Our house is closed! Jose is sick!

God has been blessing in amazing ways and I just wanted to share one of them! 

Although our house is closed because Jose is very sick God has brought a way that we can still have kids here. I can say some days I am more thankful than others! Like the night I forgot to go and tell the kids it was 8PM they had to go home. By the time I got outside it was 9 and they were putting puzzles together in the dark!

We live in a very small and poor part of town where there is nothing to do if you are a kid. So our most amazing Conca Family gathered a park for us! Yes it actually is a park, minus the land! So our house is currently the park, playground, soccer field, volleyball field, little toddler house, tether ball, and just hanging out working with Paulino. Oh yes and culturally you can bring your dog anywhere so I would have to say it is the local dog park too! 

We have gone through tons of bottled water and toilet paper this month! We have also got to love on the kids and show them that we are just here to be the hands and feet of Jesus. At the end of this blog I put our verse as we call it! Psalm 113 it has come true so many ways. God has given us tons of kids and as we continue to build relationships with them we need your prayers! Some of their lives are really hard and some of them carry a huge burden and are just starting to open up to us after over a year of being here. Others have just started coming over to hang out even if they do not play on the toys they just like to be here and do nothing. 

Homework is over for now thank God! I should be getting my Mexican Residency soon and can enroll in independent studies where I will be able to study and invite the local moms to join me. Then next year when homework comes I will be better prepared. 

There have been so many people coming by and blessing us or just sending us cash so we can bless others I wish I could write them all but I have a baby who needs fed! 

PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR ALL OF OUR KIDS! Especially Jose the kids here love him very much and are just now started to see that his sickness is a no win battle! Please pray for protection for our kids. Some of the moms want to leave their husbands and trust me they have good reasons! However we would rather the husbands leave! God is in the healing business and can heal marriages and families. It would be awesome if these families would come to Jesus. We have had some huge open doors to share with them. Their hearts seem so hard however nothing is impossible with GOD! 

Paulino and his helpers working on the last structures.

The ladder is too short so we are getting creative right now it is looking like tires! 

 Gianna and her friends! Yes there was even a playground brought for toddlers! 

Psalm 113 The Message (MSG)

113 1-3 Hallelujah!
You who serve God, praise God!
    Just to speak his name is praise!
Just to remember God is a blessing—
    now and tomorrow and always.
From east to west, from dawn to dusk,
    keep lifting all your praises to God!

4-9 God is higher than anything and anyone,
    outshining everything you can see in the skies.
Who can compare with God, our God,
    so majestically enthroned,
Surveying his magnificent
    heavens and earth?
He picks up the poor from out of the dirt,
    rescues the wretched who’ve been thrown out with the trash,
Seats them among the honored guests,
    a place of honor among the brightest and best.
He gives childless couples a family,
    gives them joy as the parents of children.
Hallelujah!

Mothers Day! Mattew 10 8

Feliz Dia De Los Madres.  Freely you have received; freely give. Happy Mothers Day to our local women who were so blessed yesterday to receive clothes for them new and slightly used for all sizes!

Mothers come in all shapes and sizes here in Camalu! Nancy who says she is 16 but her brother says she is 13.

Gabriela who moved back from the states so her husband could be near his family then her abandon her 8 months pregnant and with 2 boys already. 

A mother scavenging at the dump with her family.

A happy mother playing kids games on new years day!

Paula a  grandmother who was mother to her grandson for 11 years until Christ changed her sons life! 

Esme who lived at the womans home we go and finally reunited with her husband after he finished rehab.

Gume a mother who loves Jesus and her three disabled kids! 

Lupe who loves kids but God has yet to give hre any due to a divided cervix! 

Children's Day Celebration

Ápril 30 every year is Children's Day and usually it is celebrated in the schools and looked forward to by each child. However this year the teachers are on strike and before that the field workers so the kids have been out of school for the last month. They started coming over at 7am and the entire day we had kids at our house. All together there were 74 kids under 10, all of those and the older kids and adults received ice cream.

The day started with an all day lego party! 

A happy kid showing his mom his gift!

Now it is the boys turn! 

Giving the girls pajamas and dresses!

The boys were too excited when the seen the wooden toys that Gianna had to play guard while they waited for the girls to finish receiving their gifts! 

Today as in other days of the week I see many people wearing clothes that were donated for them.

This family lives on the otherside of town and we knew it would be hard for them to come back at 5 so we gave them their gifts early! 

No gifts for teens on kids day just futball and ice cream! 

A few girls waiting around to see if they could get a wooden toy.

Glenda face painted the entire time. There was a party going on next door and our neighbor was so happy all the kids at her party could also receive gifts and their faces painted! 

Our local moms lining up with their strollers and older to gets to put their names on the gift list. 

More kids playing legos during the day.

Glenda cut the hair of Eva and her 3 brothers, this is an expense her parents could never afford. 

The beauty salon and barber parlor. Last week was a chiropractor office! 

There were a few wooden toys left over for a few girls.

These are our boys and when they seen the other kids come from the neighbors they were concerned there would not be enough. Paulino assured them Jesus knew how many kids would be there today! 

People starting to gather and put their names on the gift list. 

The moms ready with their baby girls for the pajamas! These are used day and night! 

Glenda finally getting to the end of the line! 

