2010 Summer Mission Trip Report 6

MISSION REPORT 6

The rainy season is upon Guatemala. At this time of year it will rain almost every afternoon and on into the evening. Sometimes it even rains in the morning or even most of the day. To the people of Guatemala, they call this the “winter season,” although being from Pennsylvania, I am having trouble considering this as winter. There is a very high humidity at all times, and although the rain can cool the temperatures somewhat, I doubt it never gets below the 70s. During the middle of the day I can drip with perspiration just sitting still!

Yesterday, just this one time of the campaign, the church service for my meetings was held in a 2nd location instead of the church building where all the other meetings are held. This location is on the other side of our town and is actually the house of a lady, with a small front right on the main street. Inside, she has taken what was probably a small store front connected to an open courtyard surrounded by rooms for living space, kitchen bath, bedrooms, opening onto the courtyard, into a makeshift church. This group is a church plant and is ready to be organized as a church right after our campaign time. The chairs were only 5 across and 10 rows deep in this narrow space devoted to the church. I counted 50 people seated and at least another 10 standing, not counting a few others in locations I couldn’t see from the small platform. The Sabbath morning message was on health and tithing.

After a fellowship meal at this “house church” which has the name of La Casa Seventh-day Adventist Church, we drove 2 blocks in the rain, to the location where this group has started construction on a permanent church building. The lady in whose house the church group currently meets, received a lot as a family inheritance, on a street just one block off the main street. She donated her ½ share in this lot and the church group purchased the other ½ share for $20,000 US dollars. The lot is only7 meters wide and about 25 meters deep. The partially constructed church building is 20 feet wide and about 60 feet long. They have been able to construct the walls all the way up, and put on a roof with steel beams and sheet metal/corrugated tin.
What remains to be done to finish the church is to pour the floor, the platform, install the baptistery, windows, doors, electric service and pews. At this point the church only needs about $12,000 US to totally finish and even add Sabbath School rooms for the children, and move in! It will seat 200-300 the pastor estimates. To date, this group has spent about $12,000 US to get to this point and has totally used up every last bit of funds.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Sabbath Schools of the Pennsylvania Conference could take this on as a mission project and help this sister church finish it construction and move in. They see their building as an evangelistic center for reaching more people for Christ, not as a place to land and sit still.