Our story begins with a little boy. He was sick and his parents knew that they had to get him to a hospital. There was only one catch; they lived in La Arenera, Guatemala. You see, La Arenera, was a three hour car ride to Guatemela City, which is where any good parent would take their child. These two parents loved their son and desperately wanted to see him well. Since they didn’t have a car, they went door-to-door to try and raise the money to take a bus into the city. Tragically, they couldn’t raise enough money and their son passed away.
Gustavo Fratti, a local businessman heard about this terrible situation and resolved that it would never happen again in this little village. Fratti owned a large gerber daisy farm that employed a vast majority of the community, and he decided to donate a portion of his land to develop a clinic for infants and children. This clinic would be literally just outside these people’s homes and would provide services at no cost.
You might be thinking, “That’s a nice story, but what does that have to do with you guys?” That’s a great question and one that directs us back to the clinic. Through a series of friends and connections, there was a request for American doctors to come and serve at the clinic during their residency, which sparked interest in Kim Matlock of Dallas.
When Kim moved down to La Arenera, she quickly discovered another opportunity to serve this small village. After seeing hundreds of children come and go through the clinic she decided that she wanted to put on a children’s camp. This camp would be similar to church camps that many of us attended when we were young. It was met with an enormous response and Kim and her sister who had come down for the week of camp decided they needed to involve their home church, NorthWest Bible Church, in Dallas in this ministry.
After several years of growth, God decided, through one of Kim Matlock's contacts, to inject a family of four Guatemalan nationals to be full time missionaries in La Arenera. The Garcias (Julio, Lucrecia and their two girls Dara and Jaris) have poured their lives into this village for the last 9 years. The Garcia’s story is full of God’s direction and provision that can only have come from him.
NorthWest Bible Church continued to take trips to La Arenera every summer to put on Vacation Bible School. Almost six years ago, we were encouraged by Sarah's brother and sister in law to go on the trip with them. John was put in charge of six and seven year olds and Sarah in charge of five and six year olds. That year we fell in love with the people of La Arenera. We continued to go back each year, and one year we were blessed to stay for five weeks with the Garcia family. That was the year we felt God calling both of us to live there. It has taken a while to get our ducks in a row, but we are officially ready to move to La Arenera and serve the sweet people in the village.
This was never a part of our plan. We have all of our family here in Dallas, and John has a great job. We know for certain that this has all been orchestrated by God, and we are so grateful that He is using us. We can not wait to invest in and love on these people.
