For those of you who don't receive my mailings, here is my most recent update!

Hello all!

I love this time of year! Spring is beginning to gather some momentum, but we still have a few surprise snow storms mixed in! It’s been a long time since I was here to appreciate a Colorado spring, and it is soothing to my soul.

Since I came back to the States almost six months ago, I have been rejuvenated in many ways! Most importantly I have been spending time with my family (and my extended family – grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins and 2nd cousins – when possible). There is great truth to the saying “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone” and it’s been wonderful to be together again! I have also been able to reconnect with my church here in Colorado Springs (Sunrise UMC). I have been welcomed back with many hugs and smiling greetings, and have been promptly put to work! I find myself busy a few days of every week with something relating to church – from a young adult group we started for us “forgotten people” too old for youth group but too young for the 30’s group, to a Missions Club for kids on Wednesday nights, to teaching classes on Missions at church retreats and workshops. I am keeping up with my Spanish by working as a medical translator once or twice a week, and recently have started subbing at our church’s preschool. It’s so nice to be home!

Aside from feeling rejuvenated, I have also begun looking toward the future and wondering what the Lord is preparing for me. I left Guatemala last fall, unsure of when I would return, but knowing there was still work to be done there. Since being back in Colorado, I have been meeting with OC, and in January was officially switched from short-term to long-term missionary status! (For some reason they didn’t consider four years long-term…) We have set some goals for me while I am in the States, with the ultimate plan being returning to Guatemala in the future. These goals include reconnecting with my family, friends and church (as I plan to return to Guatemala, I am looking to my family and friends for emotional and spiritual encouragement, as well as financial support in order to continue my ministry), continuing my education (I am currently applying to several Masters Programs in Counseling) and gaining more experience in ministry (in my own language and my own culture!).

So, what does all that mean? What will Rebecca’s life and ministry look like over the next few years? Well, I wish I had it all figured out, but I think the Lord is stretching my ability to trust in His control! The current plan is for me to start grad school in the fall, and to tentatively return to Guatemala in the fall of 2011. These next two years, then, will be ones of preparation and growth for me, and I am unsure what else they will bring! I have applied for several ministerial jobs in Colorado Springs and am still waiting to see what direction the Lord opens up for me. Ideally, I hope to continue working in the area of missions at Sunrise, expanding some of the things I am already involved in and seeking to encourage our church’s global awareness. I am also excited by the possibility of serving at OC’s headquarters here in Colorado Springs, where I could learn so much from my teammates in international missions leadership positions. Since OC considers my time in the States an “extended furlough,” I continue to be dependent upon your financial gifts to carry out my ministry. Therefore I will also be dedicating time to support raising and seeking out new ways of expanding my funding base.

Thank you all so much – whether you have been receiving my updates since I left Colorado in 2004, or if this is your first one – for your interest, prayers and concern. I am grateful for your companionship as I seek to serve the Lord in the way He has called me. May God’s blessings always be felt in your homes and families!

Con cariño, Rebecca Patterson

WHAT’S GOING ON?! (with Rebecca!)
A little update of the past, present and future of my ministry in Guatemala…

What Has BEEN Happening
Who: Rebecca When: This year Where: Guatemala Why: God’s calling
What: This year has been so exciting, with new ministry opportunities opening up almost every month! I have been invited to preach about missions in several churches throughout Guatemala (we have been praying the Lord would wake up an interest in the country!). I have become more involved with our Pastors’ Wives Bible Education Program – and I have so enjoyed speaking to these women whom God wants to use powerfully in their country, helping them understand how to study the Bible and how to teach it effectively. I have also been asked to join the leadership within my team – specifically looking at how to take better care of our latin missionaries, and how to recruit more Guatemalans for our team! Lastly, I have hosted/discipled several college-age students from the States who have come down for short-term experiences, hoping to find out more about how God might be calling them into long-term missions. Praise the Lord for all of these opportunities to touch hearts and lives!

What IS Happening?

Who: Rebecca When: Now Where: Colorado Why: God’s calling
What: As some of you know, a few months ago I decided to formally make the transition from “short-term” missionary with OC to “long-term” status. Although I have been with OC for four years (I celebrated my 4 year anniversary in September!), I have not yet made the complete transition, due to the time I would have to spend in the States to do so. The Lord confirmed recently that the time had come however, and the first step began in June, when I attended OC’s Internship (a month-long training intended for all long-term missionaries before heading to the field). I returned to Guatemala, excited to continue working with OC, but feeling rather emotionally burnt-out after 4 years on the field, and many ups and downs in ministry, with my team and in my personal life. My team counseled me that it might be the perfect moment to take the next step in my transition, which is essentially spending an extended amount of time here at home to raise support (a short-term budget is very different from a long-term budget). Therefore, with the blessing of my team, OC, my family, and Sunrise (my home church), I recently made that transition! I have been back in Colorado for about two months. I am currently working on the process of paperwork at OC, updating my supporters, deciding on a fund-raising strategy and will hopefully be working part-time as an interpreter and ESL teacher while I am here. My estimated time-frame is anywhere from 6 months to a year….depending on how God provides for my support. I look forward to personally sharing with each of you while I am back! I will be updating my blog more frequently now, and will post when I have a firmer idea of what OC is asking of me, both in this time and in order to return to the field. Thank you all for your continued support, prayers and interest in what the Lord is doing in and through me! Please do not let up in this time, as I will not be able to continue without it! (I will also be posting updated information on how to begin to/continue to support me financially)

This is me at Internship over the summer with the other girls in my mentor group!

