Happy Birthday Kaidz

Kaidan turned five years old several weeks ago. I am amazed at how fast she is growing up. She is definitely Miss Independent, and Justin and I both feel as though we are looking in the mirror when she gets sassy. It makes us want to laugh but we work hard at keeping a straight face and help her see the error of her ways.:)
Kaleb continues to grow and develop his little personality. He loves adventure and can't seem to stay out of trouble. We can only pray that God continue to surround him with angels so he doesn't hit the ground too hard each time he falls.
Justin went on a jungle trek with about 30 students from the School of Bible after a men's conference that took place here. They seemed to do all the things guys do in the jungle. They swung from vines, swam in the river and killed a bull. What other kind of male bonding could a man ask for.
The Church has been such a blessing for our family as of late. The members here love our Father so much and it's so exciting to be a part of their new lives. Several weeks ago the men organized a bonfire and game night. It was a great turn out and a very fun time. We also played softball this last week after the Church monthly potluck. I was a little skeptical at first, but I must say they learned very quickly. We got several ladies to play and all did great. We'll have a team ready to challenge any Americans who come our way very soon.
Last weekend we also had a parents day for the kid's program. Many parents came and gave us really positive feed back. As many of you know we started to play some creative thinking games with the children several days a week and also began teaching English. We asked how they felt about the changes and they seemed to be very excited about what their children had learned. So, that was very encouraging for us. I was nervous about the whole English class thing and God seems to be using it despite me so that's awesome.
We want to thank all of you again for the love you constantly show our family and the people here. We pray God blesses each of you as you continue to strive to be more like Him.

Busted Tooth

The night before last Kaleb fell and busted one of his front teeth. It was the strangest thing because for once he wasn't doing anything extremely dangerous and was just playing on top of some refrigerator magnets in the kitchen. He was holding onto a towel over his head, with both hands, playing superman and fell. Rather than catching his fall by letting go of the towel he caught himself with his face and his tooth reeped the consequences. So, yesterday we spent all day at the dentist. They put him under and extracted what was left of his tooth. Poor boy, now he really looks like Dennis the Menace. We were blessed to have a very nice Dr., he worked very well with Kaleb. Thank you all who were praying for us yesterday. Kaleb seems to be doing great this morning and has had very little side affects from the anestesia.

School Shoes

Thanks to the Adult 2 class at Broadway Church of Christ. We were able to hand out 18 pair of school shoes and socks. The kids were so excited to try on their new shoes. What a Blessing! Thank You for your sacrifice and love.
(I posted this again because the pics didn't show on the last one....sorry!)

Just a little update view of our family!:) Kaidan and her friends were playing dress-up and Kaleb insisted on joining in!:) Justin is going to be so happy I posted the pics of his son. The picture of Kaidan is after we took ALL of her braids out.....she looked awesome. And then the last is just of us two.

Clothes Closet

We want to thank all the groups, South Lake Blvd Church, Twickenham COC, Fort Walton Beach COC and Niceville COC, who came this summer and left behind clothes for the community. We also want to thank Julie and Alicia for helping us organize and get the clothes and shoes ready to give. This last Sunday we opened the rooms and the members from Church were able to pick out items they needed. There were many happy faces. Many will be blessed through your donations. Thank you!

Summer Fun

We just back from our family summer trip to the beach. It was wonderful to just be with family and watch the kids play. Now, we must begin real life again. The kids program will begin in two weeks so we have to begin planning and looking for material ect. We hope all is well with each of you. Thank you for your prayers and love.

