Our Story

Mark has been invited to participate for one year as a water engineer in the Ulpan Valley which lies in Guatemala’s Alta Verapaz District.  I have been working with CAFNIMA’s (see link on home page) Project Ulpan for about a year with the intention of sending teams of water professionals from the Knoxville area.  As a result of that effort, I went to the Ulpan Valley this past February.  I did not leave with any intention of moving our family to Guatemala, but only with the intention of participating on the leadership team of Knox ProCorps  and helping to design water systems in several of the villages.  On the last night of my trip, the project coordinator asked us to pray that they would be able to find a water engineer to replace the one returning to the states in June.  My heart began to leap inside my chest as the Holy Spirit started saying, “It’s you, It’s you!” only to be quickly cooled by the thought of telling my beautiful wife that we should move our family of six to Guatemala by this summer.  I left Guatemala with a smoldering fire in my belly and greeted Katy with, “How would you like to move to Guatemala?”, to which she quickly replied, “No!  You’re crazy!”  However, after talking about the opportunity, the limited time frame (one year or less), and the needs of the people in the Ulpan Valley – the Lord began to warm Katy’s heart to the idea.  Since February, we have been pursuing the opportunity, which led us back to Guatemala from April 11^th to the 16^th so that we could meet with the director of CAFNIMA and allow Katy to see where we might live.  Since our return to Knoxville, our team, Katy, and I continue to believe that we are being called to move and help the people of the Alta Verapaz region gain access to clean, reliable drinking water.

The Alta Verapaz district of Guatemala holds many indigenous Mayan people and is one of the poorest areas of the country.  In one of the great ironies of our modern world, the people of the Ulpan Valley have received cell phone service prior to clean drinking water, sanitation, or regular medical care.  One thing my grandfather taught me about missions was the importance of empowering the local people to do the work.  Much of what I will spend my year doing is continuing the training begun with two Guatemalan men, teaching them to operate and maintain water systems.  We plan to move to Guatemala the last week of July, attend language school during the month of August, and head up to “the valley” at the end of August.  As a family, we will host teams from the states, many of which will be professionals from the Knoxville and Nashville areas.  Katy will spend the year doing much of what she does now, caring for our four children and educating the older two.  In addition to this, she will have the opportunity to teach English to Nina, our Guatemalan friend who will help our family live life in a village setting.