What WILL Happen?

Who: Rebecca When: Next year Where: Guatemala Why: God’s calling
What: As the Lord has begun to open new doors in Guatemala this year, it was a little difficult for me to understand His timing in brining me back to the States now. However, as I think about returning, I know the doors will continue to open! As part of the training I received this past summer, I began to get a clearer idea of specifically how the Lord has equipped me to serve Him, and my ministry vision has become more defined. While back in the States, I hope to take advantage of resources and people to train myself for these new areas. In the future, I see myself continuing to pour into pastors’ wives in Guatemala, discipling young leaders in how to grow their own ministries, and developing materials and resources for children’s ministry (in Spanish as well as eventually in indigenous languages), missions development (to teach the church how to think about missions) and many other areas of need. Please continue to pray with me and partner with me financially in order to see these goals reached!

May the Lord bless you, also, as you continue seeking how to serve Him, and as together, we continue reaching out to touch a world in need. I hope to hear from you in this time while I am back, please be in touch!

HOUSEGUESTS

When I first moved into the house where I live, I was a little concerned, because I thought, it's a big house for just Sweetpea and me! But I knew there would be a purpose for it, and in this past month I have begun to see it. In January, I was able to host Arturo and Anita Jiminez - a Guatemalan/Salvadorean couple who spent the last year in Spain as missionaries! We were able to process some of their experiences, talk about the culture shock they experienced in Spain (even though they speak the same language in theory, it is a very different world from Central America!) and think through some of the ministerial obstacles they faced. Then last week, I hosted Beth Malingowski, a girl who will be coming to work with SEPAL full time in the spring! Over the last year, we have seen several families from our team go back to the States, so getting to meet Beth and see her desire to be here was a real boost for our team's morale! While she was here I took her to meet with all of our teammates, to see some of the sights here in the city and we talked a lot about what ministries are available to her when she comes back! It was a wonderful time and we are all praying for her to hurry and come back! I am so thankful for the opportunity to use what I have to bless others - like being able to open my house for people passing through - and I am so excited to hear the stories they have to share about what God is doing in them!

CHRISTMAS! What a wonderful time to be with family, drink eggnog and reflect on the past year. I am so thankful for my family, my friends, a job that I am passionate about and the opportunity to be excited about what I do every day! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Since I have been living in Guatemala, one of my favorite things to do is share my life and ministry here with my friends and family. During the week of Thanksgiving, a team of 26 people from two churches in Colorado Springs (Sunrise and Good Shepherd UMC) came to participate in various ministries throughout Guatemala! We worked at an AIDS hospice, with street children, at the local hospital, and in a rural church - teaching Vacation Bible School and helping to build a new community center for the church. It was great to see my parents, our missions committee from church and other couples and families serve Guatemala, experience new and stretching ministries and try new things! Another aspect of the trip which I really enjoyed was watching some of my Guatemalan friends grow, as we invited them to participate with us in ministry. Some youth from my church here in Guatemala, who had never been on a mission trip, left their homes and families for a week (quite an unusual thing to do for this culture!) and helped us teach VBS and work with children. Since then I have been helping them process the experience and they are truly excited about a future role in missions! For me, the neatest part of the trip was seeing how, regardless of where you are from, what language you speak or whether you prefer hamburgers or black beans, there is a place for you in what God is doing around the world, if you are just willing to give it a try!

October was a month in which I realized I needed a little break...and boy, did I get one! My parents invited my boyfriend and I for a short visit in Colorado where we went to the Denver Aquarium, I spoke at my old college and with my church's youth group, and attended a reunion of friends from my semester abroad in college (LASP)! We also got to see the beautiful Aspen trees changing colors - something which I have missed living in Guatemala, where the seasons are hot, hot and rainy, or cool and rainy! =) After a week and half in Colorado, Hugo returned to Guatemala and my parents and I went on a church-sponsered trip to Greece and Turkey, to "Follow the Footsteps of Paul." It was an amazing time of beautiful and historical sights, learning a ton, relaxing a little (but just a little - they wouldn't let us give in to jetlag!) and seeing passages from the Bible truly come alive! We were able to visit Athens, Corinth, the sights of the 7 churches to which John wrote in Revelation, the island of Patmos where he wrote Revelation and Istanbul (where we visited the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia - and also witnessed a protest in the streets!), to name just a few! Praise the Lord for opportunities to learn, times to rest and for parents who bless me so much!

THREE YEARS AND COUNTING!

Today I celebrate my three year anniversary of working and ministering in Guatemala! I arrived on September 11, 2004 and looking back, I can't believe how much I have grown, changed, learned and experienced over these past few years. I have been able to accomplish all this only through God's grace and the support of family and friends. Thank you to all of you who know and love me, and to God, for his guidance. Here's to many more years! =)

WHAT AN ADVENTURE!

