Merry Christmas!

Dear Friends and Family,

Greetings from New Hampshire! We trust and pray that you are all well and that you are looking forward to this Christmas Season. This year the Hastings family is thankful to be together in New England during our furlough after serving 5 years on the field with AMG International, Guatemala. As we look back over these 5 years it is hard to believe how blessed we have been to have shared in seeing how God is working through the ministries of AMG in Guatemala. Watching Him work through programs such as Child Sponsorship, Medical Care, Bible Training and so many more areas, we realize just how amazing our God is and how much He has given us in His Son Jesus. It has indeed been a privilege to serve Him as a family in Guatemala.

We arrived back in the states in August and our plan is to be here through June of 2010. This fall we have enjoyed spending time with family and friends, visiting supporters and we have all have seemed to keep busy in new areas. Please visit our entry about our furlough by clicking on the "our furlough" tab at the top of our blog. to read more about what we are doing.

Our most recent news is that Melody has been accepted to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago to study in their music and missions programs. We will be taking her there the first week of January. She is excited about starting this new chapter in her life and would certainly appreciate your prayers during this time of transition.

Our son, Adam, has recently started a new job working at Sears. Bob spent 19 years working there as well so he and Adam are having fun sharing about all the similarities and differences that exist after so many years. Believe it or not there are still a handful of people that work there from when Bob did!

We are enjoying being back at our home church, Fellowship Bible Church of Chester, NH. There are opportunities to minister and to be able to get to know new people.

We also want to share with you that on October 10th Dr. Spiros Zodhiates, who served as President of AMG International for many years, went home to be with his Lord. It was through the dedication of his life to God’s service that AMG International grew to be what it is today. You can read more about his life on AMG’s website at: http://www.amginternational.org/

So many of you have supported our family these past 5 years and we want to take a moment to say “thank you” for your thoughts, prayers and financial donations.

May God richly bless you for giving.

We hope you have a blessed Christmas. We “count it all joy” to be able to serve our Lord together with you all. May the truth of God’s love bless you and keep you as you celebrate the birth of our Savior this Christmas season.

Much love from all the Hastings family!

Furlough Update

Hello Friends,

We know, way too long since we have posted! Sorry about that.

We wanted to write to give you an update about what we have been doing on our furlough. As you might remember, we came to the US in stages this summer. Melody came back in July, Robin and Bethany at the beginning of August, and Bob at the end of August.

You might be wondering what missionaries do for housing during a furlough. Well, some live in a few different places as they travel during their furloughs, some live in missionary guest homes if they are available, some with family and some with friends. Us? We are so blessed to be living with friends (who are like family). Most times that we have come back to the states, we have based ourselves in Chester, NH, where our home church is at the home of Frank and Kathi Camillieri. Frank and Kathi are as close to family as you can get without sharing a gene pool! Robin has known them as her "second set of parents" since she was a little girl and our family has enjoyed our relationship with them for as many years as we can remember.

The Camillieri's live in a beautifully restored home near the center of Chester and have opened up to us every time we need a place to stay. Even with the length of our furlough this year, they graciously offered for us to base ourselves from their home. What a blessing for us to be on the receiving end of I Peter 4:9 which says "offer hospitality to one another...".

Here's what we have been up to:

We have spent quite a bit of time with our families. It has been great to see everyone and catch up with everyone's lives. Besides visiting with family and friends, we have been:

Bethany - is homeschooling this year. She doesn't like it quite as much as going to school with all her friends, but she does do school with some of her friends here a few days a week and enjoys that very much. She is also enjoying "Impact", our home church's friday night youth group program.

Melody - is taking correspondence courses through Moody Bible Institute and hopes to attend there in 2010. Mel works three mornings a week tutoring a 1st grader, teaches Spanish classes to 25 homeschooling students, and babysits for a few local families. She is also part of our church's worship team and youth leadership team so she is keeping very busy.

Adam - just started working a new job at Sears selling in the electronics department. Bob worked for Sears for 19 years and there are still a few people there that Bob worked with. Adam is also serves on the worship team at church and recently started a second part time job.

Bob & Robin - We have attended two mission conferences, one at our home church and a second one this past week at a supporting church in New York. Every missions conference is a little bit different and we enjoy the variety. We are always glad to reconnect, be fed (physically and spiritually!), and be able to share about the ministry we are involved in.

We will be traveling to Pennsylvania to participate in AMG's annual banquet there next month and are planning visits to other supporters and supporting churches.

Bob is working on starting a masters degree program in Biblical Studies and hopes to get several courses done during this time of furlough.

All of us are enjoying taking part in the ministries at Fellowship Bible Church. Adam, Melody, Bob & Robin are all singing in the choir. Its fun to share in this ministry together.

We'll share some pictures soon so you can see our home town and some of the things we have been doing.

Thanks for all of your continued support and prayers.

Love from all the Hastings

Growing, growing, growing...

Here at AMG Guatemala, one of the things we have been working on this year is "Life Skills" training. We have challenged all of our childcare centers to help the sponsored children develop skills that they can use to help provide for themselves and their families. Below are a few examples of how some of our centers have carried out the challenge!

Verbena School, Guatemala City - "We have been working this year to teach our sponsored students gardening and planting concepts that they can share with their families, creating opportunities for them to grow their own food and/or sell in their communities. The students have been given plots of land near their classrooms to grow different vegetables that they can bring home and enjoy. They have been so excited about this new program and were thrilled with the results shown below. They were all so proud of their work!!"

Also, a few weeks ago Robin and I took a trip to western Guatemala to visit some of our childcare centers in that part of the country. In some of these centers, they are teaching the children Life Skills such as sewing and weaving. Here are a few pictures of our visits and some of the "life skills" that are being taught.

Nahuala childcare center in western Guatemala - "we are teaching weaving, embroidery work and knitting to mothers of sponsored children to help them develop skills that can help them provide for their families."

Otto, one of our supervisors, "reluctantly" modeling a hat and bag! :)

And a few pictures of our visits to various childcare centers.

Here is Ruth with a group of sponsored children:

A drama the little ones put on for us:

Robin with a few girls who were pretty excited that she was there:

Bob and a little boy:

As always, thanks for sharing with us. Have a great day!

Market Day at AMG Guatemala

Hello Everyone,

OK, I promise to post some pictures this time...we are having Market Day today, one of my favorite events of the year! So read through and I'll post more pictures and an explanation down below.

But first, I just wanted to thank you all for praying for us and for our upcoming furlough details. To tell you the truth, it was getting a little difficult for us as we still had several things pending, but lately the Lord has answered several requests and provided many things. The biggest is that we now have a young couple from our church who will be staying in our condo during the time of our furlough. They are newlyweds and needed very affordable living. We needed someone to stay and cover our basic home expenses. Great match!

Melody has arrived safely in New Hampshire (yesterday) and is getting settled in. It is just starting to hit us that she has moved...this doesn't get easier.

Next week Robin and I will be traveling to western Guatemala for 3 days to visit AMG's childcare centers in that part of the country. Please pray for a safe and productive trip. Bethany will be staying with our Pastor's family while we are away.

So thanks for praying for our transition. God is faithful and in His perfect timing He is answering our prayers.

OK, now on to Market Day. This event happens once each year to help teach the little ones about money, buying things in the market, etc. All the children bring things to "sell" and everyone takes turns buying and selling with play money.

Learning can be so much fun!

Here's some pictures of the activities:

Have a great day!