December 14, 2009

Again, obviously I haven't been able to post anything for a long time. I flew back up to Tulsa in early October to stay with my parents. Daddy seemed to be getting better, although I had to take him to the emergency room twice during the couple of weeks I was there alone. Ken joined me in mid October. We attended a mission conference and packed more things. Then on Nov. 1, we drove Mother and Daddy to Alabama to live with my youngest sister, Becky and her husband. Ken and I returned to Tulsa to paint Daddy's office and to clean out the garage. (We were able to finish the painting, and Ken did a great job on the garage, but wasn't able to completely clean it out.) Daddy wasn't doing well, so we headed back to Alabama a few days earlier than expected. After several doctor's appointments and test, the doctor has decided that Daddy has pancreatic cancer. He is now at home at Becky's. We thank the Lord that my siblings have been able to all be in Alabama to help with Daddy's care, and to support Mother.

Ken and I drove up to Kentucky last weekend to attend a wedding shower for Jayme and James, given by their church. (The first shower we've been able to attend for any of our kids.) We then returned to Alabama until this Saturday when we drove back to Berea. Yesterday afternoon, Jayme graduated from Berea College! Her degree is a Bachelor of Science in Technology and Industrial Arts with a double minor in Spanish and Business. She graduated with honors! We are very proud of her. Although the graduation ceremony was yesterday, she still has finals this week. (Strange, isn't it?) She had a paper due today, and has a final tomorrow and another one on Wed. (Drew, Rachel and kids went to the graduation too. My picture of the whole family didn't turn out well.)


In Alabama, I baked the bride's and groom's wedding cakes and froze them. Tomorrow evening I will get them out of the freezer so that on Wed., I can begin to decorate them. (My mother is actually the cake decorator, but since Daddy is so ill, she isn't able to come to the wedding. So...I'm doing the cakes.)

The radio station in Patzun has a new tower!!! We received these pictures today. How exciting that they will be able to transmit the Good News further away.

Sept. 18, 2009

So sorry we haven't written anything for so long. We've been super busy. I (Cindy) was in Tulsa for three extra weeks in June and July to help my parents. My sister Becky and I took turns spending every other night at the hospital with Daddy. When Becky wasn't there, brother Kris took his turns. All my siblings have been there when they could be. (There are five of us.) We packed up most of the house, painted, worked in the yard and fixed things that needed to be fixed. Daddy came home from the hospital on July 14 - his 84th birthday. He has had to make several trips back to the emergency room since then, so we covet your prayers for him and for us as we try to care for him. I will head back to Tulsa in early October to 'take my turn' at staying with Mother and Daddy. We are still planning on moving them to Alabama to live with Becky and her husband. If Daddy can make the trip, Ken and I hope to drive them there in early November.

I flew back to Guatemala on July 13. We had a team coming on the 17th and I needed to be home to make the menus, grocery list and then buy the food - a time consuming job. We had four teams come in July and August - with some teams overlapping others. It was a busy time. One team went to the local public schools and taught Bible stories there. All the teams worked at Alfa Y Omega.

A young couple, Micah and Kerri, came to help us for the month of August in Patzun. We enjoyed having them here and they helped with the internet connection, painting the roof, and the website for the Guatemala Intermissions conference.

On August 15, I flew back up to the States to make a wedding dress for our daughter Jayme. She and James Miller will be married on Dec. 19! I was able to first fly to Alabama to see our newest grandchild - our first granddaughter - Rebekah Anne, born to Drew and Rachel. I was only able to spend a little over 24 hours there, then flew on to Kentucky. Jayme and I shopped for more supplies for the wedding dress, then drove back to Alabama, to make the dress. My sister Becky let us use her machines and was also a BIG help in making the dress. Praise the Lord, it's finished!

I arrived back in Guatemala the evening of Saturday, Sept. 5. Earlier that day, another young couple (Josh and Megan) arrived in Guate. to stay with us and to see the work in Patzun. (They will attend CAM's candidate school in Oct.) On Wed., Sept. 9, another couple (good friends of ours from St. Louis area) came down to help with the new construction at CAM's retreat center, Las Buenas Nuevas, in Panajachel. (Ken is in charge of the construction.)

June 26, 2009

Ken is back in Guatemala; however, Cindy needed to stay in Tulsa and continue helping her parents pack and get their house ready to sell. (They plan to move to Alabama to live with Cindy's youngest sister who is moving there this summer.) There was room for only one person on the plane going back to Guatemala, so we felt that Ken should be the one to go. We see the hand of God in this, because Cindy's father went into the hospital this past Tues. with an inflamed pancreas and a gallstone lodged in the bile duct. He is scheduled to have surgery on Monday, (June 29) to remove the gallbladder and a growth from the pancreas. We covet your prayers for him.

