Servants 4 Him

Rolando leading Forrest to Pedro's house.

Last week Forrest, Katey and I headed out to Barrio de la Cruz to set up some details for a summer team as well as begin to make arrangements for some Inductive Bible Study Sessions.

Our first conversation was with Rolando who serves as an elder in the church we work with there. Rolando is blind and yet, Rolando “showed” us around his pueblo. His heart for his town is great, his wisdom vast and his “vision” clear.

The first stop on our “tour” was at Pedro’s house. Pedro’s family lives right next to Rolando and he wanted to make sure we met him because he knew of a great need within this family. Rolando wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to share Pedro’s heartbreaking story.

Katey and Pedro with his "vertical wheelchair".

Pedro is 5 years old and suffers with cerebral palsy. Pedro is not simply a child who struggles with a disease, he is a winsome personality. He is a picture of joy. And he is an opportunity for God to move and meet needs.

Pedro has been supplied with a “vertical wheelchair” that affords him some freedom in his small home and allows him to be upright for short periods of time. He has also received therapy on a regular basis over the last year. His mom told us that the therapy really makes a difference in Pedro’s progress and in his demeanor.

The problem is that the money for therapy is running out and in order to keep Pedro in this life-changing physical therapy, his family needs to raise the funds necessary.

Pedro’s full-week therapy could be covered by just $200 per month. Servants 4 Him would like to help cover this cost and we need your help to do so!  All we need are 10 people who would be willing to give up going out to lunch two days a month…and instead of dropping $10 at Chipotle and another $10 at Chick Fil A (w/the milkshake), you could invest that same $20 per month in the life of wonderful child who claps his hands to show his joy.

Won’t you consider helping us help Pedro?

If you’d like to help, then click here to give online and in the “Donation Type” space, simply type Pedro’s name.We’ll know who it is for!

As Servants 4 Him has continued to establish herself as a bona fide ministry in Guatemala, there have been some hoops that we’ve had to jump through bureaucratically. The latest process has been filing the paperwork to become a formal and recognized Association. Once completed this designation will allow S4H to have a local bank account as well as own land.

The slowness of the process is not enjoyable at all. However, the process itself has forced us to reexamine our vision and further define our role here in Guatemala. One of the initial steps in the process is designating a name for our association. The caveat is that the name cannot be in use in any way in this country. (Servants for Him was already in use.)

Therefore, we have tossed around dozens of names and in so doing further honed our vision. This is not easy because we are a wide-ranging ministry. We do dental care, teach English, build homes for widows, serve in the city, serve in the country, conduct inductive Bible study sessions and a whole lot more.

What we have landed on, is that in every aspect of our ministry, we strive to lay a foundation. We work to connect lost people with the Savior who knows how to direct them. We take every opportunity to introduce them to the God of the Universe. And we desire to empower the local church to keep on doing this long after we have all gone.

We are laying foundations where there have never before been foundations and we are rebuilding the walls that have fallen into ruin. We are, as far as Guatemala is concerned, officially “Foundations 4 Generations”, although most everyone else will continue to know us as S4H. It’s not about the name, it’s about God further defining our vision as a ministry as He did for Isaiah:

“Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities. Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls and a restorer of homes.” Isaiah 58:12 NLT

Because of the generous giving of so many of you, every year we get to distribute school supplies (utiles) to students in both Santiago Zamora and in El Tizate.

The school year starts in January here and this was our week to help prepare students to return to school…

Thanks for helping to make this possible!