Greetings Everyone from Beautiful Sunshiny Jerez,
For those of you who are suffering with the cold and snow, we would like to tell you that temperatures here are staying in the 60′s-70′s during the day but are down to the 20′s-30′s at night. We sure do miss the white Christmases.
We’ll be leaving early Wednesday morning to make our trip to the border to try once again to bring the Christmas presents back with us. Please pray for safety as we travel. We will be meeting up with some of our kids in San Antonio and will get to spend a little bit of time visiting with them. We will be coming back Saturday or Sunday. Brother Raul, who is the president of the Children’s home association here in Mexico, will be meeting us one of those mornings with the paperwork that is necessary. Please, please, pray that all goes well.
Thank you so much for all the prayers for Karina, she really seems to have turned the corner. It’s so hard sometimes when we know that something is going on in their life that is causing so much pain and we just can’t figure out what it is. Pray for the rest of the kids also, holidays can be a very difficult time for them.
Luis, our soon to be 16-year-old boy here, was talking to his mom the other day saying that they should consider moving to Jerez to start over. He thinks that if they were to get away from all of the influences in their lives and get involved in our church, that it would be easier for them to allow God to change them. He said, “The change God has made in my life is almost a miracle.” to which his mother replied, “Not almost a miracle, it IS a miracle.” We praise God for Luis and the testimony he has in front of his family and everyone else.
Last week we celebrated the quinceañera (15th birthday party) of Marivi. She was beautiful, both inside and out. The service went great and the food was wonderful. Everybody was having a good time when the lights went out. A transformer blew and left about half the state without electricity. God had intervened in the plans when we were ordering her cake and instead of one, big, wedding style cake, she had thirteen smaller cakes. By flashlight she passed out cakes to some of the different families there. It is so cool when you see how God has everything foreordained even when we think we’re in charge of the plans. We can see where He was guiding even in something so seemingly insignificant as a cake. We had our cake when we got back to the children’s home, using our generator to light things up and the party continued. About ten minutes after we got done eating the lights came back on. I think some of the kids were a little disappointed because we were having a ball!
We were talking last update about all of our financial struggles at the home. It has been a difficult year as our “family” has increased and finances have decreased. We want to say a great big “thank-you” to all of you who responded with gifts. We were able to get our head above water for a brief reprieve. We are planning on making a fund-raising trip in February/ March with the specific goal of raising monthly support for the home. If your church might get involved or if you know of a church that is looking for an opportunity, please contact us and we’ll get it scheduled.
