Rooted will be the series that defines the next season of Water’s Edge. The term comes from Isaiah 61:

“they will be called Oaks of Righteousness, a planting of the Lord, for the display of His splendor.”

We are declaring that Water’s Edge is a movement of young people committed to rooting themselves in the spiritual activities that will grow them into Oaks.

This series is a challenge and call to the people of Water’s Edge to rise up and become that part of that movement..become an Oak.

When you get married, you automatically inherit the other person’s group of friends in addition to their families. Sometimes, this is a not so pleasant experience, but luckily for me, my wife has a great group of friends. One of the men I’ve met through this joining of our two worlds is Rob. About a few years ago, Rob was diagnosed with a condition called Fibromyalgia Syndrome. The short of it is you basically feel pain all over your body all day every day and there’s no known cure for it, only a few experimental treatments that help with managing the pain. To hear him tell it, when he is even able to speak, he’s dying slowly every minute but to actually see him go through it would make the average person question how he still believes God exists.

But he does believe…wholeheartedly and passionately. It’s amazing the strength of this man and his wife and the bond they have because of this, which in turn has solidified their bond with their Creator. The picture of their average day involves painful tests, x-rays, medication, constant checking of his vitals, how much he’s eating which then goes into the nights of him constantly getting sick and possibly even needing yet another trip to the ER…and all this started the week of their honeymoon.

We all have hardships in our lives that can either be a literal reflection of what Rob and his wife are going through or can just feel like the same exact thing. It’s only pure coincidence that a while after befriending them, I started having physical problems of my own that are getting worse every day, and while I’m starting to get at least a fraction of an idea of what they go through, I’ll never fully get it…no one will. But does that mean I shouldn’t go to God about my suffering? Should thinking about other’s who have it worse off than me make me ignore it as if it’s not something I’m going through? The answer to all of that is a big fat NO.

You see, while most of our problems pale in comparison to someone going through cancer or a loved one dying in war, it’s still our suffering and it has to be dealt with. During the “Burdens” night of the Equilibrium series, there were a ton of bricks (literally) fanned out all across the front of the stage and the call from Pastor Miles was for each one of us to pick one up and write on it whatever has been weighing us down the most. Not everyone answered the call. There were those who stayed in their seats with, I’m sure, many emotions stirring inside them about the ailments in their lives but without the courage to write it out and outwardly admit in front of people that their going through some stuff. Then there are those who did go up that, like someone like Rob, could have built New York City with the bricks they would have used had they been instructed to write on as many as they needed.

People who are non-believers ask followers of Christ very often why, if we are God’s children, do our lives still stay surrounded by baggage. What they don’t understand, and if we’re being honest, some of us don’t understand either, is that it’s not about the things we continue to endure, but how we view them, how we handle them and, most importantly, how we allow it to affect our spirit. My friend Rob can very easily throw in the towel and just allow this disease to kill him physically and mentally but…that’s not what God has put in his heart to do. That’s not what God puts in any of our hearts to do. He never says or will ever say it’s going to be easy, but He does tell us to lean on Him as our strength when ours runs out. The simple solution is always to either ignore the bad things that happen in life or pass the mess on to someone else to clean up. However, the right thing is always the hardest to do and that is to take care of our responsibilities, let go of the weight we carry on our shoulders from others who won’t do for themselves and bring our worries and heartaches to our Father. As long as we live, we will always have something that, one way or another, can have the potential of killing us slowly and it will…but only if we let it. There’s only so much my friend can do about his physical condition, but in spirit, he’s doing what I think God wants all of us to do: put the brick down and bring to Him all that hinders us from enjoying this life and know in our hearts of hearts that He will faithfully handle the rest.

Monday was a good and interesting day. We got up and went to the church to work on the wall we are building and play with the kids. Today we had to put the rebarb into the layer of cinder blocks we finished saturday. This took most of the morning and was mostly work for the guys, the girls played with the kids in the community the church is located in. Braiding hair, jumping rope, and looking for bugs and iguanas. Meridee ended up with a following of kids teaching her more Spanish as she taught them English. After lunch we were able to start building scaffolding so we can work on the next layers of bricks. Juandi helped Tony, our guide, and the men from the church build the scaffolding while me (Leah Cim) and Zac worked on the adjacent wall. Around 4 o’clock we were done with the construction for the day and started playing futbol with the kids while we waited for dinner. We had a bit of excitement while playing futbol. I (Leah Cim) was goalie and after maybe 20 minutes or so of playing got hit in the face with the ball which knocked my body into shock because my blood sugar had dropped in conjunction with the heat and possibly some dehydration. After about an hour I was able to stand on my own again and keep some food down, but it took the rest of the night for me to fully regain feeling in my fingers. To be clear though, I AM OK. We are going to make sure I get water and some protein every 20 minutes or so for the rest of the week to make sure I stay ok.After dinner at the church we came back to the hotel and had some prayer time and worship together as a team. It was a wonderful time together in the presence of our Lord. Zac and Valerie have been two huge blessings on this trip, as they lead us in worship. Its amazing the talent God has blessed them with. Really, every memeber of our team has been a huge blessing to serve alongside. It is truly an honour to work with such amazing men and women of God.
Tuesday was another day of construction and playin with kids at the church. We were honored to stay for the graduation of a two year Bible school. And also celebrated some birthdays today. Tuesday was Julie’s birthday, Leah’s was a day before we left, and Zac’s is on thursday. We also got to drive up to El Muro, a village on top of a mountain in Zacapa that doesn’t have water. The people of the village have to walk 2 hours down and 4 hours back to carry 10 gallons of water up to the village. The ride up there and back was one of the most beautiful things we have seen all trip. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we will be at the church till lunch, and then drive back to Guatemala city to stay at the compound Impacto has there. This may the last blog till we get back, not sure what the internet availability is.

