Ami Spencer

Trust in the Lord and do good;

dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

Delight yourself in the LORD

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:3-4

Today it’s time to take break from stories of the kids to share a testimony from my life… to share some exciting personal news with you all… I’m getting married!

Who is this guy????  Gerson Roberto Gutierrez Marroquin is my soon to be husband!

We met four years ago when I moved to Guatemala and started going to The Harvest Foursquare Church, he leads worship and is the director of youth ministries. We were acquaintances for the first few years and occasionally chatted or hung out with other youth from the church… but it all really started a little over a year ago, one rainy Thursday night at church. As he was walking out of the sanctuary all of the sudden he heard “A la gran,” (darn it!) and turned to see me quickly walk back to my car as I realized I had just locked the keys inside.

Several people helped me try to open it up with various hangers and things, but with no luck. So in the end Gerson ended up having to drive me about a half hour away to get my spare set of keys. It was really the first time we had ever had a chance to talk and get to know each other personally, despite my embarrassment for having locked my keys in the car, I realized that I was really enjoying the conversation, he was a nice guy and we really understood each other with things in our lives having to do with our ministries.

After that we started talking more and really getting to know each and I really began to appreciate his sincerity, his dedication to the ministry, and what a respectful man he was. Over this past year I have fallen in love a man whose heart is for the youth of Guatemala, to see them know the Lord and be discipled in to mature men and woman of God, I have fallen in love with a man who understands what it means to sacrifice in order to follow the call of God on his life, I have fallen in love with a man who encourages me and builds me up to serve the Lord faithfully, I have fallen in love with a man who makes me feel at home in a country that is not mine, and along with many other reasons I have fallen in love with a man who loves me more than I could ever imagine!

We will be having a civil wedding here in Guatemala with our friends and family on Saturday, August 7^th and then two days later be flying to Wisconsin to have a church wedding with our friends and family back in the States on August 15^th. We are so excited and so grateful to God as we begin this exciting adventure of our new life together. After we spend some time in the US and with my family we’ll be coming back to Guatemala to continue with our lives and ministries here.

God has been faithful, he has been generous, he has considered the desires of mine and Gerson’s hearts and we have seen his favor on our lives in this past year as we have grown together and seen God guide us and lead us as a couple personally and in our ministries together.

Whether you are able to join in our wedding celebrations in person or spirit I know each and everyone of you will be celebrating in your hearts with us as I have felt your love over my life time and time again over the years. Thank you for all your prayers to God to take care of me and provide for me, because in bringing me together with Gerson he has done just that!

***For the many of you in California who are miles away from Wisconsin and Guatemala…  don’t worry, we’ll be coming to see you in the early winter most likely and we will have a chance to celebrate together!

Last Thursday night when I got home from church I had a sweet surprise wanting on my doorstep….  3 boxes with over 200 kids yoplait yogurts. (Thanks Brennan and Mariajose!)  We brought half of them with us on Friday to the kids in the terminal and treated them to a snack after we did homework.  I know their resources are limited and water isn’t super accessible, but watching them stick there dirty little fingers in the yogurt to scoop it out, we quickly realized there was a need for a new lesson theme.  So on Sunday when we went to visit them again we came prepared to teach them all about GERMS!

We printed some gross looking germ coloring pages off the internet, grabbed the rest of the yogurts out of the fridge and dug out the the box of hotel soaps I had from mission teams in the past.  Willy did us the favor of acting out a story of a mischievous little boy who spent his morning running around the streets, playing soldiers with his buddies, playing catch with a stray dog, building castles in the sand and a few other little-boy type adventures.  When his mom called him home for snack Willy was certain his hands were clean because he couldn’t SEE any dirt on his hands, but when the kids pulled out there “magnifying glasses” and looked at Willy’s hands we could see that they were covered with germs and bacteria that would end up in his tummy if he ate his snack without washing his hands.  The kids all agreed it would be much, much easier for Willy to wash his hands than to have to deal with going to the doctor and taking medicine to get them out of his stomach.

After the kids learned a little about germs and how easy it is to protect ourselves against them by not putting dirty things in our mouths and washing our hands they each got to color their nasty germs.  When they were finished we gave them each a bar of soap and told them to take their pictures to put by the sink or pila or bucket of water they had to remind them to wash their hands before they eat.  When they came back and showed us their sparkely clean hands they were rewarded with yogurt and a spoon to fill their bellies with something good.  One little boy even washed his face with the soap and water, and I almost didn’t recognize him when he came back!

