God is so good! Most of you know that Karen’s little girl from the orphanage, Elizabeth, has been fighting for her life since her last surgery. She developed infections near or in the brain that were causing her brain to swell. This caused her to be paralyzed. Once we found out about this infection, Karen immediately started contacting you all to pray. Well, Elizabeth has gone from “we don’t think she will make it through the night” to being back home in the orphanage recovering nicely. She is not paralyzed and the infection is gone. Please continue praying for her healing.
Karen loves going to the orphanage. She is there at least two days out of the week and soon we are adding another day. The nuns are really starting to trust Karen and are teaching her how to better care for the orphans. They have been teaching her how to feed the kids through the feeding tubes and how best to care for those with trach tubes. Please continue to pray that God will bring more volunteers/workers to the orphanage. The nuns have so many kids to love on and only two hands each.
Fun fact - we’ve learned that Karen needs to travel to the orphanage with a change of clothes. Every day this week she was peed on and once covered with food that Kristal apparently didn’t like!
Feeding centers update - this week I met with a new (to me) church pastor in Aurora to discuss starting a children’s feeding center. This is such an amazing opportunity to help this church in building the kingdom of God. When I asked how many kids should we expect, the pastor responded that for other kids programs they have done in the past they had between 100-250 children between the ages of 3 and 12. That’s quite a range and quite a few kids! Initially we are going to have to limit the number of kids that can attend the feeding center to a list of 70 children and let it grow slowly from there.
Feeding centers update - this week I met with a new (to me) church pastor in Aurora to discuss starting a children’s feeding center. This is such an amazing opportunity to help this church in building the kingdom of God. When I asked how many kids should we expect, the pastor responded that for other kids programs they have done in the past they had between 100-250 children between the ages of 3 and 12. That’s quite a range and quite a few kids! Initially we are going to have to limit the number of kids that can attend the feeding center to a list of 70 children and let it grow slowly from there.
Aurora is a very large and very dangerous area. The drug gangs have pretty much completely overtaken this area and their leadership no longer cares for the people in the neighborhoods. It is not unusual for them to rob or assault the people who live in this community. This church in Aurora has done its best to fight this change but unfortunately it has lost its influence among the younger generation of the area. Hopefully this feeding center will be a great influence tool for the church and its pastor.
Saturday has quickly become one of our favorite days of the week. Every Saturday morning we get to serve the community and church in Verbena at the children’s feeding center we host in that community. We usually walk to the community, call the kids in the neighborhood out, spend an hour or so playing with and loving on them in the square, and then we take them to the local church for the feeding center. Jorge leads the kids in a time of praise and worship and then gives a short teaching before we feed them. Karen noticed a little boy who was trying to feed himself. He was really struggling so Karen went over to help him. The child was so hungry that he was inhaling the food as fast as Karen could scoop it out. His friends told him to slow down but he was so hungry that he wanted to gobble it up immediately. That just reminds us that sometimes these kids are just waiting for God to provide their next meal.
Fun story - Our Spanish is definitely improving (though we have a very long way to go). This week one of the older kids asked Karen if I was Tico because my Spanish was so good (I have no idea what I said but it must have been good!). Also, when Karen told the kids that we were living down here now for the next two years (at least), they started cheering and jumping up and down (the little kids love Karen).
Hopefully we will remember to take more pictures next time - sorry, it just is not something I think about very often.
Another fun story - This past Friday we were able to visit with our friends Raquel and Rocio. Raquel just had her baby a few days ago (a little boy, 9 lbs. 11oz - big boy!). His name is Gianni. Both mom and baby are doing great! Grandma Rocio and great-grandma M are also doing great and loving having a baby in the house again. Once again, I failed at getting a photo of us all. Someday I’ll think about these things!
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