Guatemala was part of the last piece of the Big Picture puzzle to fall into place. On Saturday, Oct 6th, nine members of 121CC left DFW to serve in Guatemala as part of the Big Picture. All aspects of community were vibrant in this project from the beginning to the end. LifeGroups are part of the central framework of community at 121 and primarily two LifeGroups were represented in Guatemala – Randy Nichol's Sunday night LifeGroup and Cindy Miller's Wednesday night LifeGroup. Both groups supported their brothers and sisters in Christ through heavy prayer support, financial support and encouragement. The LifeGroups served as the short-term missionaries' sending teams.

There were many wonderful experiences of this trip. But the first one to share seems very appropriate with this being the time just after the men's retreat. In community our first goal is to live our lives for Jesus Christ. The women on the team loved watching our men live each day in humility with their eyes focused on HIM. We had such a great group of Godly men. Many times we would look up to find the guys in a “prayer huddle” praying for this or that – one of the guys was sick, one hurt his ankle, prayer before skits that they performed for the kids, the list goes on. They never forgot the power of prayer and were never shy about praying together in public – even when we would “girl pray” (holding hands). Neil McClendon encouraged us to boldly proclaim the Gospel by how we live. It was a pleasure to see it lived out in these men.

Community is expressed through Bible study in small groups and through sharing life in small groups. During this trip, a small Bible study group (a LifeGroup so to speak) was started with 11 girls at the Manchen Girls Home. On the first day many of those girls cried their hearts out to one of our members who spoke Spanish. She just talked with them and encouraged them to take their burdens to the cross. As it turned out, this was our theme for the week as well! She encouraged them to talk to God, to have a conversation with Him and just cry out to Jesus. The next day they started the study of the book of John. Our community and LifeGroups stretched from Grapevine, Texas all the way down to Antigua, Guatemala.

The other girls at Manchen were also taught about placing their burdens at the foot of the cross. They had the opportunity to pin their burdens onto a cross that the guys had made. Ten girls gave their life to Christ. That's 10 more faces in the Big Picture! What big smiles they have!

On the second half of our trip we traveled to Panabaj. A village that was wiped out on October 5, 2005 by volcanic ash and mud when a volcano erupted during Hurricane Stan. Hundreds of families were buried alive in their homes. The people that did survive are still living in temporary housing with no running water or electricity. We do not know if God is calling us to this community or not but the needs are huge. Is Panabaj a part of our picture? We do not know. But certainly our team was quite touched by this community and we will continue to pray for them.

It was a joy to serve in the Big Picture in Guatemala. Serving our Master, spreading the Gospel and loving our neighbors as ourselves is what we are called to do. Serving IN community – side by side with brothers and sisters in Christ amplifies our joy four-fold.

::Becky Epps