It’s a sweet thing to see the way that God provides for this ministry and his kids.  This isn’t the first time either.  Twice now there has been a gentleman who occasionally goes to the terminal to buy supplies, he’s not even from the city, he comes from some town a ways away.  Both times that he has seen us there he has come up to us and told us he’d like to buy a snack for the kids and asks how many are there with us.  A few minutes later he’s back with a bag of around 20 little packs of cookies and juice, and coke and crackers for us.  He doesn’t even know us, but God has used him to bless us and the kids!

We celebrated Scarleth’s 13th birthday a while back… thepoineerwoman.com (I love her blog!) gave us a great idea for flower pot cakes and she LOVED them!

So did her niece Raquel!

She got to open up her present which was an art set for drawing and painting from a very sweet lady in Hudson!  She was pretty excited!

• I am thankful for all of you.
• I am thankful that you care so much about these kids here in Guatemala.
• I am thankful that you allow us to impact the lives of these kids daily.
• I am thankful that when we all work together as the body of Christ, good things happen.
• I am thankful that our God is near to us and cares about our suffering and our pain.

All the support and resources that we are able to offer these kids is because of all of YOU. Thank you! Thank you that you allow us to be here, thank you that kids are receiving the help they need, getting that extra little boost that will begin to move them down the path from struggling and suffering to thriving and flourishing.

The school year starts in January in Guatemala which means lots of extra needs for families in the new year; with school supplies they can’t afford, school uniforms and school tuition. Some kids literally never get an education simply because their parents cannot afford their school supplies. There are kids that are going to school for the very first time this year; 9 , 10, 12 year olds that have never studied before, are sitting in their classes right now learning and writing in notebooks you all bought them! So far we have helped over 30 kids with their school supplies and books, 4 kids with their uniforms and 2 girls with scholarships for middle school… they are very thankful for all that you give!  Be blessed!

The pictures say it all….

Passing out school supplies to some of the mom’s that work in the dump… a lot of the supplies are crayons and

pencils and things that the missions teams brought down last summer!

Some of the kids aren’t in school yet because they still have never been registered as being born and have no birth certificates,

in the mean time (while we’re working with El Castillo to register them)

we’re helping them begin to learn some of the basics of writing and counting, they LOVE their homework!

At least once a week we try to bring story books in Spanish, they adore listening to stories,

looking at the pictures and practicing their reading skills!

Sharing, patience, taking turns, anger control, good manners… it’s more than just a board game!

The Terminal

A New Ministry of Harvest Foursquare Church in Guatemala

The Terminal:  Deep in Guatemala City where markets line the streets, where people come to buy fruits, flowers, grains and almost anything else you can imagine, and where buses are constantly coming and going from all parts of Guatemala is an area referred to as the Terminal. It’s an area of commerce, with constantly crowded streets, filled with those coming to buy or travel and those working there as well. There is a constant smell from the mixture of the dump, exhaust fumes, raw meat and rotting vegetables that hangs in the air, and sounds of noisy buses, cars honking and vendors yelling to announce what they are selling. And mixed in amongst all of this are the children.

The children:  They are some of the most beautiful, loving, inquisitive children who are full of potential but who lack the influence, support and resources to thrive. Many live there in over crowded rooms behind the market or in shacks made of rubbish found in the dump. Some come during the day and run the streets while their parents are working in the market, and some live on the streets abandoned to the conditions found there. About half of the children are illiterate and uneducated. Most of them have parents who have lived in the same situation their whole lives and have no means to offer their children anything different; some really trying, others abusive and indifferent.

The Ministry:  About two months ago a group of us, with a desire to make a difference, decided to start visiting the children. We are currently working in two different areas of the Terminal a few hours a day Friday through Sunday. Our main goal at the moment is to get to know the kids and their situations, gain their trust and their parents trust as well, and try to begin to understand how we can help them.

We hope that through being their friends, at the very least we can be a positive influence in their lives, give them hope for something different, and share the life changing love of Christ with them; and at the very most that their lives would radically change for the better.

The Dream:  As we really get to know the children and their families, understand the bigger picture of why they live in these situations, and what we can do that will really be of benefit not only in the moment but also in the long run, we have big hopes for what we can do as a ministry. Our dream is to be a ministry of positive influence, resource and protection for these children so that their lives would be transformed, that they would flourish and thrive, and they would have every fair opportunity to achieve the God given potential they have inside of them.

