So adorable

This little guy was a heart strealer. He has his new shirt and is looking in to see what else is there.  He is thinking “hummm maybe some rice”. It is so hard to leave these children there and not be able to take them all home with us.

I Want To Brag A Little

I just have to share a little and brag a lot. This is not a good picture and when I get time I will replace this one with a better picture but.... these awesome woman make home made dresses and pants and then others send toys for the children and teddy bears and clothes in all sizes for the men and boys and women and children and the new babies here. I tell you when the children and the teens and mothers and boys and men get these clothes that these people send and make they are so overjoyed. Thank You to those who send clothes also.The need is great and for some reason we are having a baby boom lately. The baby clothes have been awesome and so needed. We have given most of them away.

I just want to take time to thank you all for everything you send. The clothes, all sizes,  the toys, the medical aids  and the tooth brushes and tooth paste and the hair supplies and soap which the teenage girls go crazy over and the blankets and the utensils and containers to keep food in and everything. You all are amazing and thank you is just not big enough.  All of us on our little team of 7 counting us LOL are usually so busy with speaking and handing out clothes and making sure everyone gets something and that the children get a toy so it is really hard to get pictures. But I will try to do better. 

A big thank you to you all who help us supply things for the children and emergency food and supplies when they do not have any. This is a poverty island and poverty here is like nothing we have ever seen before.Squatters who have no place to go but live in a lean to with poles and a canvas and a bamboo mat for the whole family. I could go on but this was supposed to be short LOL 

I just had to say thank you and someone who had been on the field in Guatemala blessed us with pillows and a medical book and more. So I am for the first time in 2 years sleeping through the night and my husband is waking up without his neck hurting. Having been on the assignment we are on they knew what to send. Thank you so much 

A special Thank You to Patty and Loretta and all who help them and for helping them to cover the cost of sending to our people and children here.  Yes, we have fallen in love with them. They are so beautiful and I dare you to come here and not fall in love with these children and teens. There is so many more I want to thank but this is too long now. So please know that we thank you and honor you for your hearts and help. I will post a thank you to the others when I can.

  

This little girl was at a meeting we had and she loved her new dress.  

I met this woman at a mountain village church. She was huddled in the corner against the stone wall.  I motioned to her and asked her if  I could pray for her. With my interpreter we prayed and the little tiny woman would not look up.  I gave her a hug and the Lord let me feel some of the pain this little woman has experienced. It was more than I could handle and I and my interpreter cried and cried. After about 2 hours with her huddled in the corner like you see her now,  She gave me a small smile and I told her I would see her again and so with some of the clothes that have been sent to us to hand out I found some women's clothes that are small enough for her. I also found a sundress that someone made and sent that will fit her.   Thank you to all of you who send us clothes and toys and etc.  They  are so appreciated.   They say she has basically nothing and lives with some of her family but doesn't seem to ever talk or communicate. They told me about what her life had been like and that made me cry more.  I cry as I write this. I just want to see her and love her some more. 

Isn't she the cutest little girl. She is 8 years old and lives on the street. When we came across her she had on flip flops that only covered the front of her feet and were worn so bad. The bottom of her feet were calloused.  Her clothes were old and worn and dirty.  Someone was nice enough to cut her hair.We fell in love with her and she was selling catholic candles to light the candles at the Catholic church for 1 peso each.  I only had 10 peso's with me so you know she got 10 peso's LOL.  My interpreter and I ran back to the apt and got her some flip flops and clothes for her. She loved the filp flops so we thank the person who gave them to us and she loved the dresses.  Someone sent some of the cutest homemade dresses and she loved them.  In the bottom of the sack we put a soft teddy bear that a friend of ours sent us to give out.  She feeds herself and lives by selling the candles so she can eat.  I so wanted to take her home with me.  We are praying for land so we can rescue some of these children.  How can you not love them ?  

This is a hard one for me.  We found this girl walking on the street, dirty, thin and looking like she was a zombie.  We stopped her (my interpreter and the girl who lives below us. )  She wouldn't look straight at us.  Her eyes were dull and lifeless and when we talked to her  she mumbled answers.  I saw her hands, which I wish I could have gotten a better picture. They looked like hands of someone who was old and had worked in the dirt for many, many years. there was cracks clear down her fingernails and  her hands were so rough and calloused dirt that was so far down that it could not be washed out.  I opened her hands and I didn't get to take a picture because she closed them as fast as she could but I got to see the palms of her hands and they were covered with old puncture wounds and then newer ones on top.  I thought at first she was doing it to herself and then when I asked the Lord I felt like it was done to her so that her body would learn not to respond to pain.  We told her that she could come to us anytime she needed help and how to find us.  But a man walked by as she was leaving and gave her a look that I knew and an ugly laugh, he watched her and I realized what his thoughts were.  I wish there were words to say that could express the feelings we all had when she walked away from us and we had to let her go back to what she lived with.  We  are praying that we can find her again.  We wanted to give her clean clothes and flip flops but knew she would get hurt if she came back with anything new.

More Baptisms

Sunday we went into the mountain to a small stone church that we love to go to. It is a long ways and the road is not good, washed out and very rough with big rocks and holes. After the service we went down to the river to baptize some of the people,  It was rainy and windy and cold but it was fun.  In the first picture you will see some of  the people who were baptized. The water was very cold and hard to stand in. But Mark and Rey did an awesome job.  It was a time of joy and laughter and changed lives.

the bottom picture is people  who had walked a long way to be baptized.  Amazing people and a wonderful day. 

Boulevard Ministry (Long)

There is so much to tell you about these children.  The boulevard was made over to look nice for when "important" people come in they are driven in on this street with shops that the normal people cannot afford to shop at. I is along the sea and you will see the ledge that holds the sea back in some of the pictures. The sea is dirty and horrible and words cannot convey the filth in the sea yet these children swim in it daily with no clothes.  We were  praying and singing along the sea edge an I sat down and a little 3 yr old boy came walking towards me totally no clothes and his sister came behind him and I motioned her to come and sit by me.  She did and before long there was a line of children sitting on both sides of me.  The girl with us had a guitar and she asked them what songs they knew. They only knew "not good" songs so she taught them songs about Jesus and put steps to them so the children would remember them.  These children were in dirty old clothes. They are from squatters familes that have absolutely nothing so Mark and one of our team members (Ford) went back to the apt and got clothes to give to them.  And we were able to get them flip flops because what they were wearing was either to big or too small and all worn out and hard for them to even keep on. And someone had sent us a big bag of hard candy and we put it into snack bags and stapled them shut because snack/sandwich bags here are poorly made. 

The top picture is of or team member Jen teaching them songs, the second is only part of the children that came to sit with me.  the 3rd is a picture of a little boy that picked out a pair of Bermuda shorts and a shirt and was so excited that he went behind a palm tree and changed his clothes but he had never had clothes like that so he put them on backwards. The other boys started to tease him and I said no.  So he went back and changed his clothes right. The last picture is of a little girl who had nothing and there she is with her dress and her bag of candy.  There is so much more to tell you and show you but I have to stop.  Thank you to women who send clothes and etc for the children. You are awesome and these children and women need them. We were able to give some of the mothers clothes too.