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Wednesday, 15 July 2009

Hola!

Hola from Jinotepe!

We are all having a great time and have been blessed with good health so far...

While the kids have been at school we have been doing A LOT of painting... We have painted the railing on Casa Grande, the whole outside of Casa Dos, as well as the ninos study/dining room. We have also built some tables and bought some new furniture for the houses...

For the past few afternoons we have been doing crafts, dancing, and watching a few soccer games!

Tomorrow we are going to take the older kids to the top of a volcano and to lunch.

Thank you so much for praying for us and please continue to pray for good health as well as divine appointments with the children. We have also been able to minister to the staff, so please pray for the continuance of that!

Tuesday, 27 January 2009

Home at last!

We are all home!
Thank you for everyone who prayed for JR, he was really sick. He's definitely better now
We can't wait to share our testimonies on Sunday.
Here is a video and a few more pictures from the trip. Enjoy!

JR, Juan, and Ronny playing worship

The ladies hike with aldo

breathtaking
Sierra and Jessinia

Bradley and Katherine

Karen with Gloria

Francella and Meyline

Saturday, 24 January 2009

Saturday!

Saturday Update:

The chicas are in the internet cafe in Jinotepe for a bit while Bradley and Javier go "shopping" for hardware and supplies.

Last night we had a party for Christmas/New Years/January birthdays complete with dancing, cake, icecream and the most sugary soda you can imagine. Isabella did some traditional dances with the older girls, and Deborah led all of the little girls and older girls in ballet. The little ones were so precious in their outfits and crowns. At one point I looked at JR and remarked that God must be telling everyone in heaven "hold on a moment, my daughters are dancing and we need to watch..."

The children were truly precious, and just looking around the room I saw Beka cuddling with the little ones, JR snuggled with his constant shadow Fabian, Bradley holding Eliezar, Jason running amuck with Karla, Karen talking to Julia and Fracella, Sierra taking pictures of Gioconda and Valeria, Deborah coordinating the different groups of girls and me with Gloria on my arm with Meyling and Estrellita playing with my hair and I thought: this is God´s kingdom here on earth. This is it. This is the love of Christ redeeming relationships and healing hurts, the sounds of dancing and little kid laughter are truly the sounds of victory over the kingdom of darkness. Right here in Jinotepe, in the Arms of Love children´s home, Jesus is delighting over his beautiful bride.

I hope that we can get some pictures sent to you from the party. See you all soon!
Hola Everyone!
We are sorry that we haven´t updated the blog. We have had some techincal diffuculties!
Everything is going really well here, and we are thankful for your prayers.
We have been able to paint and fix a lot of things at Arms of Love and we can really see the Holy Spirit at work in this place.
Everyone is doing well, and our health is fine, with the exception of a few bug bites and random skin rashes
Thank you so much for checking our blog and praying for us!

Monday, 19 January 2009

We leave today!

After months of prayer and planning our team of eight people leaves at 5:45 pm today. Six of us are returning members of the team that went in July, and two are new, but all are excited to go and minister to the children at Jinotepe. We'll be there until Tuesday, January 27th.

We plan to work on a couple of projects, painting areas of the houses that need refurbishing, and building some tables for the kids to use for study and play. We are building the tables with adjustable legs so that they can grow taller as the kids do. Also, we're bringing a sewing machine that has been donated, and will work on making clothes and drapes while teaching the kids to sew.

It's not going to be all work, though. We have many craft items with us to make with the children, from beads and other cool stuff for jewelry making to coloring books and tons of crayons for artistic expression. No doubt we'll have many soccer and basketball games, and JR will be playing guitar with the chicos (the older boys).

Thanks to the folks at Vineyard Community Church who shopped and wrapped and tagged everything, we are going to have a big celebration of Christmas in January, combined with a party for all with January birthdays. We have a complete outfit for each child (shirt, pants and shoes), and will have a birthday cake, songs, skits and a big sugar rush!

These children are so wonderful and deserving of love and attention. Many have had traumatic experiences of abuse and neglect in their past, but Arms of Love gives them a home where they are cared for and experience the love of Jesus. Thank you, readers, for your generous gifts for the children, for your donations that financed this trip, and for your prayers for us. Please continue to pray for us while we are in Nicaragua. We need the wisdom and discernment of the Spirit to know how to minister to the children, we need the love of Christ to overflow our hearts and reach them, and we need unity as a team.

We'll send posts and pictures from Nicaragua as often as possible.