my gals

More pics from the Navidad

Here are some more pics to enjoy........

Marvin and MonicaMonica sporting the new hat, glasses, high heels, braclets, and five rings on one hand! You have to love the girl! The joy she brings to all of us!

Pamela

Me and Dorian......not too sure we are even awake

Fernando

FransicoYovani, Daniela, Pamela, Fitto, and Fernando

Mario

Sorry about the dates on the pics that are from 2005..............they are from today just with the wrong date

Christmas morning!

Merry Christmas from all of us here at Casa de Esperanza!

Marjuri sporting the new glasses

KattyFransico needed mommy Jen to help him out.

Here we are.....and Monica doing not too sure what!

Cindy modeling her dress for us all to see

Antonio woke up saying " Papa I am hungry" Well with Dorian he was teasing him and said well the workers do not work today I do not know what we will eat. So Antonio started to whine, and all of the other kids were out there and waiting on Antonio because he is the youngest and he would start first with the gifts. Well he just wanted food. So after I told him there was food in his packages he ran out and started to open them up to look for his food. He found the food........as you can see.

Fitto

Brayan

Yovani

Rudy finally getting to open up his presents. We started with the little ones first and worked our way up. Since Rudy is the biggest he was last. So when it came his turn he was more than ready to open up his gifts!

Merry Christmas

So Christmas is here! Whether it feels like it or not I am not too sure. Some days I think, "Yep it sure is Christmas time" and other days it feels like we are in the middle of summer or something!
The gifts here at the house are all wrapped and under the tree waiting the kiddos in the morning to open them. Thank you to so many of you who gave gifts to our kids this Christmas....it is because of so many people out there who want to help and sponsor these kids that they will have a Christmas!
I will be sure to post some pics of our Christmas morning and all of the kids opening their gifts.

Sunday night we had a Christmas dinner here in the church. It always turns out to be a big hit. I think we had 150 or so. Some faces I has never seen but it was good to see them there and maybe because of this they will some how connect to Jesus! Wanted to take lots of pics to show on here but got carried away and did not remember to do all of that.

Dorian

Love

"I love you because................." ~ This is what the world tries to tell us that we earn love in some form or fashion.

God tells us that he loves us because He does, it is not because of anything we have done. God's love has nothing to do with any attribute or contribution of people.(thank you Lord) It has everything to do with God himself. God is love!
"I love you in spite of............."
The lies, the cheating, the gossiping, the drugs, the alcohol.......you fill in the blank! It doesn't mean God agrees with it but He loves us in spite of all of the "junk" in our lives!


Love......because God loves us!

Wedding

So there is a wedding in the planning!
Dorian and I have set a date and we are getting married March 7th, 2008.
I am getting so excited! I can not wait to spend the rest of the my life with the man who has become my best friend, encourager, strength. I would love for all of you to be here to celebrate with us but I know that is not possible.
We covet your prayers!
I will try to blog and keep you all updated

Dorian

I am beyond blessed to have a wonderful godly man in my life. Many of you have met Dorian and I know that there are many of you still waiting to meet him.

We have been together now for a year and half. We have for sure had our share of ups and downs as any relationship has. We have learned the good and the not so good things of each other. Now we are both just working on to improve ourselves and become better people one for the other.

There as definitely been times in our relationship when I was ready to give up but in these moments we both realized we needed to work in this relationship together! It was not a one person show. We for sure have had to work hard at our relationship. Things have not came easy. Now we are both learning to respect, love, serve, and adore each other each and everyday more and more. That is only because we are taking the time to meet each others needs and taking time just the two of us to be together every day!

In saying all of this I wanted to thank Dorian for the wonderful man he is to me! We were here at the house by ourselves with the kiddos for about 2months. That was a huge blessing on our relationship. In these two months there was no way I would have made it if it were not for Dorian. I would have done flown the chicken coop. He has been an encouragement, example, and servant to me. There were days I was just done and he took over for me, or maybe it was that I just didn't have the patience's left for the day and leans over and reminds me he loves me and to calm down and go take a break.

So to say all of this thank you for all of you who have prayed for our relationship, this ministry, and for me! Your prayers are being answered without a shadow of a doubt! Thank you!

worship

There is such a pureness to children. They sure can be stubborn at times and quite the handful but they are a huge blessing and have big hearts!

