We are standing on a hill overlooking beautiful Lake Atitlan. Evelyn was here last week and she and I spent much time planning the work projects for her team of 25 coming in July. They will be divided into several teams of workers. One team will work on the new land with the new construction helping to get the foundation ready for building no. 2 and doing some landscaping. Another will build a bunch of wooden shelves for kids clothes, kitchen equipment and the storehouse for donations. Another will work at the orphanage with the kids and a final one will buy crafts to take back in their empty suitcases [ after donations are taken out ] and sell in the states.
I always love having Evelyn come and she is such a great help to us.
This next picture is of one of our indigeneous families that we help. The four oldest children, Manuel, Rosa, Rolando and Carlos have resided at the orphanage for 2 years now. The mom and dad [ not shown ] can not afford to feed, clothe, or educate them so we do that. We give the parents enough money to come visit once a month. We are supposed to receive their sister Carolina any time now. The mom had a new baby a couple of months ago who died at birth. Manuel and Rosa are top in their class and all the kids are well behaved. Manuel has a great talent for art. I have watched him take a cartoon figure and copy [ not trace ] it onto paper perfectly. I would love to have someone sponsor him for art lessons and bring to him some art books.
The next picture is of Luis an 11 year old here. Luis was abandoned by his mom at age 1 and then raped by his male relatives until age 9 when he was taken by the courts. He has been with us two years. He is a handsome boy and can be very charming. He also has a violent temper [ not unexpected for a child who has gone thru what he has ]. He has a wonderful woman and her parents - in - law who are sponsoring him and wrote him a most inspiring letter. As well as donating to his upkeep. Our psychologist is also working with him.
The last picture is of our new rental house. It is very large inside and we have had alot of compliments on it. It is hard to please the courts in this country so that makes us happy. They came and saw Noah, the infant, the other day and were very complementary about how much he has grown and how well he is being taken care of.
The last thing I would like to talk about is our donators and volunteers. We have really been blessed lately. Evelyn has given us the money to buy two rocking chair for our baby program which were sorely needed and hard to find. While she was here and I was meeting with her, a large group of 12 churches in the states had a womens' work day and made 37 twin and crib blankets, a bunch of flat sheets, personal care kits, school supply bags, and infant gowns. They also donated a 5 by 8 trailer full of second hand clothes, shoes and toys. And an American company working in Guate City picked us as their orphanage to donate all we could haul in our van of new items from PriceSmart [ the Guate City equivalent of Sam's Club/Lowe's building supply ]. Pedro and I were able to load $3500.00 worth of much needed items in 1.5 hours. Holly has collected 77 more midwife kits that will help so much in lowering the infant/maternal death stat in this country and she had a church donate handmade clothing and quilts. In Aug., we have a youth group coming down to dig the septic system for our new buildings. These are just a few of the groups helping helping us out. You can not imagine what it means to us.
Some of our needs are
Money for building
Money to start the pregnancy center/midwife training center; I have spoken with a doctor who will donate her time to design the program along with all the stats we need and Holly, who is a midwife, has volunteered to come and help get it started.
Volunteer teams to work on both.
Our road put in on the new land; we have a Canadian family who has volunteered to do this and another Canadian group who is helping to find funding for it. It is badly needed. I was walking the land yesterday and while going down one of the steep hills I fell and am laid up for a couple of days. Thank goodness nothing broke.A road to walk on and dirve on would help so much.
A volunteer to work as my administrative asst. and get everything and everybody organized on a program such as Microsoft Word Access.
Sorry the picture with the new house disappeared. I am still learning about computers and all they offer.
Thanks to everyone
Vicki
http://www.safehomesforchildren.org
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