Please continue to pray for our safety while traveling and our health. Everyone is still healthy and, despite how tired we are, still giving every day their all. Thank you for your prayers, you have been a part of this trip also because of your faithfulness in pleading our case before God.

Shalom

-Leah Cim and the rest of the Zacapa team

Day three was very fun and very full. I’ll start telling you about the night of day two though. We went to the church to watch a movie with the community, on the way there we sang multilple Dinsey songs with surprising ability to remember all those lyrics from when we were young. The movie ended up being We Are Marshall. Though not the strong spiritual message we had hoped for with Passion of the Christ, it was a wonderful time to get to know the church members and the children. Sunday we got up and went to the church to hand out shoes to the congregation. It was beautiful seeing their appreciation for something we so easily take for granted. When we were playing Futbol afterwards the kids even took off their new shoes and played barefoot so they would keep the shoes clean. This is just one example of how our world views are being shifted. Another thing that has impacted the team greatly has been the appreciation for water that is here in Guatemala. The water and its container are both precious things and not something to be wasted.After church in the morning we ate lunch and went back to the hotel for a little while to rest. Some took naps, others swam, in general it was just a nice time to relax and regain some energy for the evening, and also build stronger friendships with our teammates.Around dinner time we went back to the church to do VBS and lead a service for the adults. Zac and Valerie lead worship and even though there was a language barrier, the language of the Holy Spirit was understood in worship. Then Zac spoke on Wisdom. A very powerful message that moved the congregation and the team.  It was his first time using a translator to preach and you would have never guessed it. After Zac spoke the children went with Brie, Val, Julie, Garrick, and Juandi to do VBS. They taught the children about the fruits of the spirit and made contruction paper chains with the fruits written on them in Spanish. Me, (Leah Cim) Zac, and Meridee stayed with the adults and Meridee spoke on Psalm 16:7-11. And how the remedy for brokeness is praise. It also was a very beautiful message and one you could tell meant a lot to her personally. The worship leader from the church and their pastor then lead some songs and prayed over the congregation. Something that was a big part of this day was speaking Spanish. Going into the trip only three of the eight team members spoke Spanish fluently, two know enough to get by, one has linguistics training but gets confused with French, and the other two had yet to try to speak Spanish thus far. Everyone started speaking today though. It was beautiful. We definitely are growing in our confidence and ability with the language and are learning even more so that Christ’s love is not bound by language. “Preach Christ, and if you must, use words.”After the service we rode back to the hotel singing all the way, when we got back we had our debrief in the pool and practiced some of our more creative dives. Tomorrow we are going back to the church to work on the wall we started on Saturday. We may be doing VBS again at night but we don’t know for sure yet. Please pray that we will continue to have safe travels and we will be attentive to how God is moving so that we may follow. Also please pray for Garrick and Julie, they have had sore throats  and sinus issues the past few days. Nothing serious, we think it is just climate, allergies, etc. But it is not so fun for them to feel poorly.

Shalom

-Leah Cim and the rest of the Guatemala team

We came back to the hotel for lunch and enjoyed yet another delicious meal  and then some free time before dinner.

During our free time we witnessed one of the most amazing feats of man we have ever seen. After lunch Juandi and Meridee treaded water in the hotel pool for 1 1/2 hours straight. I wish we had taken pictures to document it. But we have plenty of witnesses. What we all thought would be a short and jovial game ended up knocking three contestants out before even 20 minutes had passed. Leaving the two lone contenders to fight it out and eventually give in mutually. We call this method of exercise/self-torture the Juanidee method.

After dinner we are going to go back to the church to watch Passion of the Christ in Spanish with the local community, Pray that many hearts are stirred by the visual representation of our Saviour’s love for us, and that many accept Him as their Saviour.

Please continue to pray for our safety in traveling, our unity as a team, and also that none of us would get sick. So far no one has gotten sick, and I pray that it continues in that fashion.

Shalom

-Leah Cim and the rest of the Zacapa team

At the airport in Guatemala we were met by Tony, a translator and guide with Impacto ministries. He loaded us up into a van and expertly drove us the 2+ hours from Guatemala City to Zacapa. It is such a blessing to have met him and be able to work with him on this trip. Christ truly shines through him.

Another huge answer to prayer is the fact that I am even able to write this blog! Because we are the first team from 12Stone to ever come to the Zacapa region, we were unsure what the internet access would be. And I am so thrilled to say that we have wifi at the hotel and will be able to update with out issue!

