Sunrise looking out over our 2nd story patio
This morning, about 6:45am I opened up the vertical blinds in my office and look what I found. Spectacular! Amazing! Wonderful!

An evening with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Guatemala
Last night, we attended the orchestra performance at the Guatemala music hall. There was a special violin soloist from Belgium that was just wonderful. Normally cultural stuff like this is not my bag of tea. But we all enjoyed it.

INTERNET PHONE
So I put out this mass email, advertizing that for the first 20 folks that would call us on our Internet phone, we would mail them a bag of delicious Guatmemalan coffee, and wouldn't you know it, the phone is not working this morning. Glenn called the phone company and said that it should be working before noon. So, who knows. If you tried to call us, try again. Sorry you couldn't get through. Its just one of those things we deal with. So far, we have plenty of coffee to give away. And I don't even drink the stuff. Try again and give us a call.

WHERE DO WE EAT?

Last Friday, as we were driving out of town, it was about lunch time and we needed to find a place to eat. Glenn and I stopped at the Pradera (Mall) Chimaltenango. We were amazed, that in this little town about 45 min. outside of Guatemala City, there was this nice shopping mall. Although it wasn't your 2-4 story mall with glass elevator, it was a nice split level shopping mall with small specialilty shops and a nice food court. I heard there were movie theatre there, but I never saw them. Wow, look at the choices where we could eat. Taco Bell, McDonalds, Subway or even Dominoes Pizza. You name it, the mall had it.

A WEEKEND IN PANAJACHEL
Friday, we followed behind the Cokers for a 2 1/2 hour drive to the small village of Panajachel on the banks of Lake Atilican. Gorgeous place. Right next to heaven. Here we visited with the Cokers.

On Saturday, we drove out with Maria to the camp worksite to help her deliver pizza to the guys that were helping with construction. The picture is Glenn working with the wter pump to make koolaid. Never a dull moment.

Scenes from Antigua

Ellen in Antigua
On Monday, we drove up to Antigua and registerd Ellen in a one week language school course, truely a refresher course for Ellen. She is living about 7 blocks from the school with a Guatemala family. She has a private room and has a little living and study area. There is even hot water for the shower. I know she'll enjoy her Antigua experience.

BIRTHDAY PARTY

This evening we were invited over to Oscar Campos to celebrate his 50th birthday. He has a tradition of celebrating it each year with co-worker, Bob Kasper, who also works at SETECA. We had Texas Fajitas. I loved the beans and rice.

We also met Juan Medina who just arrived from Bolivia and is the CIET director with SAM. Here is Juan and Bob Kasper, a former GMU missionary from Argentia and Bolivia. Small world, Big Family Juan is in the DMin program and is here taking a course here at SETECA Juan knows all of our SAMBO friends like Jeff Hause, Paul Kienzle, Jeff Orcutt, Steve Vanderswaag, and Kenny Krestan. He thinks Jeff O is just terrific.

Ellen visits in Guatemala

Ellen arrived on July 6th and will be with us for 2 weeks. Next week she will be taking a refresher Spanish course at Christian Spanish Academy in Antigua. She will be living with a Guatemala family for the week. On July 19, Ellen will be heading back down to Nicaragua via a 16 hour bus ride.

We did take an official tour of SETECA, CAM's seminary here. It is the largest seminary in Central America. After the tour, we had lunch with CAM missionary, Laura Maki, at the famous Pollo Campero restaurant.

July 4th in Guatemala
This afternoon, we drove across town to see Cammie VanRooy. She's been a short term missionary working at Casa Bernabe this past month.

The orphanage is just 25 km outside of Guatemala City on the way to El Salvador on some gorgeous rolling hills. Cammie showed us her class room where she teaches music. There are 150 kids and 2 little bitty ones were dropped off there yesterday. We enjoyed our short visit and walked away encouraged and thrilled to see how the Lord is using Cammie. For those that don't know, it was at Cammie's Grandparents house, John and Elaine Beekman, where Glenn and I met 28 years ago. And our Gary is named after Cammie's uncle. So, we go way back.

Earlier in the afternoon, we celebrated the 4th of July by going to TGI Fridays and watched the World Cup soccer game. Gary was wearing the Italy soccer shirt that I had bought him last year, however, he did have a shirt underneath to wear, just in case Italy lost. I am rooting for Italy, now that Brazil and Argentina are out of the World Cup. Glenn is rooting for Portugal.