We were sitting in the Atlanta airport on our way home from Guatemala when I began this post and here I am almost a week later finally getting it out there!  Thank you to all of you that prayed for Joseph and I on our trip to Guatemala last week.  It was a great trip and our girls each had a great time with friends and family while we were gone.  Joseph and I had a very full few days with Nelson, Rosemarie and their youngest daughter, Camila.

This “scouting” trip was very important for us in many ways.  The first morning we were there, Joseph and Nelson met with an American missionary who grew up in Guatemala named Nathan Hardeman.  Nathan, the founder and director of Engadi Ministries International, was able to give us some very helpful insight from his personal experiences.  He also introduced us to his network of other American missionaries in Guatemala.  One of his recommendations was to consider the value of attending a language school.  This was likely the fifth or sixth time something like this has been suggested to us! So, needless to say, we are listening.  He highly recommended the Christian Spanish Academy in Antigua, Guatemala, which is about a 40-minute drive from Guatemala City.  We spent the next day in Antigua visiting the Christian Spanish Academy (CSA) as well as a couple of other language schools.  CSA is a well-respected school that was started with the specific mission to help train missionaries in the Spanish language.  They offer an intense full-immersion language program that has been known to be very successful.  We believe that this is exactly where we need to begin.  Joseph will be attending the school every day for 4-6 hours a day for 4 to 6 months. I (Christy) will have classes for 2 hours a day, twice a week.  We will get the most out of the classes by living in Antigua and focusing on learning Spanish full time.  We were able to look at some apartments that same day and found one that would be a good fit for us, with enough space for me to continue homeschooling the girls.  We are praying that we will be able to secure this apartment when the time comes.  After completing the language program, we would then look for a more permanent place to live in Guatemala City.  The total cost for the full program for both of us will be around $5,000. 

Christian Spanish Academy

We were also able to have many valuable conversations about life and ministry in Guatemala during our trip.  I appreciated practical things like going for a run in the neighborhood and grocery shopping with Rosemarie – they have Walmart and Pricemart!  She also took me to Cenma, a huge fresh fruit and vegetable market where you can buy tons of great produce for really cheap.  On Sunday morning, we were able to join in worship and fellowship with the church, Vida Nueva Guatemala. It is amazing to see the Lord putting a closeness between us and them as we progress toward our move there. There may be great physical distance between us but the Lord is already knitting our hearts together.  

Vida Nueva is gearing up for their Bilingual Bible School in November so they were all wearing their "Submerged" T-shirts that Sunday.  This is a big outreach event each year that brings in a lot of people from the city.

The Lord continues to confirm that He is calling our family there.  We believe He wants to use us to encourage the church in their identity as ambassadors of Christ with a ministry and a message of reconciliation.  We also believe that He will provide for the ministry that He has called us to.  He has already started moving on many of your hearts to come alongside us.  Thank you to those of you who are praying for us and those who are already supporting us financially.  If you are considering supporting us financially, please let us know by filling out our support form.  There is a link to this printable form on the right-hand column of this blog.  (You won't see it on the mobile version of the blog, you have to open the web version to see the link).  We are close to 40% of the total funds needed for a two-year period and we need to know when to make some long-term decisions such as selling our house, securing an apartment and enrolling in language school.  It would be really helpful if you would fill out the form for us so we can know how to make these decisions.

We are so humbled and thankful for all of you!! 

Main Square in Antigua

Guatemala City from the airplane

Friends, Christy and I are on our way today to Guatemala City to scout out the land. We will be staying with Pastor Nelson and his wife, Rosemarie Rivas. While we are there, we hope to discover a more realistic cost of living, transportation, etc. Many of you are partners in ministry through giving and praying so here’s how you can pray:

Ø  For our kids to feel safe and comforted while we are away.

Ø  For wisdom as we are on the scout. (Primarily housing and van)

Ø  This will be my first time mentioning NoPlaceLeft Guatemala to VNG (Vida Nueva Guatemala – the local church body). So please pray for clear casting of the NoPlaceLeft Guatemala vision to “faithful men” (2Tim 2:2).

Ø  Opportunities to share the gospel as we go.

Ø  That we are a blessing and encouragement to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Thank you in advance for your faithfulness to pray and support this ministry as we truly seek to see no place left where the gospel has not been shared in the region of Guatemala.  As Paul said in Romans 15:23, we also hope to see the gospel spread from generation to generation.  We will post an update when we return!

