I got my new camera!

I am so excited to say I did get a new camera. I am thrilled to have it. Thanks to my sweet husband for the camera. I got a refurbished Sony cybershot H-7. Sony has been a great camera for me and I could not think of getting a different kind. Thanks to Chrysten for bringing it down when she came to visit her sister Melissa. Thanks to Mom for the memory stick and extra battery and thank you to Mildred & Manolo for bringing those down from Mom. Wow!! it was quite the process getting it all down here. Thank you to every one who helped.
Here are some pictures I took this week of us. I am going to work on a new prayer card soon.

Mission team from Cornerstone Community

It has taken me awhile to post this not because it was not important just because I was hoping to get a few extra pictures but I never got around to asking the team for them so these are the pictures I took.

Cornerstone Community Church came down a couple of months ago. Most of the team has been here before. For a few people it was the first time. It was so awesome to see how the Lord put together this team to come minister her for that week. It was very special for us to be here in Guatemala to help out with the team this year. We are so thankful that Cornerstone has been supporting us for several years now. We are thankful for the friendships we have made and look forward to the long lasting ministry together. We were very encouraged by the team. It was so good for us to have fellowship and times of renewal.

We were able to visit several Schools in Santiago and one outside of town. We had three Spanish translators and three Tz'utujil translators so we split the team into three groups. Pastor Abraham had spoken to the Principles the week prior to our arrival. So we just had to ask permission to go into the school. After we were in the schools we would go into each class room and sing a song, give a short testimony, and then pray for the students and their teacher as we were leaving the class we would give the kids a sticker or something small. Most were very receptive and some even prayed with us and for us!! It was so neat to meet Christian teachers and have the opportunity to encourage them, and be encouraged by them. Everyone on the team was shocked at the fact that we could go in and pray with the students share the gospel and then invite them to our local church. They mentioned that if we would have tried this in the states we would have severe consequences!! Praise the Lord it was an awesome time.

These were our Tz'utujil translators, they are from the Alpha Y Omega church.


In the younger classes they only spoke Tz'itujil. We would have to translate from English to Spanish to Tz'utujil it was a little crazy at times but it was so neat to see the kids understanding why we were there and what we were doing. In the older classes they could understand Spanish but sometimes I would have them translate just to make sure they understood.

Aren't these little girls so adorable? They were sweet and very quiet.


Sometimes getting to the schools was hard. As you can see here we are climbing up to the school.
The tall building on the left. We visited 10 schools in all and were able to share the gospel with aprox. 2500 students and teachers. It was a busy week walking to all these schools then praying with each class but it was well worth it. The pastor told us that he had never had a team come and do this kind of ministry but he loved it. He had many parents call him to say "Thank you for sending the team to my child's school to pray".

In the afternoons Danny would teach some Maya Tz'utujil culture & customs. One afternoon the group went to the catholic church and saw first hand the two religions that have merged. They also went to Market to see how the syncretism is evident in their Art. One question Danny posed was, Is the syncretism in the churches in the states?

Another afternoon we had a question & Answer time with our translators. About their lives as Tz'utujil youth, their family life, their religion, and much more. It was a neat time to see how these young people think.

The kids and I had to relax by the pool a couple of times during the week! Look at this awesome background of the lake and volcano.

Let me just say I was very proud of my kids this week. They went to every school and were very patient as we went to each class room and even participated. They liked handing out the stickers, singing the songs and playing with the kids. They really enjoyed getting to know the team.

Thank you Cornerstone team for an awesome trip!

Foote update- May 2008

I sent this E-mail out today. I thought I would post it so you all could get the update.
If you want to be on our update list please give me your e-mail and I will add you.

We just wanted to let everyone know how things are going. We are all excited about our future in Santiago. Moving to Santiago has been in “our future” for so long it seems strange to think it is so close. We were able to put a deposit down on a house and it should be ours as of June 1st. We wanted to go ahead and start renting it when it came available in case we needed to fix anything or make any repairs. It is a rustic house but we are so excited about the location and the size!!! We will have plenty of room for visitors. Lord willing Danny will be finishing Spanish school in July and we will move out to Santiago.

Danny is doing great in Spanish School, he is going to be taking his second to last test today!! Please pray that he will retain everything he has learned. He covers a lot of material and sometimes I think he is learning so fast it is hard for him to keep up with everything. The last few weeks he has really surprised me with his increased vocabulary. He has gotten far enough along that I cannot answer the questions he has sometimes. I tell him I just speak it “I don’t know why we say it that way, it just sounds right” J

The rest of us are doing great, we are anticipating visits from friends and family starting in a couple of weeks. It will be so good to see some familiar faces.

Please continue to pray for us as we make our final transition to Santiago. We have settled into life here in Antigua pretty well and it is going to be hard to say goodbye ‘again’ to friends we have met. Pray for Danny as he finishes language school. Wow I can’t believe we are getting so close.

New Class mates

I meant to blog about this a couple of weeks ago but my life got a little crazy. So two weeks ago the kids got some new classmates. These classmates are a bit different from the others they too are blonde with blue eyes. We met some really fun friends who live in our Neighborhood. They are the Walls. They are here fro six months and wanted their kids to learn Spanish & culture. Each one of my kids has a Wall child in their class. it worked out great. This picture was taken on the first day the Walls went to school. Sorry its a bit small, when I down loaded it was this small!!!

