MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

The girls posted really exciting news over on their 'Sole to Soul' Facebook page a few hours ago.  Their campaign is well explained via this video they put together in mid November 2012:



And here is the message they posted tonight!

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WE DID IT!!!!!!!!! "Nothing is impossible with God" Luke 1:37

We got back from our trip to Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala and learned from CMF that the total for all funds donated to CMF International for Sole to Soul is now officially over $30,000!!!! 

Thank you to everyone who supported this project and shared with your friends, family, and social networks. 

Thank you most of all to God for answering our prayers. When we learned we had to raise $30,000 to buy shoes for 1200+ kids from the slums of Kenya it seemed so big and so impossible. But it happened!

Every one of those kids is going to be smiling with a new pair of shoes because of your generosity. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!!!

We can't wait to get to Kenya this spring and deliver those shoes. We promise to take lots of pictures and post them here for everyone to see ;)

PS Since shoes are always needed for Missions of Hope and the kids in Kenya, the Sole to Soul fund will stay open and any further donations will 100% go to buying shoes for the kids in the slums of Kenya.
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This part of the journey has been a faith growing experience for all of us.  I remember the girls getting this idea after the new high school for the kids from the slums was burned down.  And they said "We should do something....those kids lost everything so let's raise money at least to buy them all new shoes!"   And they put together a flyer, started pounding on doors and raised $500 in two days.  

Then they contacted Missions of Hope to learn how much they would have to raise to get all the high school and middle school kids a new pair of shoes.  The answer was 1200 kids and $30,000.  I wish I had had a video camera when they heard that news.  They were dumbfounded trying to get their young minds around that number and how they were going to achieve it.

Finally, one of them said "Well, there is no way we can do that.  But the Bible says if you put your trust in God that anything can happen so we'll just do what we can and trust God to do the rest."  And He did.  

About a month into this campaign, the girls were getting tired.  The initial zeal had worn off and it was becoming tough to get motivated to go out, knock on doors, and raise money.  

I remember going out with S one evening and just having a tough night of fundraising.  We had raised about $40 in two hours (way below what the girls normally did) and she got back into the car dejected.  She looked at me and said 

"Daddy, we've only raised a couple of thousand dollars after all this work.  If we don't make it to the $30,000 goal will you pay the difference?"  

I smiled at her sweet little face and said "No."  

And then said "You have a great chance here to see how God works.  You are definitely acting in His Will with this project, so pray that He will help you achieve the goal and watch what happens."

We serve an AWESOME God!  

http://www.cmfi.org/sole

UPDATE:  Since posting this message, we have gone to Kenya and delivered the shoes.  You can read all about it and see all the happy kids getting their shoes by following this link:

http://tsfga.blogspot.com/2013/05/kenya-shoes.html

Goodbye Guatemala

We have completed our time in Central America.  Here is where we went:

Feb 21 - 23 Nicaragua - Flew in to Managua (point C), visited sponsored child in Leon (point B)
Feb 23 - Mar 3 El Salvador - Chapeltique (point E), served in mountains nearby with our church's mission team building a home
Mar 3 - Mar 11 Guatemala - Served at Hope of Life International near Zacapa (point I)
1900 kilometers / 1180 miles traveled

Final memories, surprises, and blessings from Guatemala...(written mostly by Rachel)

Ulysses is a boy at Kelly's House (facility built for special needs kids).  When we met him early in our stay, here is how Erica (our friend and his occupational therapist) would help him walk.  

All other times we saw him, he was in a wheelchair.  When he was 9 years old, a debilitating fever hit him that left his body blistered and tendons so tight that he has difficulty using his arms and legs.  

Erica pulled out a walker Monday but he wanted no part of it.  He thought it was ugly.  But she persisted and the girls + Rachel got to watch Ulysses take his first independent steps in 10 years.   They cheered his first steps, and he came back and asked to have the walker in his room.  

Today we each said our goodbyes and Ulysses prattled on in Spanish.  I told him in Spanish that I don’t speak Spanish.  Then he said something with Guatemala in it and I realized that he wanted to know when we were coming back.  I said in Spanish I don’t know.  Then this teen boy told me that he liked us…..Made me tear up.

A deaf and mute woman  - gave me her 1 year old to hold while she bathed.  This woman  has created her own grunting language and signs to communicate neither she nor her child have names that anyone knows (we have been calling the little girl Ella – which means 'she' or 'her' in Spanish but we think is lovely)  The staff decided this week to call the little one Joanna which means God is gracious.  We made progress today in creating common signs to communicate.  It would be amazing if someone came & taught her sign language.

This sweet girl (see below) lives in the rescue house that is deaf but at some point someone taught her a few signs…..She was beyond excited when we figured this out this week and signed to her.  She hugged us goodbye and AJ ran to her to hug goodbye.

