We are so excited to announce that I (Isabel) am pregnant! We are expecting our very own little baby at the end of May. Likewise, we would love your prayers for a smooth pregnancy and a healthy baby. The second trimester has come around and not a moment too soon! It seems as though morning sickness is starting to slow down, and I am so grateful. A week ago, we were able to see our baby for the first time on the ultrasound and it gave us both butterflies. He/she was jumping all over the place and suddenly this pregnancy felt much more real. Due to the timing of our visa expiring and in light of this news, we will be going back to Wyoming for Christmas to spend much-needed time with some family, including my brother, who is expecting his first baby as well! These are exciting times, thank you to everyone who has reached out, we are so happy to share this with you all!
Roof Progress
To follow up that fantastic news, we have some disappointing delays in our roof renovations. The contractor we hired out to renovate our roof is currently behind on another project and isn’t expecting to be done for another week or so. That means that we have been moved out of our room for almost a month now and are stuck waiting for them to begin. Hopefully this time next month we will have great news on the progress of the roof, but for now we wait!
Our friend from Israel
That being said, Ezra and I started to work on the room ourselves since there is a good chunk of work that we were able to do. As we mentioned in the last post, Ezra is one of my (Nick) closest childhood friends and is currently visiting and volunteering with us here in Guatemala. He has been here for just over two months at this point, and is scheduled to go back home in about two weeks. He has been a tremendous help for us down here, doing everything from woodworking, to cleaning, to prayer walking, helping us with the kiddos and being a friend to the both of us.
A huge thanks to anyone who was able to send him some support through us and to some of his friends and family back home who wanted to support him as well. Listening to God’s calling to serve isn’t nearly as hard as obeying that call in the face of this life’s trials. Whether they are financial, emotional or spiritual trials, Satan will always try his very hardest to cripple God’s servants, so we are very proud of him for trusting in The Lord most high. Enjoy some pictures and videos of our roof disintegrating from all the termite damage!
Ashlynn & Sebastian Toledo
Our close friends Ashlynn and Sebastian are continuing their fight with Leukemia, seeking a medical visa to move to the U.S. for his treatments. They have been staying in an apartment in Guatemala City for over the past month, over an hour away from home. Sebastian is able to stay at the apartment in intervals when he doesn’t have to stay at the hospital. They are so grateful for the time they can spend together with their 3-month-old son and are so thankful that God has brought a huge supportive community around them to help however possible. Please continue to pray for his recovery and that the visa would be granted as quickly as possible so that they can seek the best medical care available in the states.
Nick’s Family
My family came down and visited us!! Talk about a wonderful time. For those of you that know the Gaultney family, you know that we are a crazy bunch when gathered together. This visit was no exception and it was very refreshing to have them here in this foreign land. We played card games every night, visited a couple tourist sites, played with the kiddos and even repaired our big metal sliding door! Its a blessing to have a welder for a brother and a handyman for a father! We can’t wait for them to return again next time!
Update on the kiddos
We still have the same 8 kids from the last post, and it has been wonderful to see how everything has settled into a new routine with this new combination. Estiven is doing really well with the new crowd, but has a lot of catch-up homework from schooling that he missed when he was gone. Emilio has started walking all by himself with no hesitation at all. Cristofer turned 3 years old and Damaris turned 2! A few weeks ago the stomach flu started going around and half of our house got it really bad, so there was a few days of quarantining. Overall, aside from quarantining our house, it has been a normal month haha!