Dinner tonight was delicious as was the lunch Impacto ministries had for us when we arrived. We definitely we have the food we need to keep up our energy!

The journey here was certainly a trying one. We traveled for over 12 hours before finally reaching our destination. But the beauties of creation we were privileged to see were worth every second of the journey. The conversations, the laughter, the discovery of deeper friendship, none of those things would come with out the journey. It certainly is the journey that often is where God changes and challenges us even more than He ever does in the destination.

Please pray for our team that we would have safe travels as we go from the hotel to the work sites each day. Please also pray that we would have renewed strength and energy. And please continue to pray that we would grow in unity as a team, and in depth of friendship. My prayer is that God would give each of us a defining moment during the trip that will leave us changed forever.

Here are some pictures from the day

Shalom

-Leah Cim and the rest of the Zacapa team

1. You cannot sustain long-term relationships.
2. You cannot say no.
3. Your list of friends is shrinking and your list of enemies is growing.
4. You fall head over heals in love with someone on the first date.
5. You do things you do not want to do tin order to please other people.
6. You get into trouble often because of the people you hang out with.
7. You own other people’s responsibilities as your own and often feel over whelmed by their needs.
8. You often get frustrated because you are always doing things for others and they do not seem to appreciate it.
9. You avoid people you have issues with. You are consistently in relational cold wars.
10. Other people’s chaos becomes your chaos
11. You have no limits on the amount of time someone can be with you, amount of energy someone can take from you and amount of help someone can ask from you.
12. You often fall prey to emotional vampires and find yourself in intravenous relationships where people are sucking the life out of you.

on the beach of Moose Factory.

12 Stone has a tradition with all of their missions’ teams. Where ever they go, a bible is taken to be buried in the ground. Along with it comes a piece of our earth to become part of their earth. Last night (Tuesday) was the night we decided to do this.

After dinner, our team decided to be dropped off at the beach. Why the beach? Well, the whole reason we are here is to work with the teens. All we have heard about is the oppression that has taken over the teenage years. Suicides and alcoholism are rampant among them. All of our hearts, especially mine, have been broken for this age group among the island. This small beach is where the teens like to hang out with no adult supervision. They take alcohol and weed with them. We have seen evidence of bonfires and trails. It is obvious that this area is well used by them.

Our time started out by walking up and down the beach to find out where the Lord wanted us to bury it. I saw Spanky, Zach, and Will point to a spot about 20 feet from me. It was right in front of a 4-wheeling trail. This is how they access the beach. Before we got down to dig a hole, we decided to spend some time with the Lord individually. We wanted to make ourselves right with God. We want to keep His favor over what we do, especially something this symbolic.

We then decided to dig a hole. Everyone of us got down and started digging, so we could all be apart of it. After digging, there were prayers written out with the bible that we read and prayed. Then as individuals we cried out what our hearts were to the Lord. This moment was really intense, for me at least. Then the time came for the burial. It was a beautiful experience to be apart of. I’m so thankful the Lord allowed us to have that time.

Will giving his testimony.

Wednesday was kind of a monotonous day. We woke up early, running on a little bit of sleep. Ate breakfast, had a morning devotional, got to cleaning and construction. Then lunch, VBS, and dinner. The only thing that was remotely different was that we had a Wednesday evening service. It was a slightly different format than Sunday in the sense that we ended by breaking up into smaller groups to pray, really neat!

Will was able to share his testimony with everyone this evening, and Clint spoke. Both were absolutely

Clint speaking at the Wednesday night service.

incredible. They were able to share their hearts. And to be completely honest, Clint brought tears to my eyes. Then after the service, we had an orientation on a history of the people. Yes, 2 days before we left the island. That’s where flexibility comes in. Hahaha. It was interesting and very insightful. Honestly, I wish we could have learned all of this a lot earlier, but I guess better late than never.

Also, I want to share a video with you. This is a look into what happens when we get slap-happy tired, and there are random toys around. This is DJ Spanky.

DJ Spanky

So today we dedicated the two houses we had built to the families as well as the gifts we had prepared for them. It was a short little ceremony of prayers and encouragement but brought tears from both sides. We are so blessed to be able to be part of what God did in these families lives, and it was a very emotional thing to say bye to them after spending so many days with them.

Our VBS for the day was cancelled so we spent the afternoon just playing with all the children from the neighborhood each  doing what we knew best from art with them to soccer to painting nails. We made so many friends here it´s tough for a lot of people to say goodbye. I gave Emilio, the boy who gave me the bracelet, a jar of peanut butter because it´s such a rare thing here and he gave me a note he had written in class. I have no idea what it says yet, but the front said ¨For Brayam, from your friend Emilio. Remember my¨ and with it´s sincerity and attempt at english it broke my heart.

Here´s something Kristen wanted to share-

¨AS we were leaving our host home my heart was fully broken. Saying ¨goodbye/see you later was possibly the hardest thing I have ever done. I was overwhelmed with joy, sad that we were leaving but at complete peace that I will see them again! My heart is being fullfilled with peace and love through the team and all these amazing people we encounter every day!!¨ 

Kristen