We had a wonderful time in the US. Kyle and Ashleigh's wedding was beautiful and everything went well; even the weather was pleasant. On June 2, we arrived in Tulsa for Cindy to help her mother with a wedding cake, cleaning, and packing. We made a quick trip to Huntsville, AL (to take things we've had stored in Tulsa) to store at Drew's, and to attend a lunch for a work team that will be coming to Guatemala (Calvary Bible Church). Then it was back to Tulsa, and on to Tahlequah to pick up Ken's parents and take them to Lake St. Louis, MO, to a family reunion at Ken's brother Keith's home. We had a great time with all but three of the C. E. Spaugh family attending. (Kyle and Ashleigh weren't able to attend, nor was the son of Ken's brother Karl.)


Since returning to Guatemala, Ken has been to Las Buenas Nuevas and Patzun. There is now a crop of lettuce growing at Alfa y Omega. Praise the Lord!


The construction for the new building at Las Buenas Nuevas is coming along well. The roof is poured and the plastering of the walls is in progress.

I (Ken) was going to post some more pictures, but for some reason, the site won't let me at the present time. I just wanted to post something to let you know that we are still alive!

Resurrection Day

He is Risen! He is Risen, indeed!!

Mitchell Road Christian Academy in Patzún

A group of mainly 14 year olds (and their adult sponsors) from Michell Road Christian Academy in Greenville, South Carolina, came to work at Alfa y Omega this past week. They were a great bunch of young people. On Sunday afternoon, they took a walk up to the Kakchiquel radio station (Ken is on the radio committee.) On the way this is one of the sites they were able to see.

A couple of the girls were able to try their hand at making tortillas. As I've said before, it's a LOT harder than it looks.

The Patzuneras make it look SO easy. However, most of them have been making tortillas since they were between 7 and 12 years old. Practice makes perfect!

The school Bible teacher came and taught some of the Walk Through the Bible curriculum. Ken translated.


They even brought down soccer and basketball uniforms for the Alfa y Omega school.

Since I had a fever of 103.3 on Thursday night before the team got here on Saturday, a fellow missionary offered to come and help me cook for the team. She was a GREAT help. Thanks whole bunches, Maria!!!

Water - water ..... a not a drop to drink!

On Saturday, March 28, Ken noticed that the water was not coming in very well. He went to investigate and found that the pipes were clogged. Two or three years ago, he put a couple of filters in the line to filter out the large sand that was coming in from the street. So....on Sat. he went to clean out the filter. Not only did that need to be done, but the water coming in was pretty dirty! Here's proof! (And this was taken after some of the junk had settled to the bottom of the bottle. The initial color reminded me of dirty pineapple juice!

He quickly turned off the water from the street so that our tanks would not fill up with dirty water. Fortunately, we had a full cistern, so were able to use that water to pump it up to the tanks. (We use gravity fed water in our house.) Unfortunately, another missionary family did not shut off their water supply, and their cistern was filled with junk. They had to pump all the water out.
On March 30 the water was getting better, and on the 31st, I was able to do a load of laundry. (It doesn't help much to wash your clothes in dirty water.) Ken even checked to make sure the city had added chlorine. They had! However, later, as I was giving my strawberry plants a needed watering, I noticed that the water was getting dirty again --- not as bad as before, but not as clear as it should have been. Ken had to shut the water off again for another couple of days. :( We are thankful that our cistern is large enough to supply us with water for a whole week.

Note: A week later, city workers came by to tell us they had had problems with broken pipes, but that they were finally fixed. Therefore, the water should be fine. That's a great time to tell everyone about the problem - after the fact!

Stolen Coffee

On Feb. 27, a car owned by fellow missionaries was stolen off the street in Antigua. (They had a club on the steering wheel.) In it was $200. worth of Guatemalan coffee that we, personally, had bought to sell to raise money for Patzún. (They were bringing the coffee to us.) We don't know why this happened, but it has been another opportunity to trust God to supply both our needs and the needs of Alfa & Omega Ministries.

Busy, Busy

You are probably wondering what on earth we are doing these days. In January and February we were involved with registration details for the annual Intermissions Conference here. We made name tags for everyone attending, met with the hotel twice to figure out room assignments, chose the menus for the weekend, and were in charge of the registration at the hotel on the first two days of the conference. (Several people registered on site on both Friday and Saturday.) There were some major glitches this year, but thankfully, the Lord worked everything out. The conference was great and the speaker was too.

