Happy Birhtday Jesus 2015 Thank you to all who give all year and especially at Christmas when most kids do not receive a gift at all.

Chabby is 23 but the size and mind of a 3 year old so she is included in our gift giving!

Ruth with her Christmas box! 

Annemarie celebrating her birthday with us! 

Daisy and Triny finishing the day with delicious cupcakes Linda made over 200!

Me and Gianna starting the day with games and prizes.

Arturo and Joset receiving backpacks and school supplies. 

Maritza and her friend opening their gifts. Most take them home and open them. 

Brianna helping her brother Yael to break the little kids pinatas! The moms waiting in the background to dive for their kids candy. 

Ale and her siblings distributing the gifts. She packed all 154 bags especially for each child. 

This is just some of the gifts! About 30 of the kids did not make it so we were able to send them to the north part of town where we are helping  a family do what we do! Now they are a family living for Jesus! 

Linda and Gianna helping to give the game prizes.

My in laws do not have a personal relationship with Jesus but they are always willing to go to the dump and to cook and to help and serve in whatever way possible! We praise God for each of them! 

The moms ready to help their little kids receive their gift! 

 She was so happy she won. These two girls were visiting grandparents and were able to receive gifts and play games!
 

Ale and her boyfriend with her highlighters even her father's brother  helped, red shirt on rightside! 

Ruth breaking the pinata Ale made for the 4-8 year olds. 

Please pray for all of our kids but especially these two and their families. Jesus on the left is the local witches grandson. Miguel Angel on the right and his entire family is famous in our town for being thieves. They live by selling vegetables and whatever they can find to sale. We praise God for each child each family and each opportunity He gives us to love them like Jesus does! 

We also praise God to all who give and pray and go! 

Hurricane! El Niño! Hot Hot Weather!

Please pray for Mexico and especially for Camalu! Where we live is a very unpopulated part of Camalu towards the middle of Baja California North. We are far from the hurricanes however we live in the desert and the drought is effecting all of us! 

For me it has been about a 6 month spiritual drought! Although I love the hot weather I do not like having a dry spirit! I have to admit I can not tell you exactly when it happen or what caused it but what I do know is that the whole time God has been there with me! Calling me and holding me! 

I have been a little lost at fighting the battle of changing hearts and not cultures but I know when hearts change cultures will change too. However I get very defensive when I see the kids are being effected by cultural things especially when it comes to witch craft and false teaching!  

In my quiet time this morning sitting on the bathroom floor at 5am in the cold it came to me! Do not grieve do not be afraid! Rejoice! 

So where did this come from it came from a verse in 1 Kings 11 Verse 22! If you look at a version other than NIV it says he brought back apes and peacocks! Why did they write that, why did they bring them. what did they do with them, where did they store them onboard, how did they capture them, when they arrived what was their purpose! Ok the peacocks I can imagine have beautiful feathers but apes, baboons, monkeys what ever the version you use! I lived on a ship for two years and I just have so many questions about the apes. I mean it is just this year I realized Noah had more than one pair of each animal on board! And that God destroyed EVER ONE else on the earth other than what was in the ark! 

Actually I think it was just so I could laugh and get out of the desert! Sometimes that is what I feel like a big ape trying to speak a foreign language, live in a culture and economy different than what I know. Raising a child in a world that I am daily learning to live in. 

I do not want to be perceived as King Kong trying to find the one he loves and showing love in his ape way! I want to be like Jesus so that others will want him! 

I am so tired of others tooting our horn! No we are not great we are not amazing we are just living for Jesus! Some days more than others, we want others to know Him because of His life changing power that has changed us and is changing us! 

PLEASE PRAY FOR A FLOOD! Not the one that has been predicted at our house but the one that the living water can bring! We need Jesus to flood our lives so that the sweet sweet water can over flow into others! 

This is our desert land the green you see is the overflow water from clothes and dish washing! The neighbors are prepared for the flood of rain but they need the flood of Jesus! 

A Desert Is Dry But There Are Plants!

Matthew 12:33

make the tree sound (healthy and good), and its fruit sound (healthy and good), or make the tree rotten (diseased and bad), and its fruit rotten (diseased and bad); for the tree is known and recognized and judged by its fruit.

Have you ever had a cactus apple or some great aloe vera juice? Well I am praying that this is what today's blog will be a sweet sweet fruit on a hot day!

Cesar, Esme and Joycelin receiving their much needed school supplies! 

Paulino extending out house 6 feet so we can have more space for the kids to do homework and for Jose to move around. 

Yes I was a bean counter in the states and praying my daughter will learn young! We are thankful to all who support us both financially and prayerfully so we can provide meals to those in need! The Coca Cola was a gift and I asked Jose why are people always bringing us Coke, he said they are trying to kill us! 

The biggest miracle of all is after 16 years Jose got to meet his birth mother and one of his little sisters.

He took them to church and he has already been praying for his mom for years. 

 Paulito's mom left them about two years ago so his two sisters now go to the fields to help his dad while he stays home to watch the house. So now 3 of them are not in school nor do they have a desire to go to school. At first it did not make sense to me why would these parents not push their kids to go to school! I now understand, as we have been doing Jr High homework which has proved difficult for me since I have not done it in 20 years! I can imagine now how the parents feel many have not gone to school past 3rd grade, never learned to read or write and especially not science or history! Why would you invest two weeks salary in uniforms another week in shoes and then more in school supplies? Why would you do this if the end result is only after junior high my kids will go to the fields to pick vegetables and fruits for $8 a day. 

Yet there is the opposite of Paulito's family! The huge family down the street is Christian and the parents never went to school either. They have a few business' and they send their kids to school all the way to university if they will go. Yes they struggle financially and yes some of their kids are not walking with God! However they know the solution is Jesus and the only way out of the ghetto as we say where I am from is a miracle! Look to the Miracle Maker not for the miracle! 

This past year we have been amazingly blessed with sports equipment and a playground for our neighbors! It has opened doors like you could not imagine a church across town even brought their team over to play our team! People who would never come over and stopped by to see what is going on and we ask them how are you doing? Do you need some beans and rice or some Mana Pack? As we see what they are wearing if they appear to be in need we offer them clothes or shoes if we have them. We were also blessed with reading glasses and have been able to bless many to start reading again offering them a new testament so they can read the word of God. Some others who can not read but need to sew are now able to! 

I just think sometimes our life is like that of the desert fruit! No one sees it and how beautiful it is out in the middle of the desert but the sweetness once it is opened and enjoyed is amazing just like our God who put it there. 

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.