What do we do for Christmas in Guatemala?

Well if you have ever been to Guatemala you might have noticed the firecrackers "pum,pum,pum" early in the morning. Well we do that when someone in the family is celebrating his or her birthday the earliest the better. So what do celebrate in Christmas? Jesus birthday!!! so we stay up the night of the 24th, we eat our traditional tamales, and at midnight... pum,pum,pum, everybody lights firecrackers!!! it is so loud, and colorful, I love the smell and the colors, we are out in the streets, and hug neighbors and wish them merry Christmas, we exchanges tamales or cookies, and then you go inside your home to open the gifts!!!
No one goes to bed until 1 or 2 in the morning! (In decent houses!)
May God bless you this Christmas and give you the best new year's ever!

My father did a great job cooking for us!
He made bake potatoes, Roast Turkey, Roast Pig leg, a good salad and many snacks!

Eveone loved his cooking!

In Guatemala right before Christmas we have lots of "convivios" that is like a Christmas party, this year I got the opportunity to set it up this year, we as Sepal were celebrating the coming back of two sepal families that were in furlough and the rest of us were there. We did it in a park, I hired my father as the "chef" and he did a great job! Luis (another missionary) was in change of the games and let me tell you we did have a good celebration!

I have been running like crazy, I know you are thinking: "crazy is normal in Betty" but lately it has been even crazier!

I taught a seminar monday through wednesday, at the sepal office, 11 teachers came, they are from a ministry for children in a very poor area in Guatemala city. Thank you God for them!!!

The Bible Vacation Week ended with a group of 50 kids and many teachers!
My class ended with the movie of Jim Elliot, when the kids saw what happened to Jim, many cried, many prayed after the movie with me as I have never seem them prayed before, thank God it was a great blessing for them and for me! Thank you for your prayers over them and over me!

After making sandwiches, putting clothes to give in bags, and pray a lot ... we went to miniter to the street children, it was great experiece but we need to do so much more! I am happy to tell you that about 25 people from my church went to this activity!

We fed the children, hug them but more important we prayed with and for each of them.

Thursday was a very intereting day at the Church, the Jim Elliot story is getting to the end, the kids have no idea how does it end, they really think Jim is in USA now...

I am teaching 50 kids, ages from 3 to 13.

After the teaching at the Church I started getting ready for onether activity... our first ministry night with the street children!!!

The kids really enjoyed the iguana walking in my shoulder!

The Jim Elliot Story is powerful and they really embraced it. Thank God!

Betty M�rida

This week is the Bible Vacation Week at my church,
I am teaching the missionary story. I decided to teach about Jim Elliot
yesterday and today I taught about his life in USA, tomorrow he is going to start his life in Ecuador.
I got some trees branches and some plants to try to make a jungle in my church, I even got a real iguana that I would have in me while I teach!
I can't wait to see my student's faces!

I will post pictures tomorrow.

This is Alex in his play, he is the forth one, with a cross in his chest!

So the school year ended in Guatemala, as every year the students present a play or sing a song or something like that to say good bye to the school year, I went to the presentation of my nephew Alex, he is 10 years old and I am his favorite aunt... But don't tell that to his other aunts!

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me. – Psalm 23:4


What an adventure I had this weekend, and I can’t keep to myself the great blessing and protection that my Lord gave me this past weekend.

I was invited to teach to a group of teachers in a town 3 hours from the city, I was very excited to go there because that city is in the area with least Christians in Guatemala, and I received an invitation to teach there!

The seminar was Saturday 8:00 am until 3 or 4 pm.

I loaded my “dear” car and decided to go there on Friday afternoon, sleep there and come back on Saturday if the seminar would finish at 3 because I didn’t want to drive at night. If the seminary was going to end after 3:00, I would stay there and come back Sunday morning. The main reason for my concern was that my car sometimes “acts up” and has left me stranded before, so I didn’t want to be on the road on Saturday night, and possibly get stranded.

The seminar ended at about 5:00 pm. It was great! The teachers were so happy. Most of them young teachers, with so much enthusiasm to teach that it humbled me. I knew it was worth having gone there. I didn’t even have to think about coming back to the city that night, because I knew it wouldn’t be wise. I stayed there that night and came back Sunday morning.

After about an hour an a half of travel, I saw a car stopped on the other side of the road, with four guys all around it. I though the car had died and they were pushing it to the side. The cars in my lane weren’t moving either. So it was just the three cars in my lane, and the “broken” car in the other lane. As I got closer, I saw guns in the men’s hands – they weren’t pushing the car, they were assaulting it! I froze, I didn’t know what to do, I just thought, “They are assaulting the car…”

The car in front of me (second in line, I was the third and last car) looked through the mirror, and made some signs for me to understand to back up and make a U turn to escape from the assaulters. I did it as fast as I could, but the car in front of me did it much faster than me. While I was making the U turn, I saw two of the assaulters running towards me with their guns pointed at my car. I accelerated, and started driving as fast as I could, and at that time, I heard gun shots. I can’t explain how scary that was, I looked back and I didn’t see them, but I kept going as fast as I could.

I started crying and praising the Lord for His protection, and I called Jaime (my brother in law and my dear brother in Christ) on my cell phone. He told me to seek a safe place to stop and calm down. I continued praising the Lord, and found 2 policeman on their motorcycles. They rode with me all the way to the next town. I drove back to Guatemala and thanked God for everything He did for me!

This is a PRAISE letter; I praise God for His protection!

I praise God for that guy in front of me, I thank God for you who pray for me. I understand that the enemy is trying to discourage us to keep us from doing the work for God. The enemy wants to see us saying, “I won’t do that again,” but God is all powerful and HE is saying: “fear no evil cause I’m with you”.

This is the kind of situation that humbles me. I learned a lot from it but most of all God showed me that your prayers are been heard, thank you, my family in Christ!

Please continue praying for Guatemala, for me especially for my health, protection, wisdom, and now pray that I would have peace and be able to go to sleep without having nightmares.

Praise God! He is the one that protects all and each of us!
And Praise God for you! your prayers make a difference in my life!
THANK YOU

I needed to open a space in my house to set up an office,
so I called a friend who would help me to hire the right prople
to re-model a small part of my house.
It is dusty, noisy and right now it doesn't look good...
Let's pray that it would work out good!

I am Betty and this is my first blog. The way we comunicate has changed so much during the last decade, but I thank God for that. This is my blog and you are welcome to comment on it, to check it out every time you want to.
I want you to get to know me better and to know what is going on in my life.
Prayers for Guatemala, and myself are appreciated.
I am a happy single missionary in Guatemala, I love God and I want to serve Him.
I love soccer and animals.