20 children baptized in Guatemalan village

Hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans have been embracing the Orthodox faith over the past decade. 500,000 were received into the Ecumenical Patriarchate in January 2010, and more individuals and entire communities have been entering the holy Orthodox Church since then.

Most recently, as Jesse Brandow, a missionary to Guatemala and Mexico, reports, 20 children were baptized into the holy Orthodox Church in the village of Tajumulco, 150 miles northwest of Guatemala City, not far from the Mexico border.The church in Tajumulco played an important role in connecting a number of communities to Fr. Andrés Girón, whose evangelical ministry initially brought thousands of converts to the Orthodox Church, Brandow writes.

Among the celebrating priests were local rector Fr. Alexios Sosa and Fr. Thomas Hernandez of St. Andrew’s Orthodox Church in Riverside, California. Fr. Sosa is an iconographer and spent a year studying theology in Greece. The church has been expanding quickly under his guidance.

As Brandow writes, four Orthodox Christians from the United States, including Fr. Thomas Hernandez, were teaching a 6-day program “to inspire and train the faithful in this region of Guatemala.” This first such program in Tajumulco included talks and educational activities for the choir, youth, and parents and Godparents of recently baptized children in the community.

For more information on all the great things happening in the Guatemalan mission and how you can help, see missionary Jesse Brandow’s latest update.

Source: Orthochristian.com