#118 Our story

Dennis and Debbie who are Raquel’s sponsors arrived and will be participating in the wedding. They took Raquel and Josue’ to the lake as a special treat. How wonderful to sponsor a child all the way from childhood to their wedding day. What a blessing!

Well, today was the last school day so the next 3 months the children will be able to sleep a little later.

I will never forget two men from Ohio who asked to visit Casa in 1997. They were not plumbers, carpenters or electricians. They were school teachers. For the entire week that they were here Dan and Gary rocked babies.

The following year they came back with two more school teachers. They were Janet and Hazel and they too rocked babies.

Then months later one of them called me and said, “We know what God wants us to do. He wants us to have a birthday party for all of the children.” The Department of Education in Ohio gave them permission to raise money in the Ohio schools. They first came to Casa with hamburgers, fries, drinks, ice cream and cake. The kids had a blast. The money they raised and did not use was divided amongst our staff.

They came for many years. Their birthday ministry grew to where they were able to have these birthday parties with many other homes. They have aged as I have so we do not see them but the older children and our staff will always have a fondness for them.

When we first came to Guatemala our vision was about 15 to 20 children. We were 45 years old and thought that if we were able to provide a future for those children it would be an accomplishment.

Dottie and I were looking at what we could do. It did not dawn on us that the Lord would send us hundreds of faithful Christians with so many different skills and dreams. Their connection to our children was life changing on both the child and the visitors.