The Selfs in Guatemala:

After many months of not knowing exactly when we would leave we finally have a date and plane tickets! We will leave January 14th. We can’t begin to express how thankful we are to everyone who has prayed for us or helped support us financially.

God has taught us so much during this time. We have been able to minister to others even while we’ve been here and we have been ministered to by others. We have been taught patience (a little) and we have seen examples of how to be more of a servant from others.

The most important thing we have learned is that we have to trust in God for everything. He desires for us to need Him and only Him. When we begin to worry about all of the details He reminds us that He already has them worked out and that we need to trust Him. God is and always will be faithful and trustworthy!!!

Please continue to pray for us. Part of our journey is ending, but a new part is beginning. We will have many obstacles and fears to face in the near future. In the immediate future please pray that our flight/baggage/etc will go as smooth as possible. After that we will be completing our visa process, finding an apartment and car, starting language school and just getting used to the culture. Pray for the kids too. I know this will be a big adjustment for Solomon especially.

God bless you and have a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Solomon’s vocabulary has really exploded in the past few months. One of his favorite things to say when we’re riding in the car is “almost home”! It always makes us laugh, especially when we still have an hour or two before we’ll actually be home :).

We feel the same way right now about Guatemala. We are “almost home”! We are picking up the pace on our preparations for Guatemala. Some of our preparations include sending in our applications for Solomon and Grace’s passports, more frequent communication with other missionaries in the field, and putting our house up for rent in the next couple of months. It’s feeling very real now!

We have been so incredibly blessed by friends and family who have supported us through their finances, prayers and other means. We never would have known just how gracious people can be until we started our journey as missionaries. When our car was about to give out, a sweet family from our church offered us their car until we leave. When we were preparing our house for renting, our church sent out a team of guys to help. God is always reassuring us along the way that He is able to do much, much more than we could ever ask or think!

Our plan is to leave for Guatemala late this Fall. At this time we have 92% of our monthly support raised and 85% of our outgoing expenses. That means that we need about $500 more of our monthly support and $7 ,000 more of our outgoing expenses. We would like to challenge you to pray about helping us get to our 100% that we need to be able to leave on schedule. That could look like only five more supporters at $100 a month, 10 more supporters at $50 a month or 20 more supporters at $25 a month. We are so thankful for anything that you can give, especially your prayers! Please let us know if you have any questions at all about our ministry or if you would like for us to speak at your church/Bible study/etc.

In other news, we welcomed our beautiful baby girl into the world June 3rd. She weighed six pounds and fourteen ounces and was 19 inches long. She is such a joy! Solomon loves her and seems to be  very protective of his baby sister. Next step…potty training!

Thanks again for all of your prayers!

God Bless You,

Jordan, Hannah, Solomon & Grace

We are back from our pre-field training! Our time at the Center for Intercultural Training (or CIT) was even more valuable than we could have ever imagined. We learned about learning a culture, how to deal with culture shock, how to learn a language more quickly, how to be a part of an effective team, interpersonal skills, and so much more. We even had a class on missionary kids and the unique trials that they go through. Going to Guatemala without this training would have been like jumping into water without knowing how to swim! We are so thankful that CAM knew what they were doing when they required us to do the training.

Solomon is 2!

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” ~Ephesians 2:10

God Bless You!


Jordan & Hannah Self

Who is an MK? I am a combination of two cultures. I am neither and I am both. I am the brat who throws a temper tantrum and refuses to dress native for the American church. I am the six-year-old who cries herself to sleep the first two weeks away from home. I am the one who complained about eating oatmeal everyday of my life, yet I am the one who orders oatmeal at the restaurant just for old times' sake.

I am the one who desperately worries about fitting in, but I am the one who wears my native wrap around the college dorm and doesn't care what anyone thinks. I am the one who has lived under strict school rules, and I am the one who returns to America and questions what my real values are. I am the one the churches make a saint out of, and the one some people pity and laugh at. I am the one who traveled halfway around the world before I was four, and I am the one who has no home. I am the one who promises to write, but never does because it's too difficult to deal with the reality of separation. I am the one who has seen the devil dancers, and I am the one who has seen the rock concerts.

I am the one who knows and understands world missions, life and death, heaven and hell. I am the one who has seen God work miracles. I am the one who knows prayer works, but I am the one who sometimes finds it difficult to pray.

I am the one who has learned to live with a politically unstable government, and I am the one who waits impatiently by the phone for news that everything is safe. I am the one who has spent only three months a year at home. Yet I know, beyond question, that my parents are the best in the whole world. I am the one who speaks two languages, but can't spell either. I am the one who has devotions from a Spanish Bible.

I am the one who wears a thousand masks, one for each day and time. I am the one who learned to be all I'm expected to be, but is still not sure of who I really am. I am the one who chooses my college by where my friends are because nobody understands an MK like another MK. I am the one who laughs and cries, sings and prays, gets angry and doubts, fears and questions, expects and receives, hopes and dreams. And I am one who cares.

I am an MK, and I am proud of it!

--Anonymous MK

Hola from Union mills N.C.!

We are learning so much at C.I.T.! Good training for going on the mission field. We have learned more about our personalities, culture, and how to relate to the local people on our mission field.

We have also learned about what to do and not to do in our new mission field. We just got some training on what to do if you get kidnapped in a forign country.It was very sobering to see and learn about how dangerous the world really is. We are almost finished with our 15 page paper on Guatemala that is due this week. It has been very informative.

Hannah is doing well, and Solomon still has a cold, but is making a lot of new missionary kid friends here. It's so great to see all of these missionary kids running around and playing together. They are going to have a great life ahead of them!

Thank you everyone for your prayers and support! Thank you for enabling us to do God work!

"The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever." Pslam 121:8

So, we've made it through week one of CIT. We started out rocky with Hannah getting food poisoning and Solomon getting a bad cold, but I think we will make it :). We have already learned so much in one week!

Much of our first week was orientation, getting to know our teachers, and homework. We also looked at our different personalities and how each one of us deals with transitions, stress, working with others, etc...This will be so helpful when we begin working with so many new people in Guatemala.

This week we have begun the difficult class on Transitions. The reality that we will soon be leaving our "home" and going to a new country is really setting in. It is going to be more difficult than we can imagine! We are so thankful to be learning about how to make the move the right way.

We have also been blessed to spend our time here with other missionaries who are going through the same things that we are going through. We are looking forward to all that God is going to teach us during this time!

Picnic at Turkey Creek

Solomon is getting so big!