Let the Work Begin!

Well...after over a month of praying, I will be beginning my work with the orphans on August 20th.

The process was a little discouraging, but the Lord is good, and opened the right doors.

When I first decided that I wanted to work with orphans, it seemed easy. I would just call the orphanage (or my language school would b/c they know the number and the appropriate persons) and tell them that I wanted to volunteer, and they would say: "sure! Thanks so much for wanting to help! Come on by whenever you want!" That was a little bit unrealistic.

The school did call on my behalf, and they were told that I could only work/volunteer if I could commit for 2 months of 4 hours a day 5 days a week. If not, then not at all. Well, there is no way that I could do that seeing as I have a full time job with my 2 kids, Spanish school, and now DTS studies. I was so upset, b/c there is only 1 orphanage now in Xela (after the other one closed when the director molested the children.)

I prayed and really struggled with that. I finally determined to go and talk to them face to face. It didn't make sense that I had to work 20hrs a week or none at all!

Well, a fellow CAM missionary (a Guatemalan) said that she would love to accompany me and help me explain my situation. We prayed right before we rang the bell to announce our arrival at the orphanage that God would open appropriate doors if this is what he desired for me to do.

We went in and Nelly did explain that we are missionaries and that I feel that God had led me to work/volunteer with the orphans in the Xela area. The woman who helped us was so encouraging and welcoming. She basically said..."When do you want to work? For how long? With what age group? What do you want to do?" When asked if I could teach about God, and Jesus, the reply was, "Claro que si!" (or well, sure! of course!) Anyway, they want me to present a "plan" of what I am going to do, with what age group, and if I am going to crafts, songs, etc along with what topics that I will cover each week. Basically a mini-curriculum. HOW COOL IS THAT! I will be working on that this week.

Right now the orphanage has 98 children from 0-12 years old. Most of whom are in there on a temporary basis , meaning that they do have families, just not families that can take care of them. Possibly their parents are in prison, or severe alcoholics, or abusive. Possibly they were abandoned. Some of them are just waiting for a judge to tell them who they will live with. There are still many children who are actually orphans and are there on a permanent basis. Those children go to an internal school.

I will begin working with 6-9 year olds and I will do a little class on "Who is Jesus Christ" and we are going to make salvation bracelets. (you know...the leather bracelets with the colored beads signifying the path of salvation) Well, I am so pumped. I am hoping that many of you will be praying for us as we use this time to freely minister to so many children. Can you imagine just having free reign to teach the gospel to 98 children? A captive audience! We are responsible to gather any craft supplies/ideas. If you have any ideas...I would love to hear them. Any good websites that you know of? Maybe a few of you could come for a visit and help me! I will be working basically alone so I can only handle like 20-25 kids at once (fewer for the younger ones) so if you could pray for some fellow workers. I am just going to be helping there every Wednesday for 2 hours. Maybe sometime in the future I can increase that amount.

Anyway, I am just so excited!

Ok....Here is a video of Deacon making tortillas. I hope he learns how to do this as well as Gladys (the woman who works for us) b/c her tortillas are incredible!