This past week I traveled to the little town of Sebep, with three other teammates from Sepal to teach pastors and their wives in our Bible Education Program (PEB). The town is about eight hours of travel outside the capital, some of it on rough roads (the scenery was amazing!), and is located so high atop a mountain that most of the time all you can see is mist, and the weather is FREEZING cold! You can see how many blankets I had to sleep under just to prevent frostbite! However, our time with the pastors' wives we taught was wonderful! We worked with them on learning some basic Bible stories (they often can't read or write and while their husbands have studied the Word a little, the wives don't usually have a solid knowledge of Scripture), we made various crafts (to develop their motor skills so they can one day learn to write, and to help them make some income by selling their work), and we taught about the concept of calling, and how each woman is special, is called by God and can be used by Him. Many of these women have never heard anything positive about themselves, and so it was quite a meaningful time. Unfortunately, there were a few "inconveniences" that made the trip a true adventure, though! There wasn't really a bathroom in the area we were at, and just to stay clean we had to rinse off at an outdoor sink - which wouldn't have been too bad, except the weather was so cold that the water was almost frozen! We also had car trouble on the way home and were stranded in the middle of nowhere for four hours! But God is so good to take care of us, and a few Guatemalan men just happened to be passing by and stopped to help us! I don't really think any of them knew much about cars, but between everyone we got back on the road and got home safely! All in all (even in spite of the "inconveniences"), it was a wonderful experience and I look forward to working with these women again next year when they return for more classes!

STEP

Every summer, a group of college-age kids come down to Guatemala to work with Sepal for the summer. They learn basic ministry skills, travel all over Guatemala experiencing various service opportunities and see first-hand what missions is all about. This summer I was able to help out with the Steppers during their training week here in the capital. We had a full week of culture training, learning songs, games and children's bible stories in Spanish, participating in ministries around the capital and learning how to work together as a team. We had a really good time getting to know each other, and I got to share a little about what it's like to come down after college and start a life in another country, living out what you feel called to do. We also got to support some Guatemalan friends of mine in their ministry to needy children in a town near the capital - the Steppers got to put into practice the stories, dramas and games they had just learned and the kids enjoyed seeing their efforts and receiving our attention. However we are praying that this summer will be about not just touching the lives of the children and others to whom we get to minister, but that it would also change the lives of these students as they seek to find out whether their future will bring them back to the mission field.

Home, not-so-sweet home

So, sometimes things don't work out the way we plan them... That's what happened with the cute little house I had been renting since January here in Guatemala City.

One night in May around 10:30, I started hearing noises at the gate of the property where I was staying (many houses in Central America are either inside a gated community, secured by policemen, or, as mine was, by itself but surrounded by a large gate topped with barbed wire). Some men tried to break in, but fortunately I was able to wake up my neighbors who went outside with me to scare them away. I thought things would calm down, but in June there was another attempted break in. The second time, however, the men actually got over the gate and were outside my front door...really and truly they were only a couple of feet away from me! Talk about spooky! But God is so good, because somehow I found the courage to yell and bang around and let them know the police were on their way (while I didn't actually know that for sure, it seemed like a good thing to say!).

Needless to say, it was time to find somewhere else to live. Fortunately, I was able to find a nice house, not far from where I lived before, but this time within a gated community (in fact, it is the first house right inside the neighborhood, and my bedroom window looks down right into the guard post)! There is plenty of room to spread out, my puppy has a beautiful park right next door to play in and the best thing of all is I can sleep soundly at night instead of having one ear always atuned, listening for suspicious noises. I am still looking for a roommate to help with expenses, but I feel fortunate to have been able to move so quickly (again the credit goes to God...how else could I have gotten out of the contract at my old house - a nearly impossible feat, found a new house, signed the contract, and moved all of my stuff in only three days?!).

It has been an interesting time here lately, for me, because in addition to the attempted break-ins, my car was also broken into around the same time, and my wallet, phone, housekeys, books and notebooks from school and all my CD's were stolen. My reactions were a mix of fear, saddness and anger...I had always been told that if I just stuck to the safe parts of town, at reasonable times of day, I should be perfectly safe. Well, my car was broken into at a gas station a couple of blocks from my house and I always thought where I lived was a good part of town. I struggled quite a bit with understanding why these things were happening to me, why not just once but three times I felt threatened and unsecure, why things weren't going the way I wanted them to go when I was doing everything I thought I should be doing... And then I realized...I tend to trust in myself way too much, to depend on myself to be able to manage things. And not just physically, but I often have that mentality in my ministries, in my relationships, in my spiritual life...If I just follow the steps that I think are best, if I just apply myself, if I just work hard enough, everything will be fine.

As I looked back at the three "incidents" that happened, I began realizing how easily something much worse could have happened. Just one little squeeze on a trigger, just one minute earlier or later, and everything could have turned out differently. That's when I realized that it really doesn't matter how in-control I think I am...I'm really not. And sometimes it takes extreme situations to learn, or be reminded of, really simple lessons.