Pictures at the beach from bottom up
My big strong football all Va state son sleeping on the way home from the beach next to my second youngest grandson
my kids- all the as yet unmarrieds
the Nags Head beach we were on- almost isolated this time of year
Bethany [ who just got back from a mission ] with Eric [ who just got back from a mission]; they are almost engaged
Christmas morning and the littles waiting to come up
big ones just hanging out
Erin with her son Marcus- Erin is our new fundraising coordinator and my daughter.
My kids at the Virginia Dare festival Park

We are on our way home from our every other year family Christmas reunion at the beach. We had 16 of our kids, 5 of the spouses of said kids and 11 grandkids making 12 kids under 5. We will miss them while we are in Guate for the next 3.5 months. My heart always seems to be in two places. Guess that's better than in no place. Anyway thought you might want to get to know us better before all my blogs are about the poor and desperate and end with asking for your help and money. Sometimes I think we get so involved with needed charitable work we forget our families need to grow too, just in different ways. Grandkids need to know grandparents. and siblings need to reconnect as do parents and children. It was fun and sometimes hard this last week. And it made me appreciate family and the affluence I have. I think about the poverty among the Mayans every time I spend money on me and mine. All of us in this country are so wealthy compared to these people we are working with. You never get used to the fact of looking inside a one room house and seeing no possessions. We did not spend much on Christmas materialism[ gifts] but did enjoy our beach houses, each other and good food. Hope you had a nice Christmas and we appreciate all you do to help us help the Mayans.

thanks
Vicki
20.vicki@gmail.com

an interesting blog about Lake Atitlan


http://globetrottergirls.com/2010/12/lake-atitlan-guatemala-villages/

FAMILY REUNIONS AND GUATEMALA

Every other year our family rents two big beach cottages. All the married kids and grandkids that can, come and spend a week together. The next year, they go to their in-laws. This year we had 15 children, 4 spouses of the married kids and 11 grandkids and one almost fiancee. It has been wild with 12 kids under 5 and lots of fun.
No. 18 of the grandkids was born on Monday while we were here. His parents live here. He is the cute little baby. Eleven of my kids are in the picture looking at the ocean.
Two things have happened here that made me think of Guate. One was yesterday when we went to Manteo. We are at the beach at Nags Head, NC on the Outer Banks. It is very close to Manteo where the first English child, Virginia Dare was born in the US in 1587. She was born on Roanoke Island where Manteo is located. We went to Roanoke Island festival park. It has an excellent interactive museum, a settlement village, an accurate reporduction of the Queen Elizabeth II ship they came over on and an Indian village. The long houses the Indians lived in were so much like many of the houses the Mayans in Guate live in now. The ones with the corn cob walls. They ate the same things too. Corn, beans, and squash. They had no cows but made a milk from walnuts and added squash. I have always thought the Mayans were about 100 years behind the US civilization, but now I wonder if it is 400 years. And is it behind or just simpler.? One picture is of my 3 year old grandson in full pirate gear after our festival adventure.
Today my husband I wondered down to the end of Nags Head before it heads into Hatteras. There were probably 10 or more beach houses sitting in the ocean at high tide. They are ruined but still perfectly good houses with good windows and wood and deck rails, etc. Why they are being allowed to fall into the ocean instead of being moved and used is beyond me. Only in the USA can we afford such waste. In Guate, they would have been dismantled and every piece of wood, etc. used. I like that part of Guatemala and dislike the US attitude of affluence that has no bounds.
Well back to my vacation. We head to Guate in a couple of weeks. After a month or two, I will appreciate the USA more.
Have a wonderful Christmas from my family to yours and remember how blessed you are. A picture of my whole group that is here with us now.
Vicki
20.vicki@gmail.com

Our Christmas Story

We have come up with a way of letting you help us to take more mamas and toddlers. I think you are going to like it . You commit to $20.00 a month for a year. For every $20.00 you sponsor one mama and her children in the program. They get the weekly lunch, child development class, children's playgroup, formula and incaparina as needed. You get a picture emailed to you of your little family and a short bio on the circumstances of their lives that make them need your help so much. So come on, everyone in the USA can afford $20.00 a month. On the day that I thought of this program, we had our own real Christmas story in Los Robles. Joel, with twitter travel, tells it better than I do and with pictures. Just click on the right hand side of the blog and scroll down until you reach Friday's entry. The one about the kidney thing. Anyway, Joel had had a very productive, tiring, get up at 3 in the morning and start working kind of day. The kind we love to give our volunteers. So that afternoon he is relaxing and up walks a man anad woman each carrying a week old baby. They walked for 2.5 hours to get to us because they heard we had formula. TTL we did have formula. The woman did not know she was having twins. She gave birth, her husband is unemployed and they are poor. She only has enough milk for one baby and they need formula. We give it to her and enroll her in the program. And now get this, she only had one baby outfit. Can you even imagine? The other little babe was wrapped in her only old sweater. Just like the Christ child. We gave her clothes and told her to come back. Join our mama/toddler program and give as many $20.00 monthly sponsorships as you can so we always have formula for these babies.
thanks
Vicki
www.casadesion.blogspot.com
20.vicki@gmail.com

Our Clinic Blessing

We had a major clinic blessing today. Joel, our volunteer, went into the city today with a big truck and Juan, our guardian. They were going to pick up the 140 rubbermade buAckets of clothes, shoes, etc. that my husband and I had shipped down backin Sept.Also we had been told by a wonderful medical group that they would be receiving exam tables and we could get a couple. I gave him my wish list of other things we needed and we got them all. Two beautiful nice exam tables, 3 stethoscopes, an electric machine that checks eyes, ears and nose and a baby scale. We were told they had all come in last night and we were the first to get the opportunity to take them. What a blessing to our clinic.