My kids have really enjoyed having a new friend in the class.

On thing I think is so funny the first time we saw the Walls they were walking down our street with their mother. My kids saw them and said "Mom talk to them I know they must speak english, we can play with them and understand'!!!!

So we did and have become good friends. Praise the Lord for good friendships we have made since we have been here.

Chloe Ann's Birthday

Happy Birthday Chloe Ann!!!

This past thursday we celebrated her birthday. We had a party with her class at school.

My dear friend Melissa let me borrow her camera. Danny met me at the school with his Spanish teacher Carola. She loved holding Naomi while we had the party. We took a cake that Chloe Ann & I made and decorated. It was yummy and the kids all liked it.




I was surprized, almost everyclass mate brought a gift for her. She got all kinds of neat things. It was really fun for Chloe Ann. I took party favors for each child. One of the items was a whistle:) When all 14 of them opened the whistles and started blowing Danny said "could you not find anything else"? Poor teacher, She said it was no problem. She is so sweet.

Chloe Ann Her teacher Velin and Cindi.

On Friday night we had the Conners and the Walls over for dinner and celebrated her birthday with them. Chloe Ann wanted to have spagetti & a delicious cake from the bakery she had seen a couple of months ago. It was white with green apples and strawberries on top. We had a great time of fellowship and everyone enjoyed their time together. So sad to say I did not take pictures of this party. My camera is officially retired.

A little shook up but we are fine!!

Since we got here to Guatemala we have had several trimmers. We would look at each other as the ground below us shook. It was a very eary feeling but would not even last long enough to think about it too long.

Last night as we were saying good night to the kids in bed. We felt a good shake and it kept going and going. Then the house really started to move we decided to very quickly move outside as it would not stop. You know 20 seconds is a long time for a trimmer. (later we found out it was 6.1 on the richter scale!!!) After we ran outside it was amazing to see everything shaking and moving. Chloe Ann said "my heart is really bumping mama". I told her mine was too. The boys did not really say anything. We just all stood there looking at each other in awe.

Thank goodness there was no major damage anywhere. Cell phone towers and electricity went out in some parts of the country for a few minutes but we are just fine. Praise the Lord.

It was the talk of town this morning as I dropped the kids off at school. Everyone was asking us (the new comers) how we felt about the "temblor".

I have this feeling this morning that no matter how much I think I am in control of my life. The Lord is in complete control of my life, and especially this world. I have such a peace about being here in Guatemala because I know this is exactly where the Lord wants me to be. Doing His will.

Black Sand Beach

Last week Danny's teacher said he needed some time to rest his brain. So he took off school Friday and we headed to the beach. WHOOOHOOO I think we all needed a break. We have heard a lot of things about the beach. We were exccited to find out for ourselves. We left Friday morning and we were there in 2 hours. I could not believe we live so close to the beach! As you can see from the pictures it is not like Gulf Shores. It was absolutely beautiful! The sand it very black, it is volcanic crushed rock. Believe it or not the sand was actually softer than the white sand we were used to, but VERY HOT. The waves were incredible you can hear it as soon as you step out of the car. The surf is so strong we could only get in knee deep. It would crash on the shore and literally knock you down even when you were knee deep.
Naomi did not like the noise of the crashing waves. You can see her frowning as I put her down to at least get ONE picture of her on the beach.

Chloe Ann made many sand castles just like Grandsir(my dad) taught her. She said he is "the best" at making sand castles.

Titus & Isaac loved sitting on the sand waiting for the wave to come and throw them around. They were also able to find a few crabs, They loved that. They liked the beach even though they couldn't really get in.

We stayed at a great hotel and I loved the pool, mainly because when we were at the beach Naomi wanted to be held the whole time. It got a bit tiring.

We stayed at the beach or pool the whole time. It was a much needed break. We all had a very fun time.

The hotel we stayed in was outside Montericco so we drove in town to eat some good local seafood. We had garlic shrimp with french fries, fried fish(whole even with the eye balls!!) with salad and Danny got the typical Marisco Soup (seafood soup). They have yummy fresh fruit drinks out of any kind of fruit you want.. It was delicious!! Isaac said peeling the shrimp reminded him of crawfish. We all said AWWW we are missing crawfish season!!! But this is good too!

As I was sitting on the beach early one morning before 7:00 watching the kids play I was completely overwhemled with how Amazingly beautful, and unbelievably strong the ocean is. I just broke out in song. "How great is our God, sing with me how great is our God..." Even though there were people around they could not hear me because the waves were so loud. I knew God could hear me even if I would have been whispering. As the kids came up to me they too started to sing. After we finished the song we talked about Gods power, strength, and love. And how He made this for us to enjoy. It was a neat experience to share with the kids.

Some how Danny escaped my camera the entire week-end, but I did get a cute video of him with Naomi after her bath. Its a bit dark but I like just listening to it anyway.

I will publicly admit that I went against my husbands words of wisdom and took my camera to the beach around my neck (not in the Bag) YIKES!!!! And got it wet so to my detrement I do not have a working camera. I took it to a camera shop today so please pray with me, maybe they can fix it!!! Until then No more pictures.