing cement for the floor of the Hygiene Unit. I never saw myself as a concrete mixer but I was rocking it! (Sarah Alexander said I could write that). The Hygiene Unit is coming along beautifully, especially with the oversight of our two master masons, Ephraim and Senor Marcel. We finished early so were able to sit together with Amelida (mother), her sister, her eight month old daughter Jasmine, our team, our translators and the masons.  

We entered into a time of prayer beginning with our team reading scriptures that the Lord laid on our hearts. As Amelida followed in her Bible, I realized that she was treasuring every word of scripture. Please read Isaiah 40:11 and Psalm 1:1-3. She truly embodies these verses as she and her home, and tiny piece of property are “like a tree planted by streams of water that bears it’s fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.” She “gently leads her young.” What a joy it is to watch her. We truly enjoyed talking with her, except for the times the rooster in her house drowned out our voices with his crowing!  But, seriously, I have two short prayer requests from this family: Amelida would love for you to pray that her husband would begin to attend church. The grandfather, Senor Marcel, asks for rain because his crops are drying up.  

Later in the day, we went to a little section of town called “Los Engeneros.” Potter’s House makes inroads into a community by engaging in prayer walks. On these walks they visit individual families, pray with them, and give them a very full bag of groceries. We were on a team that visited four out of eight families scheduled for today. One of the families, that truly impressed us, was headed up by a grandfather and his wife who were married at age 16 and 13. They are now 81 and 78 years old! They clearly love the Lord, the Bible, and their family. They make their living by gathering recyclables in the Chiquimula dump. During the visits we prayed for three babies with coughs and gastrointestinal issues. Lack of access to water is a real problem for this community. All their wells are dry. One of the grandfathers in one family is a pastor. Farr asked him to pray for us and he laid his hands on each and every one of us. We were truly touched.

To God be the glory! 

~ Susan Dominguez

Team Two
Dona Rosa’s extended family had turned on her. Close relatives had been trying to steal the rights to her family’s property. As a single mother and grandmother, her situation was troubling. By the grace of God she was able to sell her property and move her family to another home further away. The situation shook her faith and, according to the workers at Potter’s House, was not sure if she could fully trust God. Thankfully, the staff at Potter’s House have been faithfully building a relationship with Dona Rosa, her son and daughters, and their spouses and children, all of whom live in her new home. Before we arrived they had installed the structure for a complete hygiene unit that provides clean water, a shower, a toilet, and a sink and stove for cooking. Our team worked with hired masons to plaster walls, and pour concrete floors for that unit. By the end of the week, we will paint the walls and install a working stove.

While the work has been good, building the relationship has been more important. The Potter’s House staff asked us to share the gospel with the family and I was able to share from our morning devotion, in which Jesus declares that he has come to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy to preach good news to the poor. Jesus’ preaching in his home town that day caused a furious reaction in which neighbors he had grown up with tried to throw him off a cliff. You could see the light dawning on Dona Rosa’s face as she realized that Jesus knew what it was like to have people who should have loved him, instead, reject him. She nodded as I explained that he is familiar with our sufferings and that he came to invite us into a family led by our Heavenly Father, who will never reject us. I led them in a simple prayer before we set to work again. I can’t say what took place in their hearts that day but the staff were very encouraged that this family has become more and more convinced of God’s love for them. Now, they have a very physical reminder, as they will be able to enjoy the benefits of a practical and vital hygiene unit.

Grateful for God’s immense love for the nations,

~ Patrick Dominguez

Guatemala Team ~ June 17, 2019

We began the day with a great breakfast at the hotel. Picture amazing coffee, fresh fruit, eggs, black beans, and even cookies!  Shortly afterward, we went to the Potter’s House community center and received a presentation about poverty in Chiquimula. From there, we divided into three teams;  two teams went to build sanitation stations with two wonderful families, and Farr Curlin and Susanne Berger held a much-needed medical clinic. 

Team One
The first team went directly to the Jeronimo family’s home where they were already building the hygiene station. We had fun at the worksite where we were plastering the walls. The little girls who live there were very engaged in the process. We blew bubbles at the end of the day and they absolutely loved it.

Second Team
The second team went to the home of a beautiful sister in Christ, Amelia, and her three sweet girls. (Her husband was at work, so we did not get to meet him today.) We also helped build a sanitation station—today we scraped cinder block and plastered—and we  get to know our translators and the extended family.  It was a wonderful day of fellowship for those of us who attend Apostles, as well as with our new Guatemalan friends. 

(You will hear more about the third team’s medical clinic from Farr.)

Overall, our team was filled with a sense of gratitude for the opportunity to be here partnering with Potter’s House;  we recognize that they could complete this work much more efficiently without our ‘help’ (um…yes, we also realized we are not qualified masons!), but we appreciate the opportunity to come and work alongside new friends and build new relationships as we work on the projects. The Potter’s House staff are amazing and we are grateful that the Lord has provided this opportunity to be here.  Thank you for your partnership & prayers!

~ Sarah and Avery Alexander

Medical Team
We had a basic medical clinic on the property of a local evangelical church. Farr and Susanne saw 18 patients. We were struck that the symptoms people presented with largely were symptoms of difficult lives—back pain, shoulder pain, abdominal pain, foot pain, digestive problems, fatigue, low energy. On writing that list, I (Farr) see that these are not terribly different from the issues that present often in primary care clinics in the US.

One patient had suffered a bleed inside her brain three years before and had been sent home to die, but three years later she had almost fully recovered. She had taken care of her mother as she died and was now taking care of her husband who is wheelchair bound. She tearfully lifted her hands in praise of God who had cared for her. It was special to meet her. With each of our patients, we have time to ask them personal questions, and with each we take time to pray. That may be the most significant part of our time in the health clinics.

~ Farr Curlin

Guatemala Team ~ June 16, 2019

Our team enjoyed breakfast together in the beautiful courtyard of the Guatemala City seminary SETECA, our hosts last night. Afterwards we went to Elim Central, a large inner city church where we worshipped alongside 2,000 Guatemalan believers! The sermon was translated so that we could follow along.

My takeaway from this morning’s service was to remember that Jesus pursues those He loves and to remain in faithful, believing prayer for our families. The pastor shared his story of the Lord’s pursuit of him when he was simply not interested. Just as the Holy Spirit drew him to faith in Jesus, He is able to do the same for our loved ones!

As I write, we’re en route to Chiquimula, our team’s destination for the work week. We value your prayers as we begin our work tomorrow with the Potter’s House Association among the “treasures” (residents) the ministry serves.  That work includes assisting families in building home hygiene units and conducting a community medical clinic. 

We ask for your prayers: for the families we will serve; for our tolerance of the heat in this region (high 90’s); and that God will be glorified! 

- Suzanne Berger
 

Guatemala Team ~ June 15, 2019

Early Saturday morning, the Guatemala Vision Team assembled at RDU airport to embark on our journey to Guatemala.  Our flights were on time and after an extended layover in Miami we took off for Guatemala City. 

(left to right): Farr Curlin, Sarah Alexander, John Rustin, Bruce Berger, Susanne Burger,
Mark Hall, Ethan Morales, Avery Alexander, Susan Dominguez, Patrick Dominguez

After going through customs in Guatemala City we were met by Monica from Potter’s House.  We loaded up the bus and headed to SETECA seminary, which would be our home for the night.  After everyone was settled in their rooms we met for evening worship and Compline.  Then it was off to bed to get rested for our adventure to begin in earnest. Chiquimula here we come!