Two days after the conference, we flew up to Texas (March 3). We were able to borrow a car from a friend (Thank you, Roger!!!) and drive to Oklahoma to visit both sets of our parents. Our visits with them were very short, but we were so glad to be able to see them. Returning to Texas, we went to a week of meetings with CAM in eastern Texas. It's always great to meet with our colleagues who work in other countries.

After the meetings, we were able to spend a couple of days with Cindy's sister and brother-in-law in the Dallas area. Two of their children and families were there, plus visiting friends of theirs from Mexico. They had a full house, but we had fun being together. It was also great to be able to visit with friends while there. Ken and I ate supper with two women whom we hadn't seen in years. Thanks Edith and Dagi.

We returned to Guatemala on March 17, cleaned house and prepared for the arrival of friends from Huntsville, AL. Paul and Betty visited with us for a week. We took them to Panajachel and Patzún besides around town here in the capital.

I (Cindy) have had a headache since Tues. Yesterday I took my temperature and found it was 102.5. No wonder I've been feeling bad. (I'm sure my temp. hasn't been that high since Tues.) We have a group of junior highers coming on Saturday, so I need to feel better SOON! Please pray! There is a LOT to do before they come.

Christmas in Pennsylvania

Ken flew to Pennsylvania on Dec. 16. We were both so glad to be together again - after 7 weeks. (Don't want to do that again, if we don't have to!) Here are some pictures of our Christmas there.

Den Momma (Me) showed Isaiah how to paint Christmas cookies (with colored egg yolk)

Concentrating!
He did a great job for the first time - and being 2 yrs. old!

We had a REAL tree - the first in MANY years for the Guatemala Spaughs.
Scott cut it down at a tree farm.

Josiah, ready for church on Christmas Eve
Susan and Lois, friends of ours in Canada, made the hat and booties for him.

Who turned out the lights?

Scott led the Christmas Eve service. Ken sang a solo.

Isaiah, Scott, Josiah, Erin

Precious boys

Jayme, Cindy, Ken

Isaiah was excited about this gift.
He loves to play "bassetball"!

My trip to Huntsville in early Dec. 2008

I went with Erin and Scott and their boys down to Huntsville, so that they could show Josiah to Scott's family. I stayed with Drew and Rachel while there. Had a great time.

Evan - He's not this serious very often!

Helping with the wood floor in the new addition to their house.

I helped too by deciding which different length plank should go where.
Drew then stapled them down.

Evan and his mommy

Our 3 grandsons
Isaiah, Josiah and Evan

January 14, 2009

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Mom!
Ken's mother is 88 yrs. old today. We wish her a very special day.

Sorry I haven't written in such a long time. While in the States in Nov. and Dec., I was busy helping Erin with her two little boys, fixing meals, working on her quilt, and enjoying my time with her family. Isaiah is a typical two year old, and is very busy. He is such a cutie, and fun to be around. Josiah is growing and changing all the time. Erin says he's sleeping almost 8 hours at night! Way to go, Josiah! They are now living in the church parsonage, so Scott doesn't have to go very far to work! The parsonage, although not huge, with the basement, is much bigger than the rent house they lived in for a year.

Jayme arrived back in the States from her semester in Ireland on Dec. 21. Ken and I had to go to the airport twice to pick her up! The first time we waited two hours, before finding out that her flight from Ireland had been delayed 4 hours, making her miss her flight from Newark to Pittsburgh. We were told that she would be arriving around 8:00 the next morning. However, when we got back to Erin's, there was a message from Jayme on Erin's cell phone saying that she hoped to be able to catch a flight which would arrive around 9:00 that night. So....we got back in the car and drove back to the airport hoping that she would be there. We arrived about 30 min. after Jayme had gotten her bags. She was extremely tired after having just a few minutes sleep in the last 38 hours and having a cold.

We had a great time at Christmas. Scott was in charge of the Christmas Eve program at their church. Ken sang a solo with the choir! After the nice program, we went home and had a relaxed time opening our gifts.

Christmas Day, I fixed the meal with help from everyone. We ate a late lunch/early supper.

Ken and Scott started an interesting project. They began making a marimba! Ken was able to make several notes, before we left there. Scott will have to finish the project. He hopes to use it in their church services.

Dec. 30, Ken drove Jayme and me down to Huntsville, AL, in a rented car. We were able to visit with Drew, Rachel and Evan for a couple of days before heading back to Guatemala. Drew and Rachel are expecting our fourth grandchild in early August, so we are, of course, excited.

Jayme is now in her January - Winter session at Berea College - taking a 'computer to paint' course. She will be graduating in Dec. Wow! Our 'baby' finishing college. Is it possible?

I have pictures that I want to post, but will do that later. Please stay tuned.