Paulino and Gianna on watching the boys as I go get the ice cream ready! 

Girls with their new dresses.

What do you mean we are under 11!

 

Mom tell them that I am under 11 please!

You can put a dress on them but you can not make them stop playing futball! 

The boy in the flourescents had come from the other party received his this outfit for his gift went and changed and then came back for ice cream. We had never seen most of these kids or their parents before! Jesus will be brought to all parts of Camalu He will bring them here. 

Emotional Rollercoaster

Only DMD moms understand the amazing joy and sorrow of celebrating Joses 16th birthday! We enjoyed kids, cake and ice cream, carne asada dinner and breakfast! 

Gods provision starting to build on the new land! God holds the future! Jeremiah 29 11

Sadly Domi has had one of her legs removed due to infection. On top of the fact that she has spina bifida and lives in complete proverty. Has been hospitilized for another infection a week before this photo. Praising God a family stepped in to provide diapers for her and the baby! Please pray her little sister can go back to junior high! 

Blessed to be a blessing!Linda filled up the truck with toys for Chrildrens Day and a ice chest to put the food in to keep warm for the trash dump and honestly have not even opened the other bags of blessings! 

 

 Jose got to know his half brothers for a few years at Mefiboset! Javier went to heaven at age 16 after battling pneumonia and Feliciano  days later at age 14! Jose almost 4 years later seems to be healthier than ever! Although as a reminder on my facebook this month many reminders like today! God has deteremind our days on this earth and then we will be with Him!

The blessing of pajamas for our babies and kids around town. Living in a desert it gets cold at night and many use them as clothes during the cold days! These will be our presents for kids day April 30. 

Trying to encourage the parents that school is important but if one childs school supplies cost a week salary. How can we not help When we start sewing classes they will learn to make uniforms for their own kids and to sale at a low price because they need two uniforms at 1 week salary each!

Pancho was recovering and living with us as such a blessing always willing to cook and help out around here. However sadly he went to work in the fields and has not been back. His belongings are still here. Please pray he is not drinking again and he is safe. 

We praise God that the Camalu dump now only has 4 people living there and only 2 of them are from the original 14 that lived there when we started 3 years ago. Please pray for these men and especially the men in VG when we started no one was allowed to live there but now there is a whole town! Sadly there is a lot of trash because the economy level of Vicente Guerrero is much higher than Camalu. 

Politics! People! Pride! Poverty!

Well these have been a lot of the words going around on Facebook Pages lately all relating to the problems we are having locally! For over 20 years the migrant workers have been brought here to the Baja to pick fruits and vegetables and export them to the states and other places! Well I for one am tired of the drama!

I do not like to get into politics or debates about others rights since without God it is all temporary! BUT I just have to put in my two cents worth!

There have been so many comments and opinions and thoughts! These people are uneducated and they truly have no voice! Even if their salary was doubled and they only had to work 8 hours a day they would still only make $2 US an hour! I made more than that in 1982 when I started working at 12 years old in a restaurant! Yes land is cheaper here and building a house is cheaper here but the daily cost of living is not! It is the same as in the US or more for many things! SO how can you buy land or a house if you can not meet your daily needs!
How can they read the WORD of God to know they only TRUTH that will set them free, if they can not read?
The majority are no longer migrant they live here and this is their home. They may have been born here since many workers are so young and uneducated. Many were never registered since their parents were never registered! You can not apply for a birth certificate if your parents have no id! Which means no school, no future to get better, just a cycle of poverty!

I was once told by a person who has been coming to the Baja for years: "The poor you will have with you always!" Yes this is true but if you read the rest of it Jesus said to do something about it. That person returned back to their nice comfortable life while the poor were still poor! We have been sent to Camalu to change the poverty mentality, to help them see Jesus and depend on HIM!
The battle here is not physical poverty as much as spiritual poverty! If we can help one family a day? Give them a ride to doctors, bless them with rice and beans, diapers, or meet a practical need to show that Jesus is in the details, then they will see Jesus in us! We need to be contagious!

 PLEASE LET'S FOCUS ON THE ETERNAL NOT THE SEASONAL!

Mark 14:7The Message (MSG)

6-9 But Jesus said, “Let her alone. Why are you giving her a hard time? She has just done something wonderfully significant for me. You will have the poor with you every day for the rest of your lives. Whenever you feel like it, you can do something for them. Not so with me. She did what she could when she could—she pre-anointed my body for burial. And you can be sure that wherever in the whole world the Message is preached, what she just did is going to be talked about admiringly.”

Gilberto at 12 took on the role of his mother when she died 3 years ago. Eva his sister has CP and he has two younger brothers. One who works in the fields with his dad, when there is work.

Canda takes care of her younger sister now that Domi has a baby to take care of. This means no more Jr. High for Canda just like it meant no school for Domi!

Domi and Jose holding Mari Estrella. Domi has Spina Bifida and recently had her leg cut off due to infection, then returned to the hospital with another infection. Her and Jose's smiles are contagious!

Eva's aunt who tries to help take care of her when she can. The bags are full of baby clothes for her new baby!

We met Juan's mom one day and we just happen to be given diapers in his size! He fell and broke his hips so he no longer walks.

Since Juan is non verbal I guess he would be saying Mom I am hungry!