Hi Tim Here
Two Pictures one of leather leaf and one of a cannery building.
Boy does time ever fly. It looks like a month has gone by since my last entry. Sorry about that. I have been working on a number of fronts. The first being language acquisition. I am told by some that my Spanish is getting better. I am finding that when I go back to work completed some months ago I am able to repeat the lessons with more speed and cconfidence. Progress is being made but the rate of improvement is personally disappointing. Yesterday I had a friend teaching me spanish, well actually He is here to talk so that I can listen to the pronounciation. Well I made a sentence in my best spanish and he said " Well in spanish we say it like this". Hey that was my best spanish I replied and we both had a good laugh.

Outside of spanish I along with Sheila took a trip to Los Amatos to discuss reforestation around a community water source. This would help students and families associated with an ENDAC school in that town.

Last week I toured a leather leaf finca on the road to Coban and during the process of this 3 day event was introduced to a farm co-op. Well it is hard to believe... perhaps the luck of God?? but this group has a large facility that appears almost unused. The building has an office, large rooms with stainless steel tables, large walk in cooler and large room for storage and a trucking dock. Then the kicker was that one room was locked and only the president of the Co-op has the key, and he was not there. Well I am told that in that room is equipment for canning. Apparently 5 or 10 years ago they had started canning and things fell through it looks like for a time two months of the year this plant is used to sort and wash green beans for shipment. For the other 11 months of the year it sits unused. We are excited about this because of the Vision I had had in the Mid 90's at Sonrise Pentecostal Camp at Alberta Beach. Some of you may not know about that so I will try to post a writeup I prepared last month. Lets see if I can go into a word doc. now and paste it here:

Vision of Christ

A vision of Christ appeared before me and this is how it happened.

Along with my family, I was attending family camp at Sonrise Pentecostal Camp near Edmonton. At that time, (I think it was the summer of 1995) it was called Sunset Point Pentecostal camp. The camp is a week long and runs Christian based worship and teaching sessions for all ages. I was attending the morning service, listening to a member of the staff of Northwest Bible College (now Vanguard Collage) during a morning service. It was a weekday with perhaps 300 people in the main tabernacle. I was in the front row to the right of the speaker when a window or portal opened before me that appeared to have fire around it. Inside, Christ appeared dressed in white and appearing just as I would expect him to look with longer hair, a beard and dressed in a white gown. As he came closer, he opened his arms wide pointing at an aboriginal people group that were very colorfully dressed and arranged in a U shape around him, more or less framing the right, left and bottom of the portal. The following information was conveyed to me.

He said:
Can you do this for me? Build a cannery.
Other information instantly loaded into my brain:
Call it El Shaddai cannery.
Do it for these peoples.
I responded: Yes I can do that.

I looked around and realized that everyone was listening to the speaker. No one else had seen the appearance or heard that I had just spoken out loud “Yes I can do that.” I looked around and when I looked back the vision was gone.

What I did:

I was pumped and very excited, explaining what I had seen to family, friends and Pastor Cliff Newbury from Grande Cache. With some counseling on the matter from Cliff, I headed home at the end of camp prepared to build a cannery. I started a PowerPoint to try and vision cast for support. Nothing seemed to work. One northern missionary couple (recently retired) said that First Nations people hate gardening, so there was no way that it would work in Alberta.

I returned to Family camp the following year and spoke with Pastor Cliff again who said, “Well perhaps it is not for now and you need to wait”. So I set the vision and request on hold.

In 2002, I visited Guatemala and, in particular, the missionaries working there with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. I was working on a final ministry related research project to complete a master’s degree at Briercrest Biblical Seminary. I interviewed Alan and Pauling Slater, Hector Aragon and Cary Goshinmon. While with Cary visiting a Child Care Plus School in the city, I commented on the large vegetables laying on the streets and for sale. He would not allow us to buy any because he said we had no idea how they were grown and he did not want us getting sick. OK, fair enough. Well, we took two days to tour Guatemala a little with Carlos and Laura Motta, who are the parents of Henry Motta, a fellow student at Briercrest Biblical Seminary. On the way to Lake Atitlan, we saw hillsides with watermelons and squashes and old corn stalks burning everywhere and an abundance of other fruits and vegetables. While we were returning from Lake Atitlan, four aboriginal males crossed the road in front of us. It was obvious that this was a father and son group, with the father in the lead and the 3 increasingly shorter children following behind. Each had a hoe over their shoulder. Up the ditch, across the road and down the other side like ducks swimming in a pond, they disappeared on their way to another field. The instant I saw them my heart leaped within me and I exclaimed. “You mean here, Lord?”

What Now?

I am now a missionary in Guatemala with a list of responsibilities associated with the William Cornelius Vocational Training Centre, a technical high school for underprivileged young adults. The Centre is linked to ENDAC and the Child Care Plus school system of the PAOC. The ministry my wife Sheila and I have today is not what it will be in a few years. It takes time to fully develop an effective ministry. I am now deep into the process of acquiring the language and soul searching regarding this vision and the request to build a cannery.


I see fruit and vegetables in abundance in the markets of Guatemala, but many people are under nourished. I have often said that love is seeing a need and meeting that need. As I look at the significant contrasts between the rich and the poor in Guatemala, I am moved to do all that I can to help the downcast up and out of the poverty cycle through education and all other means possible. And you can be sure that practicing the Gospel of Jesus Christ will be front and center in our ministry. And as for the vision and the cannery, I am in a process of counting the costs, investigating the options and making decisions that move our ministry in the direction Christ has requested. The call is to obedience; it is my duty to obey.

Oh, and for the Grace movement I can say this. It is very clear in my mind that what I believe determines my destiny and what I do determines my awards. I am not doing this to gain the favor of God, for he calls me friend already. I also do the greatest work required and that is to believe in the One God has sent. Obedience stemming from a thankful heart is reasonable service in pressing forward to bring the reign of Christ into this and all lands and people groups of the world.

If any of what I have said above witnesses to your spirit, I would love to hear from you. Email:
tsjuhlin@gmail.com.

Walking in the Light of Christ

Tim