A mission, a promise, trials, trips, and sleeping disorders.

There has been a lot going on these past two month. A lot that I should have been blogging about. I am sorry. I have been distracted by a side story that I should have let everyone in on from the start, but thought I would be causing problems if I did. Please allow me to explain....

Our mission team when we started was made up of about 50% returning members. I am the only returning member from last year. This does not make me special. I am just stating a fact. We have on our team many members whom have been down to Guatemala several more times than I. Also we have some people on our team whom are going for the first time that are an incredible asset to the mission. That being said let me dive into my explanation.

Last year I worked on the plumbing at Hogar Temporal, the orphanage in Xela(Quatzaltenango). When we left, there was a bunch of plumbing that I did not get to fix. I said I would be back, and kept up my contacts. The mission trip for this year was announced and I signed up immediately to go back and fix the plumbing like I had promised. There was a change.

I don't recall the exact date and it isn't really important. I received a call from our team leader. Our destination had been changed. We have a mission model and the organization that we where going through just did not fit into the model. Kind of a square peg and a round hole type of a thing. Nothing wrong with the previous org. It just was not a fit anymore. This also meant that we where not going to the orphanage. Honestly I was a little rushed when she called and rushed to get off the phone to get back to work.I was OK with the change. Really I was. I understood the mission model and what we are hoping to accomplish with it.

Then I started having dreams. That lead to waking up and staying up. That lead to staying awake at night and not getting enough sleep. It seemed as if every thing reminded me of the orphanage. Why was this happening. I asked myself this while I was at work one day half awake and not functioning at my best. That's when it hit me. Plumbing, I made a promise to do plumbing at the orphanage. Now we are not going to the orphanage. How am I going to uphold my promise if we are not going there.

I thought about this and prayed about it. I discussed it with my wife. I had made a promise and that promise needed to be upheld. I called our missions director and ask to meet with her. We discussed my issue and came to the conclusion that the church would help me with in reason to up hold my promise. This they did. Our mission director did everything she said she would and then some. She even endured my anxiety inflicted bird dogging.

The plane tickets where changed. The team had been notified and the itinerary had been set up for an extra week in Guatemala. I was excited. I get to go back to the orphanage and fulfil my promise.

I asked one of my contacts in Guatemala when the next time she was going to be in Xela. The answer came back that she would be there the next week with Dallas Baptist. I made a request that she have someone from DB to asses the plumbing and give me a final list of the plumbing to be fixed so that I could put together a game plan and a budget. Now I wait.

On her return from Xela we talked about the requested information. It seemed that the assessment of the plumbing encouraged DB to fix it. And that they did. I asked if there was any plumbing left to be fixed. The answer was "one pipe was broken".

Honestly. I was a little upset. Somebody had stolen my work. Later I calmed down and realized that this was not a bad thing. A good friend of mine explained to me that this was a great thing. She is always wonderful in the way she shows me the movements of God in our lives. I had spurred DB to fix the plumbing in the building. I was going to go down for one more trip. DB will be going for a long time to come. To quote her "I had passed to baton".

BUT. now what do I do. The tickets have been bought the itinerary was set. Now what am I going to do while I am down there. I have asked people to donate money to this cause and I want to be a good steward of these funds. I talked to our mission director and she arrange a meeting to discuss our options. We meet and we made a game plan with a list of options and discussed the details of each. At this moment the second week has all but officially been scrapped. It is not final though.

This is where I am going to stop the story for now. That is because this is where we are in the story. We are investigating options and some of them sound very exciting

At this time I am going to thank God for Dallas Baptists. They have paid my dept in fulfilling my promise for me.

I am asking you as a whole to pray for us as we work our way through this. That we may be quiet enough to hear Gods words and apply them to this issue. This has been a trial for me, and I am sleeping better now.

We are 26 days from our departure to Guatemala.