Made It To 34

Today is my 34th wedding anniversary. Maybe there are some of you out there where your 34th is full of nothing but fond memories and your marriage has been a total success. Mine has been a success, especially if you think about how abusive the upper middle class homes Jody and I grew up in were. But we have our ups and downs. I have my moments where I wish I could redo things. You see when Jody met me I was in law school and had one child by my first marriage. Said child went to a "free" school where Jody volunteered at. He used to ask Jody to come home with him and play ball. That went on for a year until a mutual friend set Jody and I up. Our first date I told him I was not the mothering kind and Mattie would be my only child. Jody has told me later he thought that was a bunch of malarky and paid no attention. We went quickly from dating to marriage to having 5 kids in 6 years. Quess he was right on that one. Then we went to having 10 bio kids and 8 adopted. Youngest now is 5 and oldest is 42. And 18 grandkids. Then all the kids in Guate. We have shared kids, a for-profit buiness and a non-profit. And my PTSD and his thyroid disease.. It has made for a sometimes bumpy road and a great friendship. We always have something to talk about or argue about if we so choose. I recently got a blessing for a sinus infection and the first thing that came out was "have patience with your husband". But we made it to 34. Took a night off with the help of daughter Sarah and her hubby and kids and went to Raleigh, stayed in a motel, ate out and had fun. I am so grateful to have him as a companion to share this wild adventure of a life we are on. just wish he wasn't so tight with money.
thanks
Vicki
20.vicki@gmail.com

Pics I promised

I have not been able to upload pictures from my home, that is on top of a mountain and only has satellite connections, for months. So I go to my library which has dsl to do it. Sounds like Guatemala, huh, but it is my home in the Appalachia mountains of the USA. Anyway today we have 12 inches of snow on the ground with 6 more coming down and my pictures are uploading. Go figure. So the last four pictures are of the children in Nueva Victoria who are now eating 3 meals a week for the next 6 months thanks to Pauline and Sherman. The last picture is of the mama and toddler program. They are the 100 that get to come and eat lunch, have a child development and prenatal class and receive formula and incaparina. They are financed in part by a wonderful Utah group. If you remember from past blogs, we started this program after in infant in our community died because the mama had no breast milk. It is hard to produce milk when you don't eat. Formula costs $30.00 a month. When you live on a dollar a day, you can not afford formula. Come visit us for a week and we will show you all the children suffering from the effects of malnutrition.
On Tuesday my wonderful volunteer Joel,gets to tell the extra 100 mamas and toddlers that came last week we can not afford to do this for them until we have more funds. We only have budget for the 100 we are currently helping. These women and children have faces and desperate eyes when you see them up close and personal and it is heartbreaking to turn them away.So far we have pledges of about $100.00 a month for the next 100. Per 100 women and children,it is $250.00 a month for the lunch and programs, $250.00 a month for the formula and $150 a month for the incaparina. And $60.00 a month to transport the mamas from afar. I need more as i can't take new mamas unless I can also give them formula and incaparina if they need it.So please pass this on. Donate in someone's name for Christmas and we will send a card and pictures of the women and their children they are feeding and educating. Push this donate button or write me and I will send you my address to send a check to.
My family and I [ we paid our tickets and our living expenses out of our personal family fund ] are going to live in Guate for the first 4 months of the year. Send me formula and I will take it down.

thanks for all you do.
Vicki
20.vicki@gmail.com

OUR NEW FEEDING PROGRAM IN NUEVA VICTORIA

While my husband and I were in Guate a couple of weeks ago, we visited Nueva Victoria. Joel, who is running things in Guate now for a couple of months, went with us. We were there to check out things esp. among the children and to measure for the benches and tables that a Eagle Scout team are going to make in Jan. While the men were measuring, I went,camera in hand, to find children. It did not take long before I had 25 following me and laughing with anticipation. I guess I am kind of stupid because it took me a while to realize their looks of anticipation probably had something to do with the candy/food they were going to get. Candy/food that I had forgotten to buy. My next thoughts were "oh my gosh, what am I going to do?". I always have food in my car as I have blood sugar problems [ don't worry Joel , they are getting better] and in Guate when you leave for a normal 2 hour trip it can take all day. So we head to my car, me and my 25 tag alongs that is fast approaching 50 tag alongs. I am praying the whole time reminding Jesus of the fish and loaves that He multiplied for his own crowd of tag alongs. I knew I had one and a half small whole wheat french bread loaves I had brought for sandwiches. So I pulled them out and starting dividing them. The kids swallowed them whole and it only took care of about 15 of them. I had a hugh gallon bag of raw food bars my husband makes for him and I. They are made from dried fruit and nuts and we love them but our kids hate them. But it was all I had. So I start handing them out and the kids swallow them whole. Pretty soon the whole bag is gone as mamas are bringing their toddlers for food. I realize then the kids are literally starving. So then and there we start our Nueva Victoria feeding program.WE COULD DO IT BECAUSE A WONDERFUL COUPLE BY THE NAMES OF SHERMAN AND PAULINE HAD SENT $5000.00 RIGHT BEFORE I LEFT TO USE ON FOOD.The program feeds 120 elementary kids ages 4 to 13 3 times a week. It costs $800.00 a month. The mamas cook the food and the teachers hand it out during school. They get rice, beans, tortillas and an egg. And i don't worry about them as much. Not sure I can upload pictures as it is snowing and my satelittle is crappy. If not i will go to the library on monday and do it.
Joel , our volunteer, has written two great blogs since he arrived two days ago. here are the links for them
http://www.twittertravel.com/profiles/blogs/back-in-guatemala?xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_url
http://www.twittertravel.com/profiles/blogs/the-saga-of-the-well?xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_url