Yesterday as they were playing outside they decided they wanted to worship God. In one of the tops of the playground they sat up seats and put plants and little decorations as their area of worship. Their "building" where they came together to worship. Two of the kids came up to me an wanted to let me know that this was a for real thing. They were not playing "church" or anything but they just wanted to worship God! They continued to tell me that they were changing from here on out how they would act. They would now say please always before wanting something, when another child is not listening or want to fight with them they would come to tell me instead of fighting with them, and then lastly they said they would not do bad things anymore. They were going to be good kids to make God happy!

As I sat there and listened I thought how sweet they really are going to try to do this and be good kids but I knew this would not last for long but in the moment it was too sweet.
So they continued to worship. They all got together and circled up and wrapped their arms around each other and on their knees they prayed. As Brayan was on his knees he raised in hands with his face toward the heavens. Sweet, sweet moment! Wish I could captured it for you all to see. They then continued to sing and praise God with all of their heart...........belting out every last cord they sang. Rudy even had a Bible with him reading to them as they all attentively sat and listened.

I think that this is why Jesus calls us to be like the little children!

When will we have the pureness of worship back, I think among all of things we do we get lost and forget that we are here to live our lives as worship!

Put a smile on God's face and worship Him today in ALL you do!

dad

Once again it was good byes for me. My dad was here over Thanksgiving and helped do some projects around the house here. What a blessing that was!
So thanks dad for all you did while you were here! You will never know how much it means for all that you did for us here at Casa.

pics

Statics

Here is some info to take in.................

In a population of nearly seven million, 66 percent live in poverty, many in extreme misery, especially the indigenous people, women, children and the elderly.

~ Approximately 25,000 children suffer from chronic malnutrition and 36 of every 1000 children die from diarrhea each year.

~ One-fifth of the population cannot read or write.

~ And, only 21 percent of Honduran children finish primary school and a mere four percent have access to a high school education.

Thank you to each and everyone of you who have helped us make a difference and are continuing to help make a difference here at Casa de Esperanza. Those could have been our kids in the statics from dying of diarrhea each year.

Roasting marshmellows

Marc started up a bonfire and roasted some marshmellows with the kids!

kinder grad. cont.

This is the after graduation party....the kiddos filling their bellies up

Kinder graduation

Saturday was the kinder graduation. Here are some pictures!Daniela getting her pre-K diploma....it is kinder for her next year she is just not ready quit yet to go to 1st grade.

Fernando getting his pre-K diploma.....it is kinder again next year not so ready to go onto 1st grade

Mario getting his diploma and it is off to 1st grade now

Monica recieving her pre-K diploma, next year she will be in kinder again...just not ready yet for first grade
Cindy also got her diploma and it is off to first grade for her. We did not get a good pic of her getting hers, just her back.

Mario and his class singing.....it is what Mario loves to do.....sing!
The song was "un beso y flor"
A kiss and a flower

lMiss Monica

Monica marching in......well at least she did not run in like her brother when they called his name. Like light he ran to his seat.

Mr. Mario

Cindy.....being shy....she was not too sure about sitting without me

Daniela, Monica, and Fernando

Thanksgiving

Here at Casa we had a wonderful Thanksgiving and got our fill of turkey! We ate turkey, mashed potatoes, noodles and cream, stuffing, corn, rolls, salad, guacamole the ladies threw in, ham, and desserts! It was good to have some of out comfort foods. We have so much to be thankful. The kids all talked before we ate and each and everyone of them named what they were thankful for from food, to beds to pillows to being thankful for each other. It was sweet to hear them say the little things that I do not even thank of that they were thankful for.

Hope that each and everyone of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Here are some pics from our celebration! Here at Casa we are thankful for each and everyone of you and your support and prayers! Here are all of the kiddos getting their bellies full..........they ate and ate and ate........some of them I am surprised that their little bellies didn't pop.

Here is Miss Olivia who helped do a good bit of the cooking

Here we all are filling our bellies

Tia Gina with Daniela, Marvin, and Fitto

Fransico not feeling so well

Us telling one another what we are thankful before we ate. This is Dorian telling everyone what he is thankful for.

Dad......me, him, and Olivia did the cooking.....actually they did most of the cooking and I just helped out here and there.

Marc with Pamela