Summer Coaster

I know I have once again let down on my blogging job. I apologize. It has been another roller coaster summer and we are finally getting off to take a breather. We were blessed with the opportunity of hosting four work groups and two large youth camps this Summer. The camp session we direct each year went really well. Our hopes were to have 70-80 youth and we ended up having 110, so a total of 130 people attended. It was a great time and we pray God was blessed!
Justin's brother and sister came down to visit for several weeks in July, and my best friend Alicia also came to see us. It is hard to put into words how wonderful it is to have family and friends come and share in the work here. We enjoyed the moments we had with them. They deserve a medal for surviving the chaotic times with groups.
It is now time to start gearing up for another school year. Our goal is to begin teaching English and some other skills in addition to helping with homework this year. This is a little intimidating for me because my degree is not in education. However, we see the need and are going to do our best to teach what we can. If any of you have beginning English material or know of cool Bible curriculum in Spanish please let us know. I have been looking on the internet for a while and it's not the same as walking in a book store and finding material. Any advice is welcome or if you just feel God is wanting you to come down and help we would love that also!:)
Kaidan and Kaleb are doing wonderful. Kaidan was able to spend a month with Keith and Dana, Justin's parents, in the States and she loved it. I have to say she came back a little spoiled, but nothing out of control. Even though we missed her like crazy it was good for her to have that time with her grandparents. Kaleb is definitely showing a little personality. When he wants something he has no issues with letting you know. He and Kaidan are finally at the age where they can play together and that has been wonderful for us. It is so fun watching them!
Thank you all for your continued prayers and love. I will be writing at least every two weeks to give you little updates on the work here and our family. We pray each of you have had a wonderful summer. God Bless.

Up at Night

Once again, I am up at 2:30 in the morning not able to sleep. My family has been gone four days now and I feel a big chunk of my heart is absent. The last few days have been a wonderful yet hard learning experience. God is showing me how blessed I am. He has blessed me with an incredible partner in this life that loves Him more than anything and two wonderful children who are so fun to be with and so easy to love. I am a truly blessed woman.

The work here continues to grow and flourish. God seems to be blessing it despite our weaknesses and inadequacies. This month has been a wonderful month full of events and people. We hosted a medical group who offered services to the Tabacundo and surrounding communities. This group from Arkansas helped and encouraged many through their sacrifice and love. During this same weekend, a wedding also took place here. A young lady who I have had the pleasure of knowing since she was three years old joined her life with an Argentine who recently graduated from the Bible School in Quito. It was exciting to watch them dedicate their lives to each other. This was the first wedding to take place here at the camp, but after seeing how beautiful a wedding can be in the midst of God’s beauty I think we’ll be seeing many more lives joined here.
We have entered our last month of the children’s program before we take the summer break. Recently we have been busy celebrating Mother’s Day and Children’s Day. For Mother’s Day the children made cards for their mothers, and they also helped cut out and decorated cookies for their mothers. Now I have to say, that was a full day. Organizing cooking and decorating for 100 children is a much bigger task than I thought. We had very limited supplies, so we all used the same cookie cutter and we could not make a whole lot of icing so we had four colors and one by one, they chose what color they wanted and then decorated their cookie. At the end, it was totally worth it. They were all so excited to take their finished cookie to their mother. God continues to grow the program and send us children who are in need. Please continue to pray we have the wisdom to work with each child and provide them with their needs. I want to thank all of you who have been praying for the man who is raising his four children on his own. His youngest baby seems to be growing and doing much better health wise. He is still very behind in motor skills, but is gradually making progress.
God keeps showing us He is in control of the church here. Our new brothers and sisters continue to show us how blessed we are. Their love for God and desire to follow Him is so encouraging and often humbling. They remind us how blessed we are to be sons and daughters of the King. Again, we thank you for your prayers for the people here. God is at work and we are thankful we have so many partners in this work who love Him.
Before I close, I would like to share a special prayer request. We are facing more and more teen mothers in our area. Often, they drop out of school and begin living with the father of their baby and his family, not out of love or a commitment, but necessity. It is a sad but very common situation here. The local children and family protection service has repeatedly contacted us asking us to give temporary housing to children living in abusive and neglectful situations. Currently, we do not have the facilities or the personnel to help the way we feel God wants us to. As we look for what He desires for us to do in this situation, we know we cannot shut the door. We have begun thinking about possible housing opportunities that we could offer as a temporary living assistance for those in desperate need get their feet back under them. Please pray for God to guide us to His will and share with us your thoughts. God is good and I believe He will supply us with what we need to follow His will.
We pray God is blessing each of you.

