update - december 5, 2011

hola amigos y familia!!  we hope and pray that all of you are doing well.

we wanted to shoot out a quick update from our family and deepStream guatemala ministries.  its been a full couple of months, complete with plenty of blessings as well as challenges!  sorry for the length of the email, but its really only fragment of all that i want to share.  i hope you'll take a few minutes and read it over...

Boys Academy:

• the boy's academy is our family's daily life.  generally, we have the boys coming and going throughout the day between 8am and 6pm every day.  and of course...  they are always over on the weekends to play!  now that we have had the boys in the program for about 6 months, things are definitely changing.  we feel like the trust level has increased and the boys are becoming like family.  this has opened up opportunities for them to share their struggles with us, which are far deeper than we could have imagined.  we are enjoying every minute of it...  laughs, tears, celebrations, and challenges.
• from a soccer standpoint, the boys are improving greatly.  they are in incredible physical condition, which has been one of the only things that keeps us contending against teams that are far bigger, older, and better.  our little guys can run forever, and they are not afraid of anybody.
• educationally, we have seen progress.  it is not easy to educate boys who lack basic reading/writing skills, especially when they have never been pushed academically ever.  but we are definitely seeing progress.  also, thanks to a few generous sponsors, we now have a "computer lab" where we are teaching the boys computer skills!
• on the bvsa website you can follow updates, meet the boys, and learn all about us and the academy.  also on brock's blog there are frequent stories about the rhinos.
• we definitely need your help!  check out our current needs and please let us know if you want to help out in any way.

• if you didn't get the email about the "home for christmas" campaign... please click here and watch the video.  we have already had a big response, and we're excited to see what more comes in, as we hope to spend our christmas day telling numerous families how God provided them a new home!
• the 12x12 ministry continues strong.  we are somewhere around 65 homes built since we started back in 2008!!  also, Chris has been updating the blog more often and shooting more videos to introduce families and share stories.

• we are really excited about the vision for educate buena vista, an initiative headed up by the schmidt family.  the effort is geared toward a serious increase in the quality of education for the children in the village of buena vista.  
• in countries of extreme poverty, only the wealthy can receive a decent education b/c government dollars do not get allocated to schools in the poor villages.  without a third-party advocate, there is no justice.  that's where the educate bv project comes in.  we are trying to raise enough money to fund and resource a facility that will allow children from buena vista receive the same quality education that a kid from a wealthy family could receive.  the funds needed to pursue this project are substantial, but consider what the cost is to build a typical public school.  schools require millions of dollars to construct and operate.  the difference being that most schools are funded through tax dollars, so no one really thinks about it.  unfortunately here in guatemala, tax dollars aren't doing anything, especially in poor villages.  without an advocate stepping in to try to do something, nothing ever changes.  i hope you will read more at educatebv.com and consider helping out.  feel free to contact mark or gina through the website for more information.

• we recently returned home from a 2 week trip to the US.  the first week was spent in savannah, GA, where we were invited to "faith promise week" at savannah christian church.  we had the privilege of talking at several of their campuses and sharing the vision for the boy's academy.  here is a link to one of brock's talks if you are interested.  the folks at scc welcomed us, loved on us, and refreshed us!  thank you to all who took part in that!!
• our second week was spent in jacksonville and lake city, visiting friends and family and sharing with our family at journey church.  it was so good to see everyone.  while we wish we could have had more time to see more people, we definitely missed home and were ready to get back to guatemala.
• the kids recently finished school for the year (their summer break is mid-october to mid-january).  the girls are really enjoying helping in the education center at the boy's academy, and jake continues to enjoy every day being a bvsa rhino!
• here's a bunch of recent family photos!
• God recently allowed us to walk through a tough experience as a family that you can read about on brock's blog.