ONIL STOVES

Three weeks ago on the exact same day that we were trying to get medical help for Maria who had such a bad foot infection we were afraid she would die, we had to deal with another medical emergency. Maria is in Nueva Victoria where we have a feeding program for 120 children. The baby girl in the picture at the top lives across the street from our community buildings in Los Robles. Her parents came to Joel wanting a ride to the hospital an hour away. For $6.00 they could get the ambulance to come, but did not have the money. We paid for the ambulance. The baby was turing blue from breathing problems and we did not want to take any chances. After a couple of days we got a diagnosis. Pneumonia. I told Joel to take pictures of the stove the mom uses to cook all the family meals as I was betting it was an open one that put horrendous amounts of smoke into the single room the family cooked and lived and slept in. I was right. The next picture shows what they cook on. Many little ones live like this and get sick and burned from these open fires. Some die because of them. The last picture is of an ONIL stoves. For about $125.00 a team can buy a stove. It will be delivered and the team instructed how to put it together. It is smokeless and uses in one week the same amount of wood that the open fire uses in a day. We want to start helping get these installed for people. The one in this picture was paid for by a donor and installed in the classroom in Nueva Victoria for the student's mothers to cook the lunch we provide for them. Before they had to cook over an open fire. If you want to buy one or two or three, we have a team coming in two weeks who could install them . Let us know.

thanks for all you do

Vicki

20.vicki@gmail.com

How to Donate

I am doing this post because many of you have asked about having monthly donations set up. I talked to our bank about having a bank draft attached to our website, but after some research I have found that at this time the fees associated with this are not worth the convenience.

We decided to continue with paypal. Our regular donate button (to the right on every page) allows you to donate any amount one time. You can do this with your paypal account or with a credit card without an account.

On our "please help" page--see tab on top to find page--there are 7 options of monthly amounts (it is fixed). When you click on this you can sign up to have that amount put on your credit card every month. You must sign up for a paypal account (which is super easy). If you would like to give a monthly donation that is not listed please let me know and I can ad that button.

Paypal does take a small fee for processing this--but since this is the only overhead taken out of your donation we are ok with this. And if this makes it so you don't forget one month then it is worth it to us and to those you are helping.

The other option you have is to ask your bank to send out a check for you every month. I don't believe they charge a fee, and you can sign up so they will do it for you monthly without you having to remind them.

If you do this or just want to mail a check. Please make it out to Safe homes for Children and mail it to Erin Dalia-Sanofsky 3001 Clemson Ave, Charlotte, NC 28205

If you are donating monthly and it is working well for you then don't feel like you need to change anything. This is for those of you that have asked me about getting it set up monthly so that you don't forget.

As always, we are so grateful for all of your help.

Summertime....And the living is easy

Summertime....And the living is easy........................

One of my favorite songs. But this was not the case around our house this summer.
We arrived in the USA on April 17th after 3 months in Guatemala. We had a 14 hour drive from Ft. Lauderdale, FL where we flew from and saved about $4000.00, and the time in the car helped us decompress because life in Guatemala is so different---so much slower.
We needed this time because we were immediately immersed in the pressure cooker.While we were gone, our son Bryan had many , many problems between him and his wife and they split up. He needed help with his 1.5 and 3 year old sons.[ see a picture of them and 2 more grandkids sitting on the steps} We took the boys for a month the day after we arrived. They are fun boys and we love them, but needed extra care because they are normal tot boys.

Then the first of May, our daughter Hannah[ she is the pretty girl in pink with the bride] came home from college for the summer. She had cold turkeyed off an anti-depressant and was having a hard time. I took her to an alternative doctor I had been hearing really good things about. He started her right off on neurofeedback and after a couple of months and 20 treatments she became her old fiesty, mostly happy self. It was fantastic. I also had him do an extensive physical on me and he found some arterial blockage so I started on chelation therapy. I need 25 sessions. They take 6 hours of time each time I do one. I am half way thru. I am also doing the neurofeedback for my PTSD. They are using it with many war vets.

Our first weekend home was Easter and many of the kids and grandkids[ see the 3 pictures of couples and their kids] that live close came up . We had a picnic and, of course, the boys were playing football--even sixty year old Jody. Making a monumental play [ Jody wrote this] he was pushed out of bounds and cracked a rib, tore his hand to pieces and got reacquainted with hemorrhoids. It took 3 months to repair.

Somewhere in here Gabby had a birthday [ now 6 and in the pic with her new bike ], Scotia turned 17 and Johnny 19 and Emmie 12 , Madeline 8, Katie 5,and Karleigh 7. That is just the kid birthdays. There were also many adult kid birthdays: Jenn, Sarah, Erin, Flossie, Crystal, Rhonda and I am sure I forgot some.

