Harvest Fair

Dear Family and Friends,

It is beginning to feel more like fall here, instead of summer, so we’re enjoying the weather. During the day it warms up nicely, but at night the temperature drops a bit and feels like football weather (the American kind!). We’ve had a good week of studying in Antigua and are becoming more comfortable with the language every day. We praise God for how he continues to help and bless us during our year in Guatemala.

Tonight we had the annual Harvest Fair at the kids’ school, CAG. It was a great time of carnival booths, candy, food and costume contests. Kayley and Abby decided to dress as two of the 102 Dalmatian puppies. They were cute as could be. Hannah worked in a booth with a Hawaiian theme, so her attire matched her booth. Joshua did not dress for the occasion but did enjoy working in the 7th grade booth.
Hannah, Abby and Kayley ready for the Harvest Fair

This week will be interesting since Wednesday (Nov. 1st) is a holiday: All Saints Day. It’s my understanding that the 2nd is another holiday, The Day of the Dead, but since that is not a day off of work, the two holidays are celebrated together. It’s a day to remember those that have died and to honor them, a bit like Memorial Day in the states.

There are also those who believe that it’s possible to communicate with the dead this day and so people actually eat lunch at the cemetery and leave food there for their loved one. Also, it’s a big day for flying kites. There have been kites sold on the side of the road for weeks now, big beautiful kites with amazing colors. The idea is to tie notes to the kite string and send the kite as high as you can in order to communicate with your loved one in heaven. So, it’s not really a dreary day at all, but a fun day. Of course, not everyone believes in all this (some do I’m sure) but it’s an old tradition so people continue with it each year.

It’s hard to understand it completely, but I can tell you one thing: The Guatemalan people (and probably Latinos in general) seem to embrace death and are certainly not afraid to discuss it. It’s a very different concept of death than what I’m used to. I think I like it.

We continue to make lists of the things that must be done before we leave here in mid-December. Leaving here will not be easy, but we look forward to the life God has for us in Costa Rica. So, as we begin think about packing up once again, we thank God for all His blessings. May you feel as blessed as we do this week.

Love to you all,
The Webb Family 

Maximum Mission

Dear Family and Friends,

We’ve had a great week with a team of 12 from Indiana and many Guatemalans who lent their hands in the service projects of planting one new church, repainting a large park, remodeling a smaller park, building a Sunday school classroom and a wall extension and painting the entire inside and outside of a church.
This is some of the playground equipment the team repainted and repaired. The kids were enjoying it as soon as the paint dried. This park is only a half-block from the church.

WOW! It was a lot of physical labor, but worth it all. The team also held two VBS children’s programs and showed the Jesus Film twice. Through it all more than 50 people made decisions to follow Christ.
Emily Armstrong and some of the Indiana team leading songs during VBS in the park.

Our friends, Julio and Juan. Julio led the construction at Villa Nueva and his brother, Juan will be taking his first pastoral position in two weeks. We're proud of them both.
We were amazed to find an Iowa State fan at Lake Amatitlan. OK, just because he doesn't know what his shirt says doesn't mean he's not a fan!

After this week, we are feeling a bit tired this weekend, and thankful for a little rest. We have a normal week of language school and studying ahead, and we’re ready to get back at it to complete the final book in the series. We will continue to take breaks now and then to continue our training for Costa Rica and that will slow us down a bit, but we’ve got enough time to get it all done. We’re thankful for our year of language study.

Friday was parent teacher conferences and only good news to report. Both kids have done well in this school and are dreading leaving CAG. But we remind them that good things await in Costa Rica too. They are excited that they will have more freedom to run and play as our new home is located on a seminary campus with lots of space.

All in all a great week! A special thanks to out LINKS churches that support and pray for us. Thanks to our Los Angeles friends! And to our new Indiana friends, Welcome Home!

God bless you this week.

The Webb Family

Two Good Sundays!

Happy Weekend to Everyone,
It is Sunday afternoon and the Webbs are celebrating a second strong Sunday at the church plant in Colinas de Minerva. After switching our focus totally toward children we've had good attendance in both kids and adults for two weeks. Last Sunday there were 26 people and this week 30. We're excited to see how God is bringing the adults along with the children.


Colinas de Minerva Church of the Nazarene. Pastor Daniel leading us in a Spanish Happy Birthday for these three Guatemalans. Notice Joshua in the back working the sound.

It is our hope that Pastor Daniel will have enough help within a week or two to be able to begin teaching adults while others teach the children. We have 3 strong leaders so far and are praying for more.


Aren't the kids precious. They listen attentively (most of the time) and always participate in the music and lessons. The hope of gaining a prize doesn't hurt anything!

In other news, we're just now learning of a youth leaders conference that will take place the first week of January that we believe David will be attending. Here's the catch: It's in South Africa. Not South America, but South Africa! Wow! That means we're looking into changing David's airline tickets from the US to Guatemala so that he can arrive early enough to make a flight to South Africa from Guatemala. This also means that Shelley and the kids will be moving to Costa Rica without Dad. That will be interesting. God will provide!

This week we'll not be in language school (boo-hoo, OK, that was sarcastic!) but instead we'll be working with a maximum mission team (half Americans and half Guatemalans) to plant a new church and do some construction and compassionate ministries in another area. Looking forward to the week of Spanish practice. I'm sure we'll have some good pictures for you all next week.

Until next week,
The Webbs 

Looking Ahead

Dear All,
Another week has gone by here and we are beginning to realize that our time in Guatemala is coming to a close. We have about 9 weeks until we travel for the holidays and then on to Costa Rica. It will go by quickly.