Faces never to forget….sweet little Henry – 3 years old – malnourished, eyes shake (neurological damage) & potential water on the brain….got to sing Jesus Loves Me in Spanish to him thanks to ES3 trip….precious boy

Biggest surprise to me is the amount of time our girls chose to spend at the Kelly House for special needs children.  They know every child’s name…their likes & dislikes and would race from breakfast to help feed them.  

Today we did crafts with them instead of hanging out at the baby house all morning.  Highlight was watching Louise, a boy that has brain damage, bites, etc.  focus so completely on painting with S and Rachel.  After every color, we would ask him in Spanish what color he would like and re-fill the brush.  He would laugh and then his body would relax as he would focus.  "Mira, mira" (look, look) we would tell him.  He would look at us and then at his art and smile.  It was the first time I had seen his body so relaxed.  We then sang “If you’re happy and you know it!” then “Jesus loves me (in Spanish)” and “Old MacDonald.”  The girls kept commenting…look at his body, look at how relaxed and happy he is.  Such joy was ours.

Another big surprise was hearing the girls say that out of all of the babies at the Rescue House and Kelly Home, they would choose to adopt Carlito if adoptions were legal.  Carlito is a developmentally delayed baby at the Kelly House.  What joy to watch the girls’ tender hearts grow.

Today I will remember a moment that V had with Mildred, a blind girl at the Kelly House (see below).  She took one of the suncatchers in to her room.  This girl spends most of her day in her bed and V didn’t know but just before V walked in, she had been crying and crying.  V sat down on her bed, held her hand, spoke to her in Spanish and told her all about the flower that she had for her to paint.  She gave it to her, and then she continued to talk to her.  When I came in the room, this sweet girl had the biggest smile and V was telling her what a beautiful smile she had.  JOY!

Other Memories / Favorite Pictures / Favorite People 

My favorite quote from our time in Guatemala "I know enough Spanish to get me in trouble but not enough to get me out of it."  

V was talking in her sleep in Spanish.  It is amazing to hear her put together words & phrases

Taking this goat for a walk after he became untied from his regular place near Kelly's House.  Thankfully he didn't ram me with those horns!

AJ now speaks small phrases in Spanish to people without prompting…amazing

H spent a lot of time watching and learning from Erica, OT this week.  So curious as to if/how this will impact her future.

Spent MUCH time at the orphanage since the Ohio group left.  Monday night we played games including duck, duck, goose.  

And the amazing people....we've mentioned the Ohio group and Erica but there were others:

Katrina who is the youngest looking, most vivacious GREAT GRANDMOTHER I think we will ever meet.  She is working on a documentary, has the greatest Georgian southern accent and is just a wonderful lady.  

Heidi who lives literally in the town next door to us, knows the son and daughter of one of my good friends from my church's men's group, and is taking a year to travel the world before heading off to college.  Small world!  

Cheryl Vargas, co-founder of HOLI.  Enough said!  This woman really is an amazing person.

AJ's buddy Julio.  Julio is one of the guides who helps missionary groups as they come and serve at HOLI.

Somehow we didn't get pictures of Dianne &Jim, Zulema, Hugo, or Vonnie but each of them had a positive impact on our experience in Guatemala as well.

Finally....love this picture ;)

Next time we write we will be back in the States (Mimi and Deda's house) for 2 1/2 weeks before heading out on our 4 month journey to Israel, Kenya, Tanzania, Turkey, Greece, and many countries in Europe.  

Til next time, God Bless!  

PS  We love comments so don't be shy about leaving them!  

Guatemala: VBS, Farewells, and Fun

The first message in this blog is about 'Connections' and a feeling I had after New Zealand, Australia, and Fiji that we were supposed to stay connected to people we were meeting on this journey of ours.

Our primary 'Connections' here in Guatemala have been our friends from Ohio.  We said farewell to them last night.  They have been a blessing, and I'm certain some of the relationships we have formed will continue for many years.

On Saturday our Ohio friends got up at 6am to head on a 3 hour drive to a river boat trek for the day.  My girls vetoed the idea of spending 6 hours in a bus so I thought we were going to have a pretty relaxing day.  But at breakfast, Cheryl (co-founder of HOLI and a true sweetheart) asked us if we would do a Vacation Bible School after lunch for the orphans while some of their buildings were being painted by another team.  We said "Sure!"

We headed to the HOLI office to get supplies, brainstormed some ideas and put together a skit + coloring activity + game that I think we pulled off pretty well given the amount of preparation time.

Preparing the orphans coloring activity that was done after the skit + bible lesson.  

We started with a skit that Rachel had previously done at our church.  She had the script in her email, so we memorized the lines and practiced a couple of times before heading up to the orphanage.  Here is a 2 minute Youtube video of the skit....



We used a translator throughout our lesson.  Rachel and I were the main characters and V was the girl who suggested doing something that wasn't right.  We changed the verbiage there to something about 'going out Friday night' (instead of debt) and 'what they don't know about won't hurt' as that was more appropriate for the audience.

After the skit, V explained to the kids that the lady in the skit said she was a Christian but was always wrestling with Jesus for control.  If she had truly given her life to Christ then Jesus would be in control and there would have been joy she wanted to share.

H then came up and read Mark 1:40-45 which is the story about man healed of leprosy who was filled with so much joy that he couldn't help but go tell everyone about Jesus.  Afterward, S explained that when someone loves God so much they share it, and she explained the craft project.  The girls and Rachel had cut out figures that opened up to multiple people holding hands (see picture above....visual of one person then telling many others).

Finally, we taught the kids the 'tag game' Octopus which, again, starts with one and ends with everyone as a part of the 'Octopus' (see below)

We played the game 'Octopus' after our VBS lesson.  If it looks chaotic, it's because it was....but it was definitely fun

So, VBS went well and then the kids started playing together.

Jesus decided to teach me a lesson during this time.  I will be the first to admit that I'm not a big fan of being crawled all over by kids.  I like kids but when kids who aren't mine are pulling on me, jumping on me, wanting to be picked up etc, it just isn't my thing (and these kids do that A LOT).

I try to be as polite as possible and eventually they get the message and go jump on other people who enjoy that kind of thing.  All except this little girl.  Her name is Belen (which means Bethlehem) and she just kept coming at me with earnest eyes and a nice smile.  No matter what I did, she just kept patiently coming back and waiting on me, arms open.  And it dawned on me that this is what Jesus did to me for many, many years...patiently waited, kept coming back, arms open until I finally broke down and invited Him into my heart.  So, I picked her up and she was content.  And so was I.

Saturday night the Ohio group had their final devotional, sharing stories about what they will remember about the week.

Our little S told a story where she said (and I quote)... "One of my favorite memories from the week was when Michael's wife poured a TINY bit of water on him and he picked her up to throw her in the river while his mom was saying 'don't you dare Michael!!'"

Now the funny part of this statement was the 'tiny' bit of water that Amanda supposedly poured.  It was basically half of a huge gatorade bucket (like the ones winning coaches get dunked with at the end of a football game) and this man was drenched...especially his back.  He happened to be sitting on his other shirt which got soaked as well.

Anyway, S tells this story and Amanda is saying "Yes....that's exactly what it was like...a tiny bit of water!" and Michael just had this priceless "What are you doing to me S?" look on his face.  It was really funny.  For the record, here is the picture of my soaking wet friend....his back was completely drenched as that was the primary target area.   He really should have dunked her in the river.....

The other really, really funny story told last night was Jake's encounter with a little gecko in his bed.  There is no way I can do justice to how funny he told this story, but needless to say when I see Geico commercials (where the gecko is the spokes 'animal' for a large American insurance company) I will think of Jake commando rolling out of bed and standing at karate chop readiness.  LOL

We attended church Sunday morning at the church just outside the gates of HOLI.

AJ and S went to kids church

All the orphans were at this service and the little ones all lined up to walk back up to the orphanage at the top of the hill.  Cute....

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Some of the older kids from the orphanage hung out with us after church.  V and S went this afternoon with a bunch of the orphans and swam in the river.  They had great fun but no pictures of the river swim :(

Our friend Erica attended church with us.  She is awesome and one of our favorite people we have met on this trip....

 And she gets major brownie points as she bought the kids (and us too!) an ice cream like treat after church....

Pretty much all the groups have gone home now so it is just us and a small group who arrived Thursday.  It is very odd as our 'home' that used to have the entire Ohio team + us is now just us....way up near the top of the mountain.  It is lonely and a bit quiet now (other than the constantly barking dogs and roosters in the valley....plus the music from the churches Saturday night and most of the day Sunday)

The picture above really doesn't give a great perspective of how steep the mountain is.  It is a HIKE walking up it.  So, we were VERY thankful Cheryl gave our family an old, beat up minivan to use a couple of days ago, and it is pretty obvious that it was on its last legs.  A mirror fell out the first day we had it.  The doors don't open unless you roll down the windows and use the outside handles.  It knocks and pings....but when you are at the top of a pretty steep mountain, you don't complain about the car you have that gets you up that mountain in about 2 minutes versus sweating it out for 15-20 minutes.

Today the minivan died.  3/4 of the way up the mountain it just stopped at the steepest point.  RIP.  We only have 1 full day left here and then head down to Guatemala City Tuesday afternoon for our flight out Wednesday morning.  So, we'll manage.

