Update on the orphans

Hello friends,

We wanted to let you all know about the three new additions that we have received since December 24th. On Christmas Eve, we received two little sisters who had been abandoned by their alcoholic father. Rosa Linda is the oldest at eight years old and her sister Areceli is five.

Then four days later we received a young boy named Jose who is nine years old. He was living in another orphanage in Mexico but was being abused by the staff. This orphanage contacted pastor C and it was decided that he should come to live permanently at our orphanage in Teopisca.

Currently there are 13 abandoned children living here. We thought that there would be more but because of various circumstances several children have not been able to arrive or remain at our orphanage.

Rosa, who is 13, arrived the last week of November. Her father and mother died so she is truly an orphan and until she came to the orphanage she was living with another family in San Cristobal. She only has one hand as one of her arms was burned in a fire and has been amputated at the elbow. She cannot use her other hand as it has some sort of abnormality as well. After a few weeks of living here in Teopisca, it was realized that she could not really do anything for herself; she could not eat, go to the bathroom, bathe, change her clothes, or carry her things without help. It was decided that this was too much additional work for one family to overcome as there are so many other children. So she has since been taken to live with another family that can give her the individual attention she needs. We want to thank all of you who sent Christmas presents down here to give Rosa but we have to regretfully tell you that she did not receive them as she left just before they arrived. Please pray that Rosa would be taken care of and that this family would continue to share the joys of Christ with her.

We thought that we would have received another child by now but there have been numerous problems with obtaining her birth certificate. Her name is Chispeta and she is two years old. She currently lives with her mother in the prison where she was born and where my pastor goes and preaches every week. The situation is not good as her mother treats her very bad; emotionally as well as physically. Her mother has been certified as “mentally ill” (they use the word crazy down here in Mexico) and she has been reprimanded several times for throwing Chispeta up against the walls of her cell in some of her moments of insanity. We are told that the transfer to our orphanage was certain but all her paperwork has to be completed properly before this can be accomplished. Please pray for this little one in the days ahead.

We also thought that one of the children that used to live at the orphanage would have returned by now as well. Her name is Estela and I believe she is 11 years old. She and her two brothers, Manuel and Maki, lived here in Teopisca at the orphanage for over two years but recently they returned to live with their mother who is sick. Their mother has terminal cancer and it was thought that they might be able to help her in these last few months of her illness. It has not been a good situation since these three arrived back at their mother’s house (actually a little wooden shack about 10 feet by 8 feet where 12 people live). Estela has lost all of her hair and has a skin disease of some kind, Manuel and Maki continue to by physically abused and they all have been in trouble with the authorities because they are all back on the street stealing food because they have very little to eat. Please pray that these three will be able to return to Teopisca very soon.

The first two photos are photos of the two little girls the day they arrived at the orphanage... Areceli is on the left in the first photo and on the right in the second pic...they arrived with only the clothes on their backs...

Here are some more pics of the two girls...

Areceli


Rosa Linda


The both of them...


The only two pics that we have of Jose so far....but there will be plenty more in due time...





A current picture taken on January 12, 2009 in the backyard of our house...




Left to right:



Jose - 9 years old

Lucio - 13

Esteban - 8

Pati - 8

Rosa Linda - 8

Orlando - 6

Rich - 8

Alex - 6

Cristian - 5

Betito - 3

Nichita - 6

Sarita - 3

Areceli - 5



Here are three pics of the three ciblings Estela, Manuel and Maki....


Estela is the one standing up....

Manuel..

Maki..


That is all for now...

Christmas time already!

Hello everyone,

We wanted to take a moment and share some Christmas photos with you all of the children.

Actually we had different days of Christmas as we had several different groups of people that sent some gifts down here for the children. So we had our traditional Christmas celebration and then we had another day for sharing presents.

My brother-in-law, nephew, niece and another friend visited us for 10 in December and they brought presents down from our church and from family members so that it would be a special Christmas for these children. So before they left, we all gathered at the orphanage and watched as all the children opened many presents. It was such an awesome night and we thank all of you that had a hand in being such a great blessing to these children. Below are some pics of that special day.

In Mexico, Christmas is celebrated on the night of the 24th. So just as we did last year, we went to spend Christmas with the children. As is the custom, pastor C brings a sermon from the word of God and then we all sing songs of praise and worship to our Lord concerning the coming of His only begotten Son to this world. We open presents and then the kids break two piñatas filled with candy and goodies. We had a whole bunch of visitors come to our little fiesta and take part in our celebration, which was good because any of them had never heard the gospel proclaimed as it was this night. Below you will find photos of this evening as well.

Here is the gang opening up the presents....



Some individual pics...

