Frequently Asked Questions About Us.

Who we are:

Timothy (34) and Sharie (36) Martiny. We were both born and raised in missionary families and spent our childhood overseas, Tim in Europe and Sharie in South East Asia and Mexico. We met in San Francisco while serving with a youth ministry, we were married in New Orleans where we started traveling on mission trips to Central America.
In 2002 we traveled with our two daughters to Guatemala to serve for a few months with some missionaries we knew. After a short time we knew in our hearts that God called us to full time service the orphaned and fatherless, and we decided to stay.

Our family:

We now have six children, 5 daughters and one son, the younger four were born in Guatemala.

Our covering:

FIRE International. We are missionaries under the covering of F.I. A missionary sending agency located in Concord, NC.
F.I. provides us with spiritual covering. They are a member of the ECFA. Through them we are able to receive tax-deductible donations. They provide counsel and spiritual support to both us and individuals and our ministry.

What does it cost:

Missionary sending agency and support organizations typically take a percentage of the funds they receive for their missionaries to cover their operations cost. F.I. takes %10 they funds they receive for us. This is within the spectrum of what other organizations charge, fits within the Biblical model of tithing and worth the cost for services they provide.

Local covering:

Casa de Libertad, While F.I. provides us with covering in a general way, over the course of our years in ministry, we realized the need for us, like all Christians, to be accountable in a personal way to the church, to that end we are members of local church, Casa de Libertad (House of Freedom). We attend church here, participate in weekly home group meetings and Bible studies with other members of the church, and have chosen to make pretty much every aspect of our lives open to church leadership.

They know us inside and out and this gives them the opportunity to speak into our lives and challenge us in our spiritual walk with Christ in a way that would not be otherwise possible.
We see ourselves as part of the body of Christ, while we serve here in Guatemala as missionaries, we realize that we are still sinners, saved by God’s grace and Christs death on the cross, and as such we need to be a part of the greater body of Christ, we know that we are stronger when we fellowship with other believers and are grateful to have brothers and sisters in Christ to share our lives with.

Other partnerships:

Family Care Foundation, a non-profit that we have partnered with for many years, located in San Deigo CA. We work with them to setup and operate the vocational training side of our ministry. The donations we receive through them for our projects are tax-deductible and they do not charge a fee. They provide us with accountability by thoroughly vetting the projects we do and assure the funds are used according to the stated purpose.

Our mission work:

While the heart of our ministry is to obey the Biblical command to care for the orphaned and fatherless, let us explain what that means in a practical sense,
Fundaninos: A organization that provides a home for orphaned, abused and abandoned children in Guatemala. We have worked here for 8 years. We came to this home by following a group of girls that were transferred from one closed home to another until they were moved here.

In order for orphan care work to be successful, it has to be holistic. From the beginning we knew that our work with orphans, couldn’t just be to share the Gospel. There is the necessity to care for every aspect of their lives.

The heart of our ministry has always been the same, to share the knowledge of the Gospel with the children, to teach to live a Godly life based on knowledge of His word, and to help them develop their God given potential so that when they are called before Him, they will hear Him say, well done thou good and faithful servant.

We strive to impart the Biblical principal of worship, found in 1 Cor. 10:31, that whatever they do, it is all to the Glory of God.

Spiritual:

Physical: