I can’t believe the Vencedor Boys Academy just finished it’s first full year. It was amazing.

A M A Z I N G !

Every day after school, boys from 3rd – 6th grade piled into our classroom for 3 hours. We fed them every day. And just for fun we counted … and … our boys eat 1,500 tortillas a month! We’re pretty proud of that.

After we fed them a huge, healthy meal, we taught them a little English and then we taught them what it means to be men of God. We didn’t have a special curriculum or devotional …we taught them right out of the bible. They got to learn from the lives of Moses, Paul and Jesus Himself.

Boys in the villages of Guatemala stop going to church at 9 or 10 years old. I think it’s just too much of a fight. Dad doesn’t go…and so they don’t go. Not all of them…but a lot of them.

I don’t think the real fruit of our ministry will be realized for 15 years or more. Will these Boys continue search after God? Will they honor their wives? Will they teach THEIR children?

Unfortunately, I have no idea. But I do know this. They show up. They spend 3 hours, AFTER school, learning about our Savior. Even when public school is cancelled. They show up to the academy. Every single boy. Every single time.

We all have something called a “perceptual map”. That map is made up of all our experiences. It includes, the people we’ve met, the books we’ve read and the places we’ve been. It’s our own personal view of the world.

The perceptual map of most of the boys I teach, fits inside a 10-mile radius. Pretty much everyone they know lives within that map. Most of them have never been outside of their little village of El Rosario and certainly not passed the neighboring cities of Chimaltenango and San Martin.

San Martin is a town some boys have visited. There’s a swimming pool in San Martin where people are often baptized. I mention this because that swimming pool is the largest body of water any of them has ever seen!

So now imagine this. You hop on a bus and drive just two hours…and…

You arrive at THE PACIFIC OCEAN! TWO HOURS AWAY!

How do you explain the ocean to boys who have only seen a swimming pool?

In a few weeks the world will change forever for 30 boys from a little village in Guatemala. We’re renting a bus and we’ll be driving from El Rosario to the black sand beaches of Puerto San Jose.

I’ve tried to imagine their wide eyes as the ocean comes into view…their hearts racing as the waves pound the beach. I’ve tried to imagine what they might be thinking the night before the trip? Will they be able to sleep?

It’s something I’ve been looking forward to all year.

When disciples followed a rabbi, they followed him closely so that they would never be out of his sight, never be some place where they couldn’t hear him speak. They followed him so closely that his sandals often kicked up dust.

Thank you for praying for our ministry and for the lives of these boys. May you be covered in His dust.

Love,

George and Vonda