Ricardo


Carlitos


Esteban

Cristian

Orlando

Lucio

Alejandro

Betito


Pati

Sarita

Nichita

Keyla

Paloma


The gang showing off all of their presents....their socks and underwear and then another pic with all of the other presents...





Here are some pics of us having fun with the pinata...

Joshua´s first pinata...

Cristian getting ready...

Pati taking her best shots...

Ricardo showing off the marks of what happens when you don´t pay attention to someone swinging the stick at the pinata...he didn´t make that mistake again...

It was cold that night of the 24th...

Sarita, Joshua and I in front of the big Christmas tree in central park here in Teopisca...

And little 7 month old Joshua saying bye-bye...that is all for now...

Kids Club - backpack give away

Hello everyone,

We hope that you all have had some good holiday times with friends and family.

We have not sent out a blog post in some time but that is not because there has not been anything to blog about.


Several months ago we started up a kids club called Club Aguila (Club Eagle) on the property of another missionary couple down here. Sarita and I teach every other Saturday with another couple teaches the other Saturdays.


About 45 kids showed up the first couple of Saturdays but now on the Saturdays that Sarita and I teach we have about 20 -25 children that show up on a steady basis. We don’t have all of their names down yet but they know us and we know them by face. Several times in the last few weeks we have been driving around town and I will hear a little voice shout out, "Lance" and I will turn and see the face or faces of a few of the faithful children that come to the club.


I am teaching through the book of Genesis with our last lesson about the tower of Babel in chapter 11. Before the new lesson we review what we have learned to date; meaning we go all the way back to chapter one and I ask questions and the kids answer. It is such a blessing to hear their responses now because on day one there were no responses except for one child who could tell us a little something about God and creation. And I mean no responses. These children knew nothing. I thought that at the beginning they might have just been shy and that is why they didn’t answer but I don’t believe that to be the case at all. I believe it was because they truly knew nothing of what I speaking.


Now we can ask the children about creation, and who were the first two people created, and how they were created, and what were their names, and how many days did God create, and what happened with the tree that God told them not to eat from, and what happened after they ate the fruit. We can ask them who where the first two children of Adam and Eve and why was God angry with Abel and what did Abel do.



They can tell us when asked how many people were in the ark and all about the animals and about the birds that Noah sent out after the rain. They can answer about the rainbow (still working on exactly why the rainbow is in the sky…they still can’t give a good answer for that). Hopefully in our next lesson they will be able to tell us why everyone speaks a different language around the earth. But we will probably have to go over that several times before they get that one.


On Saturday December 27th we passed out backpacks to many of the kids that have been coming. The backpacks were filled with supplies and toys and candy. The backpacks have been a tradition down here for many years now. They are supplied by a fairly large missionary effort out of San Cristobal that give out thousands of backpacks every year and ministry supplies like vacation bible school supplies. All the children that have been at the orphanage for over a year now have these backpacks but the new kids do not. Well now they all have these backpacks.

Please continue to pray that God will use the word that these kids are hearing on a weekly basis to bring them to a knowledge of sin, a saving knowledge of Christ, and of Christ’s great sacrifice on the cross so that they might glorify Him with their lives one day.


Below you can take a look at some photos from various weeks.


Lance, Sarita and Joshua






When we showed up the first day we didn´t think that many kids were going to show up because we waited for some time and only had a handfu.

But little by little they started showing up from all over...even out of the cornfields...they were not there and then all of a sudden here they come...

And then there were a whole lot of kids....praise the Lord!!!!

And they kept coming....

Here are Sarita and I teaching the first story for the first Club Aguila...in the third pic below you can see a wooden house behind my truck...maybe with the exception of 2 or 3 of these children, they all live in wooden structures as this is one of the poorest communities in Teopisca...

Some close up of these dear children...

So what in the world has all these kids in such a fuss????

This would be the reason!!!! You gotta love how $4 of candy keeps the attention of so many...

Here we are having a puppet show...this was on the third Saturday I think....

Here we are playing some games....they love these games....the second pic below shows the kids playing with a beach ball...they had no idea what that was and they fell in love with it immediately...it was soooo funny to watch this herd of 30 kids just move in unison as the wind took the ball all over the place...

And what are Sarita and Joshua up to when she is not helping me....well, they are just hanging out having fun...they kids are in love with Joshua and the little girls all want to hold him and play with him...

This was last weekend when we gave out the backpacks to the kids. There was a message from the word of God and some games and then gave out the backpacks...

The parents were invited to this event so that they could hear the word proclaimed as well...

We gave out thirty or forty of these red, yellow and blue packs...

Here is some of the gang showing off their new possessions...

That is it for now!!!!