December was absolutely jammed packed with activities. I'll try to give you some of the highlights. First off was a two week trip to Guatemala. The first week was spent in Guatemala City at our annual H.I.M. Central American pastor's retreat. It's always a great time of fellowship, learning and drawing closer to God. Our special speaker this year was Dr. Glenn Reiff, he did an excellent job talking to us about holiness.

There were pastors from several other missions that came to join us for some of the sessions. We enjoyed getting to know some new faces.

One evening we built a bon fire and sat around singing, telling riddles, and discussing biblical mysteries. Some great memories!

It was nice to have EFM's national church president Misael and his wife visit some of the sessions. He and his wife ministered to us with some beautiful music.

Mealtime as usual was marked with missionary stories, discussion about cultural differences and always a good joke or two. A lot of fun!

Spanish director "two-story" John Dykes. The Spanish guys get a kick out of his height.

It was another great retreat and very enjoyable!



The second week of December I headed to the mountains of Guatemala to a town called Tacaná. It's close to 8,000 feet in elevation and very very cold!!! I wore two t-shirts, a regular shirt and a coat on top of that. Brrrrrr.

The town was packed with vendors in full swing for the Christmas shopping season. It was hard maneuvering through the streets.

One day the local pastor took me further up into the mountain to a little village called "Las Nubes" in English "the clouds". Literally this place was so high that the clouds often float through it. The road was rough getting up there but the views were amazing!

On top of the world!! Las Nubes, Guatemala.

H.I.M. has a preaching point here in Las Nubes and the man seated is the pastor who walks from his village two hours away once a week to preach. One of his church families invited us to eat sheep stew with them at their house.

Sheep and agriculture is the main source of income in Las Nubes. When a family decides to butcher one of their sheep it is a family event.

This was my first time to eat sheep stew. It was scrumptious! The first bowl is my stew, the second bowl has baked potatoes and the third bowl has tortillas. The men all sit together and are served first, then the women and children.

It always intrigues me when I visit Guatemala how much they have retained their traditional ways. Dialects are still spoken, hand made Mayan style clothing is still worn by many of the women, and traditional ways of living are still closely held on to. It's so different than any of the other Central American countries.

We drove another twenty minutes down the dirt road from Las Nubes and crossed into Mexico. These white pillars show the Mexico/Guatemala border.

Cruz Perez is pastoring in Tacana. We stopped to see his grandmother on our way to Las Nubes.

Soccer dominates as the most loved sport.

The winning team took the game by only one point!

Friday thru Sunday I had the privilege of preaching a revival in Tacaná. Many of you were praying for these services, God heard your prayers and blessed us in a special way. I definitely felt God's presence and help.

Michael Mason, missionary in Tapachula, Mexico was the song evangelist and did a phenomenal job!

While driving back to Honduras on the Pan-American highway, I came up behind this van and received a surprise! The license plate said Alberta, Canada!! Wow! I wish I could have talked to the driver to see how far they were going to go. That had to be a super long trip!