It’s just a piece of paper but the fact that we have it in our hands is an absolute miracle.  For the past year if you would have asked Scarleth if there were anything that you could pray for her about she would have said, “That we can find my birth certificate.”  She is 13 years old and in 5^th grade, but she has known for a while that if her birth certificate didn’t show up that her studies this year weren’t going to count for anything and she wouldn’t been able to move onto the next grade either.  The reason it was no where to be found all started with the fact that she was abandoned by her mother as a baby.   

About a year ago we started a search for the infamous birth certificate, not really even knowing if one existed since after a baby is born you have to go and register their birth to receive one.  We spent hours driving endlessly around Guatemala City, from one government building to another, only finding dead ends and spending hours digging through thousands and thousands of birth certificates.  After several months we realized that our only option was going to be to go through a lawyer and get her a new one, which would take around a year and end up costing at least $1000… and after all that we weren’t really even sure if legally it was going to be possible given her living situation.  With no other alternative we started the process and continued our trek week after week around the city collecting various documents. 

On one of the many trips we made to RENAP (the national registry of persons) we were going to pick up a paper for the lawyer that stated that there was no birth certificate… when all of the sudden they handed us a bunch of papers and in the stack was a copy of her birth certificate!  I honestly think that was one of the most exciting moments of my life… an absolute miracle.  What was even more fun was seeing the look on Scarleth’s face when I got to tell her… it was a gift!

At El Castillo we have been working for a couple months now with a group of boys, trying to help them make a decision to leave the streets.  It’s been a pretty intense process as these are boys that have been on the streets using drugs for years and have all been through several drug programs already, but always ending up back on the streets.  They have been coming somewhat consistently Monday through Thursday mornings throughout the week where we do various activities with them; devotionals, breakfast, hygiene, group therapy and workshops.  Keep them in your prayers as it is a daily battle for them with the drugs and their lifestyle, but the street is a dangerous place for them.  Just last weekend one of them was stabbed several times in the chest and abdomen and had to be taken to the national hospital for emergency surgery, and 4 days later he was back out living on the streets.  Keep them in your prayers!

Flying back into Guatemala the beginning of this month marked my 3rd anniversary of moving to this country.  It’s amazing how time passes by and how remarkably different that first arrival was from this one; so many unknowns, strange feelings of arriving in a foreign land, no one was familiar to me… in contrast this time I found myself almost giddy as I landed, wanting the line through customs to go faster so that I could get out and see my friends, my people, be back in my country, and see how my kids were doing.   It’s not a foreign land anymore, it’s familiar, full of memories now, full of stories of the ways I’ve seen God’s hand move over the past years, full of people, young and old, that I have learned to love deeply, full of life… my life, and I’m home! 

I can’t deny it though that I did have a wonderful time back in the States for the month of February, and I was so blessed by the time I got spend with my family and all the churches I was able to visit, and all the cake I got to eat :O) I am blessed to have some incredible people in my life and be part of an amazing denomination and church family!

—   

El Castillo gave me my first full day back off so I could rest and unpack, but I missed them all too much and couldn’t imagine spending a day at home all alone instead of being there with them, so I went in anyways.  They were just beginning a new phase of looking for kids that we’ve never made contact with before and the first step of that involved lots of prayer.  So it was kind of tranquil but powerful week as I got back into it.  Throughout the week we went all over the city, to the different points where we work with or have seen kids and just spent time praying over those areas and speaking life over them; praying that God would open doors, that we would see the kids and different situations through His eyes and understanding, and that the darkness and despair over their lives would be broken.   There is a certain heaviness in my spirit after having spent the week praying and observing these different areas, excited about what God will do in response to those prayers, but aware all over again of the endless need and seemingly hopeless situations.  I think it was magnified a bit by having been away, experiencing the abundance of life in the US for a while and coming face to face with this profound poverty all over again.  But the Father’s promises are still true and he is out their desperately seeking their lives.  

It was really great to get back with my girls as well and see how they were doing, how they were keeping up with their studies and all.  The young mothers were excited to know when we were going to start our mothering with purpose class again, and even more excited when I has showed them the Spanish toddler books I had brought back in order to start a small library that would be available to them.  It is a small library, only about 10 books, but since there are only 3 of them right now I’m going to start letting them take one home a week and then bring it back to exchange it for a different one.  They will have to learn to be responsible with the books and their babies are being exposed to language and speech in a way that will help them in the years to come.  Crazy what a few little books could do for someone’s life! 

