We are Timothy and Sharie Martiny, missionaries in Guatemala with our six children, Julia-now is college- (19), Audrey (16), Vanessa (14) Jessica (12), Alex (10) and Alison (8). We both come from missionary families and were raised overseas, Timothy in Europe, and Sharie in South East Asia and Mexico.
The story of how we came to be a missionary family serving in Guatemala is unique, to say the least. In 2002 we came on a short-term trip, we had two daughters at the time, aged 3 years and 5 months. We had planned to stay for 3 months, but after spending some time here we felt called to full-time service so we decided to stay.
We had little money, spoke almost no Spanish and had no support, but we stuck it out and 15 years and four more kids later, we are still here.
For the first several years we worked with youth groups doing street evangelism, assisting with outreaches, doing food distribution and distributing humanitarian aid. In 2005 we started working with a small orphanage in zone-7 of Guatemala City, teaching English and Bible classes, and that was the beginning of our Skills for Life programs which have grown to several orphanages and schools and which provide computer, English, carpentry and cooking classes to hundreds of children.
As Christians, it is our faith in God which drives us to do dedicate our time and energy to teach train and equip these children to live a better life. As such teaching them to have faith in God, to find their morality from the Bible, and seek to live a holy life. To this end we teach Bible studies to our students and teach them to memorize scripture.
We work primarily in orphan care and prevention. The Biblical call in James 1:27 to care for the orphaned and vulnerable is our calling. Our ministry works with vulnerable children and their families in their communities through programs we run at two community centers in Colina Santa Fe and San Jose Pinula.
Kids come in from three hours three times a week for an hour of Bible classes, an hour of computer classes and an hour of tutoring. We run family strengthening programs and partner with Casa De Libertad, a local church.
To learn more about our work please visit our website: www.missionarytim.com