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.