The books weren’t all I was able to bring back, I also brought back a bunch of cards and board games that will assist in the rehabilitation and restoration of the street kids, some used clothes, and some other small things which were all purchased because so many of you back there stateside are so generous and care so much about these kids.  Bless you all!

There are no easy answers in Rebeca’s life, she could ask why her mother was a prostitute and abandoned her at 8 years old, she could ask why she was treated poorly in the children’s home her mother left her in, she could ask why her husband died of cancer in barely 5 months time to leave her alone with her baby and little sister, but who would have the answers for her? 

In June her husband Cesar was admitted to the hospital for what seemed to be a herniated disk or something similar.  He spent over a month there without really getting any answers as to what was going on.  Suddenly the doctors told him he had cancer and being unable to walk, bath himself or barely sit up, he was sent home and told to come in weekly for his chemotherapy treatments.  Rebeca’s tasks soon multiplied as she became in home nurse on top of all her other responsibilities.  She was constantly exhausted physically and emotionally as she struggled everyday to get things done and watched her 19 year old husband grow sicker and sicker.  Cesar and Rebeca were soon told that the chemo was not making any difference as the cancer was too advanced, and there was nothing left to do but give him pain meds to make the end more comfortable.  Less than five months after he had first been admitted into the hospital, after slipping in and out of consciousness, Cesar passed away on November 8th, 2008. 

It was there, in those loneliest and darkest moments of Rebeca’s young life, that those of us around her began to see the amazing strength and faith Rebeca possesses.  In spite of circumstance in which anyone would find reason to give up all hope Rebeca stood up and kept going. She lives in a small block and sheet metal room with her sister and baby and works long days cleaning house and washing clothes to provide for her sister.  She is an extremely intelligent young lady, but had not had the opportunity to continue studying 6th grade and therefore has not been able to get a better job.  

On December 29th Rebeca turned 18. A couple days later I was driving her back from picking up her new identification papers since she was now of age. We were talking about a meeting several of us had with her a few days earlier, planning things like how she can start studying again and work towards a more stable life for her baby, her sister and herself. In the middle of all that we were discussing she looked at me with such a presence of peace and contentment and said, “Ami, I don’t know why all of this has happened in my life, why it’s been so hard, but right now, I feel like God is giving me a fresh start, a new beginning.” Her words expressed an undying, unwavering faith in who her God is, she may be an 18 year old young lady who has suffered through more than any of us can imagine, but I think she is also a 18 year old young lady knows something of God that I long to know.

A Huge Accomplishment

In August, at 15 years old, Wendy had just given birth to Eric.  At the time he was born we were part way through an accelerated program she was studying in order pass 5th and 6th grade through a correspondence course.  She had started the program late and with her newborn baby she continued to fall further and further behind. We continued to meet weekly studying fractions and the capitals, literary styles and planets, and body functions and spelling, all the while having to take one brake after another as she had to change Eric’s diaper or feed him or pick him up to stop him from crying.  

We were told that she would have to take the final exams near the end of November, so although we would have to rush, by meeting a few extra times a week, we thought that it was possible.  In the beginning of October I got a call a call from the school saying that the final exams would be on the 15^th of that month and that she had to take them on that date.  I think I started laughing because I thought it was so ridiculous, but then, realizing they were not going to change the dates, my thoughts were something like, “well, at least if we have to repeat this all next year, she’s that much farther ahead.”   

Wendy started cramming like mad trying to memorize all she could and in spite of my doubts she would look at me and say “It’s okay, I’ll do fine.  I do really well on tests.”  She brought here brother to help with the baby while she took the four different exams and left just as confident as she had gone in.  She told me they were easy and she knew she had done great; I still quietly doubted in my head that it was possible for her to pass.  A couple days later the director of the school called to tell me that she had done excellent and passed all four of the exams! 

God has woven something so amazing into his children; capability, strength, resilience… I am constantly amazed by the situations these kids find themselves in and the fight that they still have left in them.  She started the school year several months late, trying to pass two grades at once, gave birth in the middle of the school year and she did it!

