Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Home Dedication

Several of you who read our blog have been here within the last year. You all watched for the few days that you were here, people working on what would be the new boys home unit. On October 3, the last parts of the house were finished and later that day the boys moved in. It was electric. It was loud. It was a such a good moment. Aldolfo, the newest boy here at the home was very careful to show me (Staci) his new bedroom that he currently shares with 3 other boys. He made sure that I saw his part of the closet, and the bathroom that he would share with others. He was so proud.

This past weekend we had the dedication service for that home unit. "Casa Anthony" is the name give to the home in memory a little boy named Scott Anthony who went home to be with Jesus just 17 days after he was born. Our kids learned a dance and prepared songs to sing. Scott, the father of Scott Anthony came to share the story of Scott Anthony. Scott and his wife believed the Lord had called them to be ones to raise the money for the new boys home unit. He shared his story of how they have grown in faith of the Lord through the healing process of loosing a son. Scott Anthony was the second child of Scott and his wife. They now have 6 children. Also the mayor of Villa Nueva (our town of 1.2 million) came and spoke, as did an elder from the church that we attend here.

After the service, we had a reception and the kiddos gave tours of the house. From the kids perspective getting to "go ahead" to eat cookies was the best part of the day. It was hard for them to wait until all of the guests had been through the line.


In other news... the weather has changed a bit. "Winter" has come with a vengeance. It's quite bizarre how our bodies have become accustomed to the weather here. When it's above 80 degrees it's terribly hot, and when it's below 72 it's cold. The past few days I've had on a sweat shirt in the frigid 68 degree weather. Today one of the little boys said it was "pure winter". Our thermometer read 71 degrees.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

The latest...

We last updated on Sept. 25. So much for updating weekly, huh?

Here's a glimpse of what's been going on, and hopefully we'll keep you better informed!

On Oct.3 our kids who are in 9th grade and below finished classes for the school year. The school year here starts in mid-January and ends in October. They, like all kids, were very excited. Also, extra excitement was added for them because after classes finished they got to move into their new house! All afternoon the "big pickup" ran back and forth between sides hauling their stuff.

On Oct. 4 we went to the airport to pick up a team from First Baptist Church in Canyon, TX. It was so great to see people we knew, and it was good to know that we had them for more than a week. They, unlike most teams, did not do construction stuff, they had preplanned and then led activities for our kids everyday that they were here. The team of 13 came with 26 checked bags, and 13 carry ons. In those bags were mountains of supplies, and a few goodies for us to! For just a sampling of things they did: they taught on the fruits of the spirit, the armor of God, inner beauty, tye-dyed t-shirts, made homemade ice cream, had a "Texas night" complete with jalapeno poppers and Texas sized chocolate chip cookies and like all nights "Texas" we danced the Cotton Eyed Joe. Part of the team went with a small group of our kids to climb volcano Pacaya and the others stayed back to have the ultimate craft morning with the little ones and a "water" afternoon with a slip-n-slide. They spent lots of hours hanging out with our kids. Our kids loved it, and the team loved it.

The team left at 5am Monday morning. After returning from the airport, we both crashed.

Now that our kids are out of school the sound level during the day has increased. It's fun to hear them playing and enjoying their "summer" vacation.

We took a small hiatus from our small groups with having the team here. So tomorrow night we'll begin having not 2, but 3 small groups each week.

We'll leave you tonight with a few pictures of time that we had with the team.