We then helped our 19 year old graduate from high school and get ready for his mission. It was enough to drive us crazy and put a strain on our wallets with all the current dental and medical requirements. He finally got his call to OK City, OK. [ he is in the picture by himself and a suit on].

In mid-June we went North to MN for the baptism of our oldest grandchild [ Madeline turned 8 ][ picture of her and her family of 6 on the couch]. She has the most wonderful singing voice, perfect pitch, rhythm, good memory and played a perfect violin solo at her baptism.

Less than 2 weeks after returning we were off to Guate. Hannah burned out babysitting the 2 weeks we were gone. While there we found a house to buy giving us and other volunteers a permanent place to stay. Makes going down so much easier. Flossie, daughter no. 4 [ in picture with her hubby and 2 boys]refinanced a loan on her property that she had bought from us. The money from this allowed us to buy this house. It is 15 minutes from our projects and 15 minutes from Panajachel in a safe, gated community. All the profits from volunteer visits here will go directly to our projects.

Two weeks later we were in Washington, DC for the wedding of daughter no. 5, Bethany. More fun and stress. She is in the pictures of the bride and groom, duh. bethany and new hubby eric spent part of their honeymoon in Guate working in our projects there. And there is one of our 11 daughters all together and all but 5 of our grandchildren next to the bride and groom. Along with the wedding went bridal parties and kids and grandkids staying at our house. You can see a picture of the homemade water slide all the grandkids and our younger kids loved.

When we got home, school was starting. We homeschool our 5 youngest so we can live in Guate part-time, but it consumes time and persistance.

And those are just the highlights. We are currently getting ready for a couple of more weeks in Guatemala. We want to start the renovations on the house we bought and give some more supervision to our programs. And that's what we wanted to talk about. The school year is winding down in Guate and we have many more students who need scholarships--at least 30 more. And the infant and tots formula program is turning away mothers [ at least 60 in the last 2 months ]. We would like to add 100 more mothers and their babies. Erin will soon be posting the photos and bios of the students who are asking for help. Think and pray about how you can help. And with the formula program, the formula itself is the major cost. Thanks to WIC there are many loose cans of dried formula in this country. If you can collect it, we will figure out a way to get it down.

Remember all your donations are tax deductible and 100% goes to our programs. We pay our own travel and living expenses. The house was bought with our personal money. There is literally no overhead. We are planning our expansion for the coming year. Let us know how you want to help.

The final picture is of my daughter Erin who many of you communicate with. She is with her oldest daughter Katie.

Vicki and Jody and family

http://www.safehomesforchildren.org

20.vicki@gmail.com

Emergency help for Maria

A few days ago friend was visiting the village of Nueva Victoria and found a little girl named Maria. She has not be brought to any of our feeding programs so we did not know she was there. She was born without the use of her legs and she crawls where ever she goes. The friend gave her a wheelchair. They went to check on her yesterday and found her very sick. I am pasting some of the email we were sent...
"she needs medical assistance urgently in Guatemala City, her condition can make her loose her foot or her life, she is just 11 years old, she is taking some antibiotic from their clinic, but this wont be enough, I don't have a car able to reach the community, actually yesterday we got there on a chicken bus, so we need to pay somebody to provide transportation, so we need some kind of help to get that service and the expenses for Maria and her mum, who is a widow, to go to the city where my friend got the professional medical assistance for free."

See pictures below.

We want to help her, we need to get her medical care tomorrow. Anyway that feels like they can help please donate.

Your challenge

Vicki and Jody head to Guatemala in a few weeks.  Your challenge is to fill the 4 suitcases they are taking down.  Right now, Casa de Sion is badly in need of 2 things

1. Infant formula.  

Remember this formula is for babies whose mothers CANNOT breastfeed them.  So if they do not get formula they do not eat.

2. School supplies.

We need anything and everything. (except, go light on the notebooks because the schools there require special notebooks, so our notebooks only get used in our tutoring sessions.) But we need pencils, colored pencils, rulers, sharpeners, calculators, protractors, markers, crayons (if your kid needed it we need it).  And BACKPACKS!  We really need backpacks.  Used ones are fine as long as they are is good condition.  

Please mail everything to Vicki Dalia @ 3303 Pond Mtn Ln, Whitetop, VA 24292
BY
Sept 30, 2011

If you can afford something big--go big

If you can afford something small--go grab some crayons and pencils and put them in the mail

If you don't have time to shop or mail-- then donate the money and tell me what to buy and I will go shopping for you.

And just so you can see who you are helping...

Some of our students

AND

Some of our babies

AND

Some of both

 

 

Thank you for caring and much as we do and helping us help these amazing people!