#97 Our story

We arrived back in Lake Charles and will rest a couple of days before heading out again.

Spoke with our chairman, Thom.

Today is our son Chad’s birthday so we visited with him.

The new car donated to us was delivered today. We are grateful.

In March of 1994 we received a one-time blessing from the US Embassy here in Guatemala. Trucks pulled into out property and they were filled with furniture including 30 beds and box springs. I remember that they also had 2 washers, 2 dryers and many chairs and tables. These all were items that the US Embassy had been given by employees being reassigned to other countries.

We had to take the boys for haircuts and there were 47 of them. It took hours to finish the haircuts so we took the boys for ice cream as a reward for acting so good. As the months pass the needs of course grow with the admission of more children.

This month of March is well remembered by me. One Sunday afternoon one of our boys ran into my house screaming, “There is a tank in front of our gate.” I went to the gate and not only was there a tank there but also a squad of soldiers. Behind our house was another squad of soldiers.

When I asked what was happening they told me an American woman had been accused of taking a child. The locals had beaten her into a coma. The alert had come from the US Embassy for Americans to not travel especially with children.

A week later it was announced that the child was in hiding from his parents. He was ok but the American would never recover from her coma. The soldiers actually went out and bought our groceries so we would not leave our home.