The Work Continues

The past few months at El Castillo we’ve seen God move and allow us to get some of the kids off the streets and some of them into the homes of El Castillo or back with their families.  We’ve seen some of the kid’s own wills win over as they throw away all they’ve been given and go back to the streets and drugs.  We’ve seen mom’s stop their kids from receiving the help that they need because they are complacent or exploiting their kids.  There are amazing days when we feel so productive and we can see the lessons we’re teaching the kids get through to their hearts; that God has plans for them, that they don’t have to settle for where they are, that no matter what has been done to them they are valuable, precious and loved in God’s eyes.  There are days when it feels like it’s all a waste as the kids, high on drugs, don’t even seem to realize that we’ve come to visit them. 

That’s where it’s our turn to live by faith, to believe that above all and without question we know what we were called to.  We are called to reach out to the oppressed, to give water to the thirsty, to comfort those who mourn, and to loose the chains of injustice.  The rest is up to God.  The results, the redemption, is his.  In the moments when we see it happen before our eyes the glory is his, and the moments where we see nothing but know that God sees far beyond what we can see or imagine the glory is his as well.  

Right now we are in a process of working with a group of kids who are considered at risk, not on drugs yet, but spend the majority of their days in the streets or at the dump while their moms work. These kids are the ones who will most likely end up on drugs without intervention.  The children themselves are more than willing to participate when we go to see them several times a week.  They listening to the lessons we share with them, play games with us, want to study, and want to believe that there is something better for their lives.  Keep them in your prayers! 

Beautiful Maribel

Santiago begging at the stoplight where his mom sends him everyday

Hugo and Edgar, two little boys that live at the dump

I just dropped a group of seven off at the airport early Monday morning. I had picked them up from the same airport 12 days prior, not really knowing who all of them were, nor knowing what agenda they were coming with. It’s great to have teams come down; connect with people that are like me, that think like I think, that speak English… But you also never really know if they’re going to be more headache than help, coming into a culture they don’t know, for only a short time, with all their American ideas and ways of thinking. It can be quite difficult hosting them at times, feeling the offenses they don’t realize they are making towards a people so different from them.

That was not the case with this team. I met up with them in La Gomera, a small town near the tropical hot pacific coast two days after they had gotten here. They were out visiting families when arrived… not just visiting families, they were knowing a people, caring about them. They didn’t mind that they walked around with arm-pit stains all day from the humidity or that they their feet were swollen from mosquito bites. I watched them walk through those streets with compassion. They couldn’t communicate well not speaking much Spanish, but their hearts spoke, there was something inviting in their eyes as they longed to see people find wholeness in Christ. Maybe they didn’t speak many words but they received people in their arms and were Christ’s love incarnate to them.

They spent five days in La Gomera, at a new church that started from zero, just a young Guatemalan man with a passion for people lives to be dredged up the darkness. It seemed by some standards that they weren’t accomplishing much, the services were nothing huge, they didn’t construct any physical building that would outlast their stay. But there was nothing insignificant about what they accomplished. The people they got to know were people that have lived hard lives, with not many breaks, fighting poverty and violence and that have gone on for generations, and this team came in as a ray of hope. They loved people they knew not, and planted seeds of life and hope. Maybe they will never see their effects but I am certain they are great.

After their five days came to end in La Gomera their sleeping got a little comfier as left behind the hard church floor and came to the city, but they continued their walk, through some of the dirtiest places of Guatemala city to know and love others. They went out with at night with El Castillo to wash the feet of the street children and give them clean socks, there were some boys that felt a gentleness they had not known before. The following day we went around and picked up some of those same kids to take them to a beautiful park in the forest. They spent time playing with them, praying over them and teaching them to be brave like David and trust in God as he had. It was difficult at the end of the day when the team had to help drop the kids back off in the alleys and dumps where they came from, but what they did that day was no small thing. There was no immediate change in the kids lives, but the team showed them beauty, took them out of the flooded tulip fields where they dwell and showed them that something better exists. In the darkness where they live there is no better, they can barely imagine tomorrow let alone trust in themselves to believe that life could change. Hope was planted in their hearts, something to strive for and to long for, and with that hope, with the long term ministries working along side of them real change will come.

They came to a foreign land with no agenda but to love. They did not demand recognition or seek only results, but they believed that it was enough to know that had served God and be used by him for his good purpose, and because of that they did much.

“What I ask of you,” says the Lord, “is that you would act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8