I would like to thank you all for your encouraging words here regarding my hate mail. To say that this letter did nothing to me at all and that it did not phase me would be a lie. To say that I had no desire to know who this person is and to egg their car is a lie also. But to say that this letter holds any power over my life now would also be a lie. It did, but it does no longer.
When I recieved this in the mail, I opened it without even thinking. I read the opening lineand honestly, I wanted to know what the rest of it said. I put it in my wallet and was not sure of what I should do. Should I stop the poison of this letter in its tracks and bear the brunt of this hate and bitterness alone, or should I spread the poison by letting others read it? I decided to leave it in my wallet and pray over my decision.
Later in the day Kara said to me, "You didn't tell me about the letter." I had told her what I was rolling over in my mind and we talked about the information that was in the letter and how sad we felt for this person that has nothing better to do with their life than mill over how unhappy they are with change and progress in our church. We talked about how sad this person must be to not have the courage to sign a letter that they were so passionate about. We talked about how our first response is anger and defense, and then after thought and prayer we feel sadness for the sender.
That night we were still talking about the letter, but then we decided to stop talking and start praying. We prayed over the letter and we prayed that God would neutralize the poison of hate that was now in our system, and we prayed that God would deal with the sender and resolve any issues of bitterness, hate, and anger. I felt a sense that God was saying, "Let me deal with this." So I let it go, and honestly, I have the letter taped to my wall in my office, along with many encouraging notes, and it holds no power in me. When I read it, I am not angry, I am not insecure, I am not defensive, I am sad for the sender.
I invite you to pray for this person as you read this post and ask God to reveal to this person the hate and bitterness that is residing in this person's heart. And if you ever get hate mail, know that God is our defender, and we do not need to adjust our self image publically with many words, but we can rely on out God, who is the light of the world, to shine his light of truth into darkness and confusion.
I pose no defense to the sender of the letter but know this one thing: I have been praying for you.
We stayed at the Liberty House, the church's missionary house. It was a nice place to stay. Out of the gutter there was an impatient growing and thriving, and I thought that it was a great picture illustration of what the Global Soccer Ministries is doing in Guatemala, bringing beauty and hope into places where you would think such things could not thrive.
Here are a few of my favorite group shots. The first one is on the way to Panajachel. The glowing spot is a raindrop that the flash caught just right. The second one is in Panajachel and the last one is a group of us guys the night before we leave with John and Amy, the missionary family who hosted us.
We decided it was time for some fun. We got in the cars and drove over the mountains to a tourist village called Antigua. Antiua was destroyed by an earthquake not too long ago and when they rebuilt, they passed a law that stated that any rebuilding that took place had to replace what was standing before exactly how it had been.
We cleared two potential soccer fields of overgrowth. The first was on a cement slab, but we didn't know it was on a cement slab until we started to clear away some of the weeds. Down there in Guatemala, they use machettes for this kind of work. So we gladly obliged to swing the sword like object at living things (plants).
We all packed into two cars and headed to Villa Nuava. Global Soccer Ministries, the group we will be working with is putting on soccer camps at this school/orphanage/children's home.
It is cool to see what is happening in this area of town where there is so much poverty and despair, right in the middle is this beacon of hope. A place where someone cares. A place where you can get what you need to develop into the person God wants you to be.
I had the opportunity to go to Guatemala in September. I ahve not been able to blog about it so much due to my schedule and the fact that I am still processing what I encountered. I went with four other guys who would be interested in taking teams down to work with the missionaries we met. The purpose of the trip was to get an idea of what a missions trip would be like, and then to plan out next years trip. I saw everything that I needed to see and Shiloh Community Church is going to Guatemala in July of 2009. We went with an organization called Simply Missions. If anyone is looking for a missions agency to work with, this is the one to go through. You will not feel like a cog in the machine, they connect churches to missionaries in different feilds around the world. I tried to take trips through some larger organizations, but I always felt lost and disconnected with the size of the organization. Simply Missions is a great personal organization that can tailor a trip to meet what you want to do instead of you tailoring your team to meet what the organization wants you to do.
we met, and some houses we got to walk through.
Isaac had an Ice cream from the Ice cream man, who looked like Rod Stewart, and then Kara and I went out on a date. We wanted to see the X-files movie, but aparently it was not showing within 30 miles of the house, so we went out to eat and walked around Meijers. Then on the way home the next day we stopped and saw Grandma and then we left for home. It was a great vacation, the quiet before the storm as I like to call it. First vacation in three years, probably should not go that long again.
We went fishing, and Isaac caught his very first fish on his own. He casted (with a little help) and reeled the fish in all by himself. Nolan got a picture with the fish that Daddy caught. Oh yeah, Isaac kept swinging the fish on the line and saying, "He's swinging!"
We visited my parents and played there all day. Here are some pictures of the pool.
