About the Guatemala partnership

After almost two years of preparation and fund-raising, during the summer of 2007 eight youth and nine adults from our congregation traveled to Guatemala. We spent most of our eight days in El Estor, an isolated are in the eastern part of the country. (Our group and our new Guatemalan acquaintances pictured above in worship at the Arca de Noe church in El Estor.) The purpose of the trip was to explore the possibility of an ongoing partnership with the people in the churches of the Presbytery of Izabal.

During our trip, we hand-poured cement over dirt floors in three homes, held a one-day Bible School for more than 100 children, led other groups with youth and women, and led training for elders and deacons. And, equally important to those experiences, we came to care about the people we met and many of the participants came home with lives truly changed.

After many heartfelt conversations and prayers, participants and the broad Crescent Hill church family discerned that we felt led to further pursue a partnership with the churches in that part of Guatemala. Next steps, however, were difficult due to expenses and language barriers (most of the people in El Estor speak the Kek’chi Mayan language. However, in late 2008, we sent one church member and a long-time Presbyterian mission worker in Guatemala, who recently retired and is now worshiping with us, back to Guatemala to meet with the pastors of two of the churches where we had been. The purpose of that trip was to talk in person to learn whether our brothers and sisters in the el Estor area also wanted to partner with us. And, they do!

Recently, the Presbytery of Izabal decided to split into a second presbytery. Six of our church members will now travel back to Guatemala March 27-April 2, to meet with members of the new Presbytery of Estoreño Izabal to create the covenant to guide our ongoing relationships.

We encourage you to visit our Web site and other blog to learn more about our church and our Guatemalan partnerships: http://www.crescenthill.org/ and http://chpcguatemala.blogspot.com/.

We also invite you to join us here in the sanctuary on Sundays at 11 for worship. We also have Sunday school classes at 9:45 a.m. for children and adults, including a bilingual Spanish-English Bible class for adults. We would welcome the chance to see you.

-- Soni