Los Niños del Yalu

The adorable faces of Yalu. These kids are just too cute so I'll let them speak for themselves...

The week in review

Here is the latest from this week in la vida de Los Brown...

Its mango season in Guate which means you can buy a bag of 10 huge & delicious mangos for a whole $1.50. Why oh why are we leaving???

 Gregg's hair is officially out of control. We tried to tame it with a bobby pin but as you can tell we weren't very successful

We saw these two kids milking a goat right on the street in Antigua and then sell the very fresh milk right to an adorable old lady who was sitting at her window

 Erika wore this original Starbucks shirt to church and it made me homesick

 Katey came over and we made s'mores! She also came to Yalu with us and took some awesome pictures that I'll be posting next week. Gracias Katey!

 We hung out with a sweet new band that just hit the Antigua music scene...

 ...and then they made me sing with them and now I hate them. 

But Wait! Just when you thought our week couldn't have been any better, here is the most exciting news.........

we bought our tickets HOME!!!! Hooray! We will official kiss Seattle soil again July 16th at 9:23pm! Unfortunately its a little on the late side but at least its a Saturday. AND then we'll know who are real friends are :) We used a travel agent to book our flights and were able to get a four day layover in Mexico City, with a hotel, for less than the outrageous prices I was finding online - score! Gracias a Erinita por la idea!
So friends you can now officially put it on your calendars in INK. 50 days and counting!

Let the fun begin!

    As mentioned in our last post, the past month or so has been full of meetings, program planning, stratergizing (theres a George-ism for ya), and basically working on the 'boring' behind-the-scenes stuff that makes an organization run. Since Barb and Gerry came we've been focusing on getting them acclimated and ready to take over the show when we leave in July. Although that type of work is never officially over we are happy to be moving to more of the fun stuff in the ministry! We had a great debrief of sorts with Barb and Gerry last Thursday where they basically encouraged us to put away the computers and work on what is most important in our last two months...the relationships. They have a lot of experience with this having been missionaries in the Congo before coming to Guatemala. The gist of their very wise advice was that yes processes are important but its the people and the moments together that you will remember long-term.
    So as our first order of fun business, we decided a dance party would be the most appropriate - of course! We mentioned a while ago that we have started tutoring a group of about 10 junior high students who are in their first year of school in the big city. This is a huge transition as the schools in Yalu SUCK! The kids have really struggled but praise the Lord we are starting to see improvements little by little - especially in the ones that faithfully come to the tutor group. As an incentive to get all of them to come, all three days we are there we started taking attendance. Unfortunately teenagers are too smart for their own good and they decided that putting a little white dot on an attendance sheet wasn't good enough for them. In a moment of weakness it might have slipped out that I would make them cookies if they all had perfect attendance for one week - whoops! Well it finally happened this last friday and to celebrate we had a little dance party. At first the kids weren't so into it but as you guys know...its hard to sit still once Gregg starts dancing.

The kids had a great time once they got over the initial fear of having to compete with Gregg's dancing! Plus there will be homemade chocolate chip cookies tomorrow, so really, everybody wins.

Countdown

Only 2 months left! We have officially started the homecoming countdown! Although we don't have tickets yet we are 99% sure we will be coming home July 16th - put it on your calenders friends! Man o man are we excited to be back in Seattle for a short time but it is very bittersweet. We have made some awesome friends down here and leaving them is going to be very tough.
Just last week in fact our new MCM missionaries arrived in Guatemala! Barb and Gerry moved into the house we have been living in for the past few months in San Lucas and we are having a great time getting to know them better. Now that they are here we are able to start doing some really exciting stuff out in Yalu...more about that soon!

 Besides Barb and Gerry we have also been hanging out with Darvy and Danny, our favorite Guatemaltecos! Gregg must have thought he had supernatural strength due to his Samson-like locks because he challenged Danny to an arm wrestling match.

Thoroughly defeated

 Of course I had to avenge my loves defeat...

not even with both hands!

After arm wrestling we decided to try a game where the odds would be a little more even. 

 Lets just say that Danny definitely isn't as good at Uno as he is at arm wrestling!

Hole in our Gospel

"When...Jim Wallis was a seminary student...he and some of his classmates did a little experiment. They went through all sixty-six books of the Bible and underlined every passage and verse that dealt with poverty, wealth, justice, and oppression. Then one of Jim's fellow students took a pair of scissors and physically cut every one of those verses out the Bible. The result was a volume in tatters that barely held together. Beginning with the Mosaic books, through the books of history, the Psalms and Proverbs, and the Major and Minor Prophets, to the four Gospels, the the book of Acts, the Epistles and into Revelation, so central were those themes to Scripture that the resulting Bible was in shambles. When Jim would speak on these issues, he would hold his ragged book in the air and proclaim, "Brothers and Sisters, this is our American Bible; it is full of holes. Each one of us might as well take our Bibles, a pair of scissors, and begin cutting out all the scriptures we pay no attention to, all the biblical texts that we just ignore." Jim's Bible was literally full of holes."
  ~Hole in our Gospel, Richard Stearns - President of World Vision

 ⁶ “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
   and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
   and break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
   and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
   and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? 

¹⁴ then you will find your joy in the LORD,
   and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land
   and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
            For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Isaiah 58: 6-7, 14