June update

The coronavirus is continuing to increase in cases of people infected which has caused the restrictions from the government to continue. There has been some changes to allow people to be out of the home during the day but everyone except essential personnel are required to be in their homes from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. Many families are suffering due to the lack of work to provide income to purchase food. The government has provided some relief to certain areas of Guatemala but it is not possible for every family to receive its help. The situation continues to be a great challenge for many families. Our YWAM base has continued to provide bags of food for families in our community and well as families in the Lake Atitlan area. We have conducted 6 distributions of food at the base and have given out more than 700 bags of food. God has been faithful to provide the money we need to purchase the food and we hope to be able to do at least 2 more distributions. Our last distribution was on June 16 to 85 families. In addition to the bag of food we also gave each family a faith building book that we pray they will read as a family and be encouraged.

Our staff continues to meet daily for prayer and encouragement in sharing the Word of God.  We are blessed with the technology to be able to do this and it has been a great help for us.  In addition Ywam regional leadership has conducted meetings each Monday to bring us together to worship and hear the word of the Lord.  It has been a blessing to meet with ywamers from many countries who join the meeting.  There are also courses being offered over the internet that we have been able to take.  The sabbatical that we all are experiencing is a time for us to seek God and focus on drawing close to Him.  It is a time of preparation as well for the things God wants to do through us in the future.

We want more mess! Joe Bedford

Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.    Proverbs 14:4  (ESV)

I was at our YWAM base a few days ago and thought, after I finished a couple of things, I could clean up a little bit. I was surprised to see how little needed cleaning up, even though no one has been cleaning for days. We used to clean every day! We have not had many people there in the last weeks, so there is only a little dust in the rooms. That makes cleaning a lot easier. But I would rather have the mess!

God has called us to teach His Word and train people to serve God with joy. Our team wants to see Christians on fire for God, loving Him with their whole being and with their lives. We have been and want to continue training people to discover their gifts and talents and find joy in glorifying God and blessing others. But we are not allowed to meet right now.

So if you can’t have any oxen in the barn, what do you do? You get the barn ready for them to come!

That’s why everyone in our team is taking time to train themselves and get ready for the people God is going to minister to through us. Some have been taking classes in leadership, others in counseling, member care, Guatemalan law, international relationships, or community development. So we ask for your prayers, that God gives us wisdom and understanding to get ready for those messy barns!