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Blog for Thursday, May 13

Yesterday was another great day. We were blessed in many ways. First we saw the MMM team continuing to prepare the Mission Centre, washing glasses, arranging tables and chairs, etc. We've never seen a physician washing windows before ("We do Windows!" is not a slogan you see in many doctor's offices). The real blessing, though is they are all working together willingly and joyfully - it's a great example of what God has in mind for the Body of Christ.

We also went and visited Mario Guerrero, a student from two years ago, who started a shoe manufacturing company after years of working for someone else. He now has 5 employees and they make about 250 pairs of shoes a day - by hand!

Here are some picture of Mario's latest sales people displaying some shoes, Roberto making shoes and the team praying. When we asked Mario if we could pray for him, he immediately asked if he could include all his employees. That says a lot about the man and his team.

The we got another God story from Luis, our interpreter. He is an agronomist and was General Manager for a Guatemalan company that grows ornamental shrubs, etc. on five farms throughout the country and exports them to the US, Canada, Europe and other countries. Last year, his wife (who is also an agronomist) was a student in our training and she told him that he should attend the seminar. When we came down for Phase 2 (where we need lots of interpreters so that we can work with groups of 3 or 4 on their individual businesses) Luis took part as an interpreter.

Although he hadn't attended the Phase 1 training, he picked up enough from the conversations to understand how you can surrender to God's will in business and that you can use God's design for business successfully. At that time, you may remember that Guatemala went through a major volcanic eruption, followed by major storms. On one of the farms the volcanic ash built up on the roofs of the greenhouses and when the rains came, the combined weight caused all the roofs to collapse. After evaluating the situation, they decided to take the insurance money and shut down the farm - leaving a lot of people without work.

A buyer from Miami depended on the type of shrub that was only grown on that farm and asked if they could buy it and hire Luis to bring it back to production. They said that they would sell the farm but they had plans for Luis. So, when Luis worked with us on Phase 2, he was wrestling with a very weighty decision; stay with a secure career or leave his long-term employer and take a risk - and save the farm and the jobs. Through his involvement with us, he decided to talk to our leader, David Pritchard, and he talked to his pastor.

He decided to leave and take up the challenge. They invested a lot of time and a lot of money in getting the farm back on track. Their projections showed that, if things went well, they would be cash-flow positive by March, 2011. God blessed their efforts and they went cash-flow positive by October, 2010!.

It almost seems anticlimactic to talk about this years seminar but the teaching is going well. We are seeing the same light in the eyes of the students that we have seen every year and the adjustments to the curriculum are working very well. We are truly blessed to be doing this and we thank our supporters for the opportunity and the prayers, which are being answered, big time! You are an integral part of the work that God is doing through this ministry.

Blog for Wednesday, May 11, 2011

We were up early at the Mission Center - preparing for the day and our teaching. It was still pretty early when Hermann's team started to arrive and they swung into action preparing the new buildings for the dedication on Saturday. There were three physicians, a dentist, Dietrich, Hermann's family and the interpreters all working on assembling furniture and all the other details that make a building habitable. They turned on the water and found that a plumber had put a cap on the end of one of the water lines without putting glue on it first! So, for a while, the Conference Center had an impressive indoor fountain (unplanned)! Mario (one of the physicians) was drenched and they all went to work to fix the problem and clean up!

Lance suggested to Hermann that the name of the ministry should be changed from MMM (Medical Missions Ministries) to PPP (Physicians, Pastors and Plumbers)! The only problem is that if you added a letter for every role carried out at MMM, you would have the longest acronym in the world.

The humility with which everyone serves in whatever manner is required was exemplified by a new member of the team, Gisela, who is a dentist. Gisela gave up a thriving dental practice to join Hermann's ministry full-time because she felt that her former patients could get good dental services from other dentists, whereas the people to whom MMM minister have virtually no options for dental care at all. That sounds somewhat familiar; "sell your things and follow me".

In the afternoon, we had lunch with Estuardo at Pollo Campero (for those of you who have been here) and then met to discuss the ministry and the past students and their businesses.

Then we started the teaching of Phase 1 last night and, as usual, we were amazed at the attitude of the students. There were about 25 students and their intended or existing businesses include a bookstore, a recruiting firm, a mechanic shop, a business that sells needed products to prisoners, a corn tortilla business, a carpenter, technical sales, a sidewalk food business, a printing shop, organic foods marketing and some others that got a little lost in the translation. We also had a new type of student: 3 students (late high school and college) who wanted to learn how to become businessmen. This is a promising new audience for discipleship in the marketplace.

The teaching went well and the students were engaged - and seemed to grasp the key concepts (based on the heads nodding and the comments that were made). Tonight we start getting into the scriptural basis for God's design for business and we are looking forward to seeing the response.

Thank you for your prayers and please continue. Lance's wife, Nancy, reported that the air conditioning went out yesterday - and we gather it was hot. It should be fixed today but your continued prayers for the protection of our families would be wonderful.

More later. God bless you all.

We arrived safely in Guatemala after a safe and smooth flight and were greeted, as is usually the case, by Estuardo Perez and his delightful family: wife, Gladys; son, Javier; and daughter, Dulce. Estuardo heads up the Business Ministry at Showers of Grace but it really is a family effort. Javier and Dulce (who, as she grows into her teens, is now expressing a preference for her real name, Melissa) are both very mature, smart and have wonderful hearts for the Lord. That trait, plus love for each other, runs in the family.

We had lunch with the family which gave us a chance to catch up with each other on both family and ministry as well as discuss plans for the first phase of teaching for the new class of students, starting the next day (Wednesday). Since it was Mother's Day in Guatemala, we had a chance to celebrate with Gladys and have a lengthy conversation, since the restaurant was jammed with business. We learned that "Cinqo minutos, maximum!" means " your food will be ready in about 30 minutes to an hour"!

After lunch, we enjoyed shopping with the Perez' for a few grocery supplies for our use at the Mission Center, which gave us an opportunity to learn some of their tastes. Javier picked out the coffee with an enthusiastic endorsement, insisting that we take a sniff to endorse his choice.

We then went back to the Medical Missions Ministry Center, where Dr. Hermann Alb gave us a tour of the new facilities that will be dedicated this coming Saturday. It is truly amazing to see what God has made possible and to hear Hermann's enthusiasm for the resulting opportunities to expand the ministry. It has additional rooms to double the number of Medical Missions teams and a conference center for equipping pastors from churches in villages and small towns from all over Guatemala. Hermann and his team (including all the GO journey teams from Perimeter and other affiliated churches) have already built productive and influential relationships with over 100 pastors and churches and they already conduct a pastor's conference once a year. The new facilities will provide opportunities to increase the depth of this equipping with smaller teams and more frequent sessions. There is also provision for a business training and development component in the new facilities, which excites us enormously.

We can all watch, with great interest and anticipation, to see what God will do with the facilities, the MMM and business teams and the churches in Guatemala.

We then spent a quiet evening preparing for the rest of the week and thanking God for the opportunity to be a small part of all this. We are also grateful to our prayer and financial supporters, who are a key component of this entire team. "Amazing" was a word that frequently escaped our lips. And we wonder what God will have in store for us tomorrow.