Casa de Sion

Well there is news to tell. First my life has been busy since returning to the states on the 20th of Nov. Of course there was Thanksgiving and all my kids were here except the two oldest and their families. My oldest son has a baby due any day and my oldest daughter and my sil and two granddaughters had a wedding to go to in CA. So there were 16 kids , some spouses and five grandchildren. My youngest grandbaby lives here with his parents. We made them a small apt. on the third floor so that someone would be in our house while we are in Guate. He was 6 weeks when I saw him first. We drove in our driveway at 2 am and his mama said he woke up just before we pulled in. I told her he wanted to officially meet his grandma. So it was another hour before we got to bed. He is so sweet and sitting and rocking him is my greatest pleasure right now. I loved seeing the other grandkids also. They are two nine month olds, one 16 month old, and one 3 year old. It was so special having them here for 4 days. All us ladies attended the baby shower of my grandbaby due in Jan.
Did I tell you what a treat it is to drive the roads of the US at night and not worry about banditoes. Or to not have to chlorox everything you eat. Or to not worry everyday about whether I am going to get lice or scabies from a new child at the orphanage. Or to not have to go to church and be responsible for how 40 more kids look and act.
I love the work we do in Guatemala with the kids, but it is so hard. The last week we were there, my beautiful 17 year old daughter was seen by the Diario, a hugh Guatemalan newspaper with a readership in the millions. They asked where to find her and tracked her down. Then wanted her to be on a two page spread in the paper and promised modeling jobs from the spread. Of course all the pictures would be in bikinis. I saw it as nothing but trouble and luckily after talking with my daughter she saw it the same way. I was so proud of her that she told them no. She loves living in Panajachel and I like many things about it, but you have to be so diligent raising children there. I guess you have to be in the states also.
Well for Guatemalan news. The orphanage land is bought. We now own 10 acres ready to be bulldozed and built on. ONly problem is the bulldozing is much more than we thought. A good fast guy wants $10,000.00 to do the work which includes a 1200 foot road, leveling for the buildings and a soccer field. He will have the work done in a week. Then the family we bought the land from offered us a great deal on a piece of the road frontage land. We have gotten them to agree to $8000.00 now and the rest in a year. They will even give us the title now, but that is another $8000.00 we need right now. The builder is ready to go and has promised to be done in 4 months with all the buildings. He wants to buy the materials now as they will go up after Jan. We are afraid to do it until the road is done. We need to move into our permanet home really bad as the children are having to move again. The hotel we were in can not handle our water needs so we are moving this week to another location with tons of water. This moving is very unsettling and we need a permanent location.
The government drives us nuts, constantly coming in and complaining about everything. They want us to have a 3 to 1 child, nanny ratio. And other things of a similar nature. Then after a week of complaining, they send us a pregnant 12 year old, a 5 year old and another 14 year old. This week we are supposed to get a sibling group of seven children.
So please, please help in anyway you can. We can use a volunteer staff here in the states organizing volunteers and donations and putting out emails everywhere. Always we can use donations. If you send them to my home in the states in the next month, I can haul them to Guatemala when I go back. Write me an email at 20.vicki@gmail.com for my address.
And the most precious commodity is money as it is keeping us from growing. Unless we get the money for the cost over runs on the bull dozer work and the extra land, we will have to reduce our buildings from 3 to 2.
I also want to start a feeding program as more and more mothers and children are coming to us for food. Very malnourished children who need the food. I want to start a crisis pregnancy program to help street mothers and teen mothers as there is nothing to help them. No social services here in Guate folks, only you and what you can do.
Thanks so much for all you have already done. Please keep it up. You help keep our spirits up.
Vicki and Jody