Since our last post, I (Joseph) have been learning the deeper meaning of God’s faithfulness to act on His word. We are continuing to learn more and more that He actually calls us out of darkness and into the light for His greater Kingdom purpose. He doesn’t call us out of darkness to settle into comfortable, casual Christianity. He calls us to follow Him, step by step, into daily trusting Him, obeying Him and taking Him at His word. This is a relationship that requires interaction. It requires daily bowing before Him and surrendering to His agenda. This looks different for each person but the end result is the same. For me personally, this is renouncing my desire to be the best industrial sales rep. in the country for Tnemec Company. I’ve been building relationships and reputation for 12 years in this territory. I had a goal to one day run my own independent agency for Tnemec and I was well on track to succeed. There was a time when my heart was given to this agenda of building my own kingdom.  On occasion I would share the gospel, but that just never seemed like enough. My heart was divided and not fully surrendered to King Jesus.

When I found myself unfulfilled and unsatisfied with my own agenda, I began to ask the Lord, “what more could I give?” Through praying and digging deeper into scripture, I found passages like James 2:23: “So the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness, and he was called God’s friend.”

And John 15:8: “My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.”

Also, John 14:15: “If you love me, you will keep my commands.” And a little later in John 15:14: “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”

These verses speak for themselves. The Lord began to show me that His purpose for me and other professing believers is no different than that of these men who wrote the above passages. Our ultimate purpose is to point people to The Source of joy, The Wellspring of Living Water, the Bread of Life, Jesus. In John 4:34, Jesus tells His disciples that He has food that they do not know about. Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of the Father who sent me and to finish His work.”

I am not especially qualified to be a missionary of the gospel to Guatemala. If I were my own god, I would stay on course to be the best Tnemec rep ever, but I am not any more. I am sure God could do better than us for this mission, but we are certain that He has put this on our hearts. So, we choose to walk in obedience into this uncharted territory.  We will go, and as we take Him at His word, we now know that we have a greater purpose than our physical accomplishments or achievements in life. He is proving Himself faithful as always.

God has a greater purpose for your life in Christ than anything you could ever achieve on your own. It far exceeds us and our lesser goals. In Christ, our purpose is to proclaim the good news that Christ came to pay the price for our sins, that we could not pay, so that through faith in Him we can have a restored relationship with God.  Those who hear and believe on the name of the Lord Jesus, enter in to this reconciled relationship with their Creator and now have this same purpose!  Take Him at His word and you will know that His plan is best for you. “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” –Jim Elliot

A Changed Heart in the Most Unlikely Missionary

I’m going to warn you at the beginning, this post is probably too long… but our previous post was made in an attempt to get something started as a blog.  There is so much more to share about this new and quite unexpected chapter of our life.  As you may already know, we believe that God is calling us to move our family to Guatemala.  To be honest, I (Christy) have always been skeptical of the idea that God “calls” people to a particular place.  I believe that God calls all of those who are His to walk with Him and tell about Him wherever they find themselves… So if you ask me, I would be perfectly fine to do that the rest of my days in the same place!  I am not one to feel the need to have adventure, or change for that matter, in my life.  But God is so gracious with me!  He loves me too much to let me have my way in that and consequently miss out on all He has in store for me! 

For the past several years, Joseph has been on several short-term mission trips with our church to the countries in Central America.  Each time, his heart has grown more attached to the people in that part of the world.  He has felt a growing desire to be a part of the work God is doing there.  But he has also come home each time to a wife who was very sure that she was meant to stay put!  So Joseph left the matter in God’s hands.  He never pushed me, he just prayed.  And he continued to seek the Lord with all of his heart.  Over these years, God has given Joseph a driving passion to tell as many people as he can about the good news of the gospel – “that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.” (2 Corinthians 5:19) Sharing this message has become his passion and his joy, along with teaching others to do the same.  His love for God has grown deeper and he is compelled by God’s love for this world to share the gospel whether he is on a jobsite, in an engineer’s office, at a neighborhood event or sitting at our dinner table with our daughters.   God has continued working in my heart too.  He has shown me ways I was looking for fulfillment in things apart from Him – things that could never satisfy the way He could.  Then, in April of 2015, I was able to go with Joseph on one of the mission trips to Nicaragua.  It was exhilarating to be so far out of my comfort zone and experience God using me.  I got to experience the reality of these verses: “And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:19-21).  I went out with the group each day telling people that God had made a way for them to be reconciled with Him.  I told them that they could have the total assurance that their souls were secure for eternity!  That no matter how hard their life on this earth might be, one day when it was over, they could know that they would spend their eternity with God in heaven… where there would be no more tears and no more pain.  That if they trusted that Jesus suffered and died for their sins, then God would forgive their sins make them right with Him! And when they truly believe in Him, they become a new creation, born again as a child of God, able to finally live the life God had intended for them all along.  And so many people were glad to hear this!  They accepted this news with joy and relief!  And as they prayed with me, confessing their sins and accepting God’s free gift of salvation, they weren’t the only ones that were changed forever.  I was changed.  I tasted what it was like to be immersed in the work of God - the work of lifting up the name of Jesus – and nothing less is good enough anymore.  There is no other purpose that is worth living for.  The reality is, I turned 37 today.  How in the world did that happen?!  And in the blink of an eye, I will be 47, then 57… This life goes by so fast.  I do not want to get the end of it and look back wishing I had let go and really jumped in to whatever the Lord wanted to do with me.  No.  I will not let that happen.  If God, for whatever reasons I may never understand, wants to use our family in a particular place during a particular time, then I say yes!  And I say it with joy!  I thank Him that even though He could use anyone to accomplish any work He wants to do, He is calling us to do it!  Yes, I believe we could stay here and be faithful to share the Gospel here, but I believe He has something in store for us there – in Guatemala – and I won’t miss it for the world!  

