Dottie’s brother, Jim, as president of the Downtown Fayetteville Rotary Club raised the money to equip the kitchen & dining hall as well as equip the largest dorm & finally computers for the school over a period of 20 years. He loved Casa. We did get tickets so are flying tomorrow.

Walt & Randi left early this morning for NC.

Brandi’s mother and a team arrived from Florida.

Ark,, Ala,and Texas teams painted gates, pulled weeds and did what ever we needed. Servant hearts! They gave spaghetti dinners to the staff and brownies for the older children.

After living on the roof for six months Dottie and I located a home in San Cristobal. As we were preparing to move a Mayan gentleman came to our house with a 3 month old baby. The child’s mother had died giving birth to him. The father was a bus driver and could not care for the child so he asked us if we would consent to take the child, Josue’, for 8 months.

Dottie called Josue’ “The child of promise”. Our relationship with Josue’ was instantaneous and we loved him as though he was our own. We moved to San Cristobal and now it was time to speak with the courts about beginning the ministry in Guatemala. I took Herman who was a Guatemalan physician because I could not speak Spanish.

The judge could not speak English so I began by saying, “Hi. My name is Mike. I am from Louisiana and I you to give me the children on the street”. After the interpretation she said to me, “What if I went to the USA to Houston and said said, “Hi. I am Maria and I want you to give me all the children on the streets of Houston?”

I felt so stupid. She told me to learn Spanish, buy land, build dormitories,  get government approval from both Guatemala and the United States.

I began to cry.