Jeff and Terri's group

On Tuesday we were blessed to have a group of Jeff and Terri's come visit us. Jeff and Terri run Mission Impact, a very diverse ministry, and they attend our church.

One of the leaders of the group had visited us years ago and had collected donations that she wanted to give our kids. They brought us some great stuff and the kids were excited to show me their new clothes.

The group had a short time with us in the afternoon but they packed in a lot of activities! We started off with a sand art craft.

Sandra came to help out with the group and learn about hosting groups. She got in a lot of good practice with her English. :)

Noe was a popular one. He is just so cute.

Denis is working on a popsicle puzzle. The kids got to trade them around and enjoyed putting together other peoples puzzles.

Angel is displaying the next craft. Each person decorated their own cross with jewels. I was unhappy that he didn't smile. So here is Angel smiling:

"Like father, like son." Crazies.

Gerber showing his more sensitive side.

Fernanda

Jennifer and Noe.

At this point I got a little too involved in organizing and didn't take any more pictures. At the end, each child was able to pick a stuffed animal, a bottle of bubbles, a few candies and some stickers. I even got to pick an elephant stuffie. :)

We loved having the group visit and it was nice to see Terri and her two girls Amy and Katie. If I had been a good photographer, I would have taken a picture of them. Sorry.

God bless!

Mission Fiesta came to visit again!

We were excited to host Mission Fiesta again this year. They come every year and put on huge birthday parties for around 11 children's homes and about 4 schools. They brought us pizza, pop (or soda for those of you who don't know pop), popsicles, and yummy, yummy cake from my favorite bakery in Antigua, Cenicienta.

Hazel, Janet and Orellana getting the pizza out to the masses.

Marina and Dan getting the pop ready.

Ben helping to serve the pop.

"Celebrating Life with Mission: Party"

This is either Chici teaching Victor a lesson, or Chici teaching the kids how NOT to play in the house. ;)

Noe is pretty excited with his big pieces of pizza.

I didn't get any pictures of the kids eating as I was too busy eating my own pizza. :) After the food, they decorated Christmas cards that Gary had designed for us. This was a huge blessing for us as I am not a great decorator and we can use this template for our sponsors.

Busy coloring.

Daniel is pretty focused on doing a good job.

Antoni is pretty focused as well. Do you see his fabulous head of hair? When he arrived over a year and a half ago, his hair was very, very thin and discolored because of his chronic malnutrition. I love looking at his hair.

Maria

Katerine

Dan and Marina handing out the birthday cards to each child. They get one every year with some money inside.

Valeriano was pretty excited to get his money. He is new with us, so he had not received money before. (Sorry, I couldn't seem to flip the picture)

Then... the cake!

And popsicles. I was trying to get a picture of all the different colors of popsicles, but it didn't really work.

Then it was time to play!

The inevitable soccer game!

I'm so glad it didn't rain on us! But the clouds were pretty.

We loved having Mission Fiesta with us. It is something the kids look forward to every year. Thanks Mission Fiesta!!!!!

Director's house at the Rehab Center

Hi this is Sandra. I came back from Nicaragua two months ago. I am planning to stay here and work with Victor and Chici to expand my work to involve other areas at the ministry.

Now my sister Sonia and I are living at the rehab center in a little house that we just repaired a few weeks ago, because it was needed to change all the roof and false ceiling inside.

The new roof

Thew new false ceiling (From Naomi-sorry about the bad lighting from my camera!)

Now the rehab center is full with 30 guys and we have a waiting list if someone else wants to come in. Chici and I are going to Nicaragua the end of next week to make sure that things are going well and we are going to be there one week.

God bless.

New contributor.

I will be the first to admit that this blog is decidedly biased towards the Children's Home and provides almost no information of our other ministries; the church, the rehab centre in Nicaragua and the rehab center here in Guatemala. This is only because I am only involved in the Children's Home! I very rarely visit the other sites. Well, I attend church every week but I don't often make it to the rehab centre to see what is going on.

Now that Sandra and Sonja are back from Nicaragua and working at the Rehab centre here in Parramos, Sandra can update you on things going on in the ministry there. She won't be writing as often, and her pictures will be no where near as cute as mine ;) but she will be able to expand on things I don't know about. So enjoy!

Sandra, Chici and I.