There is more to share, but I am trying to write a blog post, not a book.  We did bring our girls on a trip this last April of 2016 to both El Salvador and Guatemala.  During our visit, we sought the Lord about whether this was really something He was leading us to do.  We had the best time with our dear friends Stephen and Cheryl Parris as they stayed with us throughout our visit.  We also got to know the family of the pastor of Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva in Guatemala as we stayed in their home.  Joseph has developed a deep friendship with pastor Nelson Rivas over the years.  While our family stayed in his home, we too quickly felt the bond of friendship with Nelson, his wife Rosemarie and their youngest daughter, Camila.   Nelson and Rosemarie moved from El Salvador to Guatemala 8 years ago with their 3 daughters to start Vida Nueva Guatemala.  Nelson and Rosemarie are excited along with us that the Lord wants to bring our families into ministry together.  We will share more details about the Rivas family, the church in Guatemala City and the work of the ministry we will be doing in a later post as this one is too long already!  Thank you for your interest in our family!  We are so blessed to have such incredible friends and family!

Our girls with Stephen and Cheryl Parris

Nelson and Rosemarie Rivas, with their youngest daughter, Camila

How did we come to this conclusion?

Flag of Guatemala. Picture taken in Antigua, Guatemala 

In recent years, I (Joseph) have been on several evangelistic mission trips to Central America where I have had the privilege of serving alongside the ministry of Good News In Action (GNIA).  On these trips, I have been to Costa Rica once, El Salvador twice, Guatemala four times and Nicaragua twice. You can learn more about GNIA at www.goodnewsinaction.org .  You can also see what trips are available on this website by clicking on “mission trips” and selecting “dates & destinations” in the drop down menu.

In the years prior to these trips, I was dedicated to building a home, business and family. I was essentially seeking to be a Christian and build my own kingdom. The Lord began to stir in me a desire for a deeper relationship with Him. He began to show me that as a believer in King Jesus I am called by Him to build His Kingdom and make Him known to as many people as possible. I have been seeking the Lord’s wisdom regarding greater involvement with GNIA since my first trip in 2012. I began praying about how to be most effective with the life I have been given. As I prayed I became overwhelmed by the work the Lord is doing in my heart regarding Central America. In seeking the Lord, I began to be obedient to share the gospel anywhere and everywhere. I have served in ministry in the work place, neighborhood and church and have experienced the Lord developing in me a heart for evangelism and teaching evangelism. This goes right along with the current mission statement of GNIA, “We exist to glorify God being used by Him to expand His Kingdom through evangelism, church planting, the sustaining of those churches, and leadership training.” The current vision of GNIA is “To partner with God in the harvest of MetroAmerica 020 and the establishment of 50 churches by 2025.”

Joseph preaching during Sunday morning worship at Vida Nueva Guatemala

We made a family trip in April. Yes, we are sitting on the back row.

How can you partner with us?

·         Prayer

-          For all the details involved with preparing to move.

-          That I leave my current employer in a good position in the marketplace.

-          For people at work and in our neighborhood with whom we are currently having gospel conversations – that they would receive the gospel.

-          For the Lord to continue preparing our hearts and the hearts of men and women at VNG to be ready and willing to share the gospel.

-          For fruit as we faithfully seek to build the Kingdom. 

-          For our family to learn Spanish as we are currently taking lessons together.

-          That we will be wise to know each step to take. We want to be faithful to follow the Lord’s direction one step at a time.

·         Since we are going as volunteers to Vida Nueva Guatemala we are seeking financial support. We trust the Lord will provide.  We are seeking one time gifts to help with moving expenses, purchase of a vehicle in Guatemala, visas and other expenses involved with our relocation.  We also are seeking monthly support after our move for a period two years. We estimate our cost of living in Guatemala City will be $4,500/month.  This includes the cost of housing, household expenses, transportation, health insurance and travel.  After two years, we will reevaluate the need for continued support.  We hope to see personal evangelism take root quickly but it will take focus and dedication to the calling.   

Please prayerfully consider partnering with us in this exciting work the Lord is doing in Guatemala.  You can click on the "Donate" button on our blog to give a gift using PayPal or you can send a check to Faith Baptist Church, 249 Holden Road, Youngsville, NC 27596.  Please write “Saleeby – Guatemala” in the memo.