H is feeling a bit under the weather, so she napped with AJ and Rachel this afternoon while the other girls went with the orphans to the river.  We ordered pizza tonight and had our own pizza party.  And finally, AJ made a new friend this morning at breakfast (Allison) and they just played and played both at breakfast and lunch.

God bless til next time...

Guatemala: Serving at the Dump

We served at the dump where the poor pick through the trash for food and make their homes out of whatever they can find.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday HOLI serves a warm meal to the people of this community.  HOLI made a good sized shelter which includes 4 toilets.  The teams that serve here each week clean the toilets and (after washing up) serve food.  Periodically, teams are asked to paint this structure and we were one of the teams asked to do that....

We were serving today with our friends from Ohio.  They are super proud of their state.... ;)

They came as 30 but the Ohio leaders this week have consistently spoken about their team of 36.  They really did adopt us.  I think it is wonderful that as they went into villages this week and talked about Jesus, they had 36 people make commitments to Jesus....one for each member of the team.  

I think it is safe to say that AJ is the most popular member of the team.  He is like a rock star as all the Guatemalan kids gravitate to him as it is very unusual for a little American boy like him to be on a trip like this.

"Rock Star" AJ exiting the bus ;)

No one else had a group of 'fans' watching them paint....

Group of kids looking up at AJ in his backpack.  I rested the camera on my shoulder to get the same view AJ had.  This was VERY common this week as there was much interest and curiosity about Mr. AJ.

Love this picture.  Look at the joy and the way the light surrounds what is going on.

At least 100 kids and women (and maybe 3 men) showed up for the feeding.  It got a little chaotic as a girl passed out from heat exhaustion taking a number of team members away (nurses) as well as our translator.  Fortunately, many on this team had done this before so they got the tables set up as well as the food ready to serve.  But the crowd at one point really started pushing toward the food tables and created an uncomfortable situation.  

The people bring as their plates and cups anything that they find in the dump.  One team member reported that an elderly lady brought an empty oil container as her drinking cup, and that really just broke this team member's heart.  He saw something similar with a little boy and felt compelling to take out his water bottle, drink what was in it, and fill it with their drink for the day & give that container to the child.

Of all the people serving, our little S was the happy one.  I got such a chuckle yesterday evening from her.  Many of the Ohio team were telling their stories on how what they had seen that day had really impacted them.  The story about the oil can was told.  Many mentioned feeling shame at having so much and complaining back in the States....and then to come here and literally see people picking through trash just to stay alive.  It understandably leaves an impression.

When it came S's turn to share she talked about how the team really performed well today and how she was really glad to be a part of the team.  She said "My parents say something all the time that applies to this situation, but I can't remember what it is they say."   And, of course, everyone starts cracking up.  I'm sitting behind her and mention 'Perhaps the phrase was....exceed expectations?' and she said YES!  (and everyone laugh again).

But what really brought me joy was how she talked about her day.  She said she had a lot of fun!  That it was really neat to be able to serve these people food.  And it was fun to paint and play with the little kids.  Its not lost on her that these little ones are extremely poor.  I just love that she loves to serve and finds joy in even the darkest of places.

Another funny S story was relayed to the Ohio group by their leader, Michael.  We painted this house inside and out in 1 hour as a part of our day....(finished project below)

It really is amazing how fast things can get done when 36 people are focused on a goal like this.  Anyway, the Ohio group had told a bunch of emotional stories as the evening progressed and Michael said "I thought it might be good to introduce a little bit of levity here, so let me tell you a story about S.  We were finishing up the inside of the house.  I was in the room to the left when I heard people calling from the other room for tall people or an extension roller (to get the high part of the wall near the ceiling)...."  And Michael relayed that as he walked into the room S was on the double bed jumping up and down with the roller on the wall to get high enough to get paint to the top of the wall.

I saw the same thing but we were in such a rush to finish the project that I got very few pictures at this place.  I will say that memory was absolutely hilarious....S jumping on a bed to finish a paint job in time....and Michael got the response he was looking for as everyone laughed at the story.

Rachel got this picture at the project site as there were these little kittens (3 of them) laying all over the worksite.  I moved them out of the way as they were certain to get stepped on with the number of people moving around this small home....

Other Memories / Favorite pictures

The girls continue to gravitate toward the babies and the orphans.  I think when the Ohio group leaves, they will be 100% focused on the little ones as that is clearly where they feel called to serve at this place.  We spent time as a family with the littlest ones the other day...

AJ at morning devotional the other day....cute.  All the world is a playground, every day, all the time.

The Ohio team gave AJ a gift of a bat and ball which he put to good use....

AJ also put the moves on his wrestling buddy Wes....

The following picture is from our last night in El Salvador.  AJ has these little finger puppets and Rachel showed him how he could take the girl's hair ties and tie the puppets to his toy cars.  He loved it.

 After a hard day of work and service, it is good to catch some sleep.....

Til next time, God bless.