We have been busy these last two weeks with regional training and Friday night we had a closing service to especially honor two families that are becoming regional missionaries. That means they are Latin Americans serving in Latin America. It was great to get to know the Bano family as they will be our neighbors in Costa Rica. He teaches at the seminary and she works in administration. The other family is the Soris family. They will be working in Guatemala with youth. And of course, there is Tessa. She has been serving as a volunteer missionary for over a year now and is work in the area of evangelism and church planting.

 
Our Training Team: The Soris', Tessa Philips, The Webbs, The Banos'

Today (Sunday) David had the privilege to talk by phone with the pastor of Central Church in Lenexa, KS during their church services. It was a great way to reconnect and share what has been happening here. Shelley and the kids went to church as usual, but the service was geared toward kids today, so Shelley led the music with the children and the Pastor gave a short Biblical message. It was great fun. By the end there were 17 kids and 9 adults in attendance. We think it’s a great start. And our prayer is that an adult Bible Study will develop as well.

Shelley begins this Friday to study more seriously her new position in finances. We would appreciate your prayers for her as this is uncharted territory. She has begun to understand the basics of accounting, but now needs to master the computer program.

This Saturday coming, a work and witness (testimonio y trabajo) team will arrive to work here for a week. The Armstrongs have asked us to assist them once again. We are so looking forward to it as we’ll work near Lake Amatitlan in planting a church and also do some construction on another church in the city. It will be a great break from language school. We are finding we need more and more of those as we get near the end.

Thanks for your prayers and have a wonderfully blessed week!
The Webbs 

The Webb Page Newsletter - September 2006

The Webb Page
Volume II, Number 6 September 2006

After a very busy, almost crazy busy summer, life has settled once again into a routine of school and trainings. But I’m getting ahead of myself because before that happened…

Visitors from Iowa
We had the wonderful opportunity to have David’s mom and sister visit us from Iowa. Neither had been to Central America before, so it was an adventure for them. For us, it was a chance to spend time with family and of course to “show off” the things we enjoy here in Guatemala. (OK, maybe some of the things we don’t enjoy also!) It’s almost impossible to describe how life is different here, so we’ve given up trying, but when you can show someone the differences, it makes a lot more sense. We are thankful we had the opportunity to spend four days with them.

 
David, Virginia (Mom), Tina, Joshua and Kayley at Lake Atitlan.

Language School, Again
We started back in language school after a break of 2 ½ months on August 21st. We have made good progress and now are in the final book offered by the school. That does not mean we have mastered it all, it just means we have it all in our heads and understand the basic grammatical concepts. We’ve found to apply it all successfully takes a lot more time. We are just now speaking somewhat decently in present and past tenses, and we learned all of that in our first three months here. So, I guess you’d say we are progressing normally with the ups and downs that go with learning a second language.

Church Planting
After working in the area of Colinas de Minerva this summer with cross-cultural teams, we felt led by God to continue helping there. The situation is a bit different than in most church plants since normally a cell group is started and then a church building is obtained. In this case, we already had the property and the building and great man of God, Pastor Daniel agreed to pastor there, but there is no consistent congregation as of yet. So every week, Daniel and David visit with people in the neighborhood and invite them to attend on Sunday. Some Sundays it is just Pastor Daniel and our family in attendance, sometimes some children show up and Shelley leads them in singing and in a short lesson, and other times some adults show up as well. It has been a great experience for us to first hand see the difficulties in starting a new church. It has also been a great blessing and test of faith to remain encouraged in the face of obstacles. We appreciate your prayers for this new church.

The Kids
Joshua and Kayley are back to school as well. They have adjusted well to all the changes this year and the school has been a big part in their easy adjustment. Joshua is in 7th grade and studying all the basic courses including an advanced math class in pre-algebra. He also is participating in band and drama. Kayley is in 3rd grade and loves most everything about school. One of her favorite classes is Spanish. She seems to have an intense desire to learn the language more and more. They are both looking forward to the future and to life in Costa Rica. It’s difficult to leave friends behind, and they will once again have to endure this loss in December, but they have learned there are always more friends waiting for them at the next place. (That doesn’t really make it any easier, but Mom doesn’t have any other words of comfort than those.)

Youth Leadership Training
In September, David had the awesome opportunity to be a part of a four day training event called SeminarioMas (More Seminary). For David it was an opportunity to meet the youth leaders he will be working with in Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. This was the first event of its kind in Central America for our church, so it was a big deal. Every Central American country was represented. David especially enjoyed meeting Emma, the national youth coordinator for Panama and Karen, the national youth coordinator for Nicaragua. It was exciting to see their hearts, passion, commitment. It is amazing to think that 75% of the people in Mexico and Central America are 25 years old or younger. Wow—what an incredibly important generation for the church to reach!! Below you can see David’s “team” performing a cheer. (David in upper left corner.)
 

Preparing for Costa Rica
There are many arrangements that must be made for our move to Costa Rica, so we’ve stayed busy emailing for shipping quotes, sending birth certificates to states for authentication and filling our forms for the kids’ new school in Costa Rica. Also, David has been doing some training with David Gonzalez, the leader for NYI (Youth) for all of Central America and Shelley has begun her training in the area of finances. There is much to learn and God always asks us to do more than we think is possible, but with His help, we can do whatever He has in plan for our future.

Prayer Requests
Pray for our preparations for the move to Costa Rica.
Pray for the church plant in Colinas de Minerva.
Pray for our continued good health and protection from illness.
Pray for God’s help in becoming more comfortable with Spanish each day.

Gracias!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! We are so grateful for your prayers and support during these first 9 months on the mission field. A special Hello to our home church in Woodlawn, TN, our most recent church home in Lenexa, Kansas (Hello Centralites!) and to our LINKS churches in Los Angeles! You are all a blessing to us and we would not be here without you.

God’s blessing to you,
David, Shelley, Joshua and Kayley Webb