We have had many opportunities to trust God recently - I’ll have to tell you about the duct tape on the plane sometime :-). God provided over $1000 in monthly support in the last three months! We left for language school on January 12. Because of a strike at the Guatemala airport, we were stranded in Miami for a day. At first, no one knew how long the strike would last. Praise the Lord, flights started again the next day! In the meantime we connected with some Peruvian friends in Miami and ended up spending some time with a family from our church in Peru who happened to be traveling through Miami also.

After arriving in Guatemala City we headed up over the mountain to the town of Antigua. Our first two weeks we were living out of suitcases. Our first couple of nights we didn’t get much sleep since that weekend was a local religious holiday. Some very loud fireworks were going off over our hotel most of the night! This is a very religious area with many historic catholic churches in the town. The month of February will feature a different procession every weekend.

Praise the Lord for churches that preach the gospel here! Our first Sunday we visited a baptistic church right here in Antigua. After the evening service we met a CAM missionary couple who has worked with this church since the 50s. The church now has three Guatemalan pastors and has planted 5 other churches in neighboring towns. That Sunday was their missions Sunday so we heard a report about their missionaries in Spain and Belize.

When we mentioned our house hunting, these missionaries offered to rent us an apartment on their property. It was nicer than any other place we had looked at that weekend and it fit our price range. They have helped answer lots of questions and have made this transition much easier. Thank you, Lord!

Angela started Spanish classes at Christian Spanish Academy on Jan 19. She studies Spanish from 8 AM - 1 PM. Please pray for her as she works through lots of flash cards! Praise the Lord, her tutor at the school is a very good teacher and they are a good fit. I (Jon) also started classes on the 19th at a seminary in Guatemala City. A man from the church here in Antigua is also going to Seminary, so he has been riding with me. On my way over the mountain for the first day of class I ran over something that took a chunk out of my tire. God kept us safe and after an hour on the side of the road we made it to class on time. Traffic in the city is so bad that we leave at 5:30 every morning to avoid rush hour. Without much traffic I can make it to the seminary in about 35 minutes. If we leave after 6 AM it can take as long as 1 ½ hours to make the trip.

I am really looking forward to my time at this seminary. Most of the administration and faculty are native Spanish speakers, not missionaries. I have already witnessed a very different perspective. It really is a humbling experience to sit in sessions where they're talking about finances and trusting God to provide when $300 would pay any of their tuition bills for the trimester. One of my masters level classes is A Biblical Theology of Missions – in the Latin American context. I am also participating in college level Greek and Hebrew classes in order to prepare to teach at our seminary in Peru. My seminary studies will certainly help improve my Spanish for preaching and teaching.

Thank you all so much for your prayers! Please pray for safety on the roads. Pray that we would learn everything God wants us to learn this year. Pray that we would have opportunities to share Christ and be a light in this town. We hope to become involved in the evangelism outreach of the church here.