Pacho

We had a tragic event happen several days ago. Justin and Gonzalo, man who has been coming out some to help with our horse, were trying to help a sore on Pacho's nose heal. They had been putting some cream on it, but it didn't seem to be getting better. So, they decided to give him an antibiotic. Justin didn't realize Gonzalo had brought penicillin. To make a long, hard day short. Gonzalo gave him the medicine and Pacho died about 5-10 minutes later. We looked everywhere for epinephrine to help fight the reaction but could not find it in time. The vet arrived rather quickly, but still not in time. This has been rough on Justin. He had been working with Pacho whenever he could make time, so he had spent the most time with him. And of course Kaleb, our little cowboy, loved Pacho. Anyway, we thought we would let everyone know since we had written so much about Pacho in the past. He was a good horse and we are already missing him like crazy.

Amazing Sunset

This was a sunset we had a couple of days ago. It is amazing how each sunrise and sunset are different. I'm glad we have such an amazing God!! I wanted to ask you all to keep praying for the little boy, Josue, that I have mentioned before. We ended up taking him into Quito the other night because he got so sick. The Dr. was concerned not only about his cold but also his weight. He asked us to give him treatments with a nebulizer for about a week and he put him on several antibiotics. We just ask that you all pray for his health and also for his Dad's sanity with the four children he has.
The other pictures are of our Kaidan and Kaleb egg hunting at my parents house on Easter. They seemed to have fun....I have to say Kaidan is a much nicer sister than me. I would fight for my eggs, she enjoyed helping Kaleb find eggs for his basket....so sweet! Not sure where she gets that!:)
All continues to go well here. The ladies from the congregation went to a ladies conference in Quito and loved it. It was a good time for all of us to spend time together without our little ones. We are busy planning for the youth camp we will host this summer and organizing the groups who will be coming to stay at the camp for various work projects. If anyone is wanting to come and work for the summer or part of the summer but do not have a group. Don't worry about that. We can use all the help we can get. There is much to do and we would love for anyone who feels God wants them to come here to COME!! We will put you to work and you will love every minute of it!! We pray each of you are doing well and God is blessing you daily!

Daddy's Cowboy

This is Daddy's little cowboy! Kaleb loves the horse and loves riding with his Daddy! He is such a little man. We are still working on his allergies....he continues to have a cough and we are hoping to find the right dosage of inhaler to give him..please continue to keep him in your prayers.

Little Blessings

I thank God for my children. He has blessed Justin and I with two wonderful children. I pray He gives us the wisdom to raise them in Him. I pray He shows them His Truth despite our inadequacies. "Father we lift these little ones to you and pray you guide each step they take. Thank you for your love and ever constant presence."

Exciting Times

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We want to thank all of you once again for praying for Kaleb. He has been on antibiotics now for almost a month and seems to be doing much better. The Dr. is almost sure he has allergies, we just do not know to what......So, I have taken all smelly things out of our house, all flowers.....and Kaleb is no longer aloud to go horseback riding. It has not been fun, HE LOVES THE HORSE and gets so excited every time he sees it. If any of you have gone through this with a little one and have learned some valuable lessons from experience we would love to hear from you. We obviously want to protect him from getting so sick, but also hate to take away things he enjoys if there are ways to test and know exactly what is causing him to react.
We have had a very full month. The night Kaleb was released from the hospital we began hosting a group of 22 people here at the camp. My mom came to take care of Kaleb, and that was a huge help. The group was wonderful and were a huge encouragement to us and the work here. We had some more guests come in soon after that from Bellevue, and they just flew back yesterday. It is always an encouragement to have visitors come from the States.....especially when they bring me buckets of Red Vines!:)
We also had a children's overnighter this last Friday. We use these nights as rewards for those that attend the program frequently. A total of 82 children, ages 5-12, spent the night and seemed to have great time. (We will have a seperate overnighter for the teens. ) After dinner we turned all the outside lights off and played hide-and-go-seek in the dark, they loved it and we decided it was a great way to drain energy before bed time. Saturday, after the kids program we had our last finance class for parents of the community. Overall, I think they learned a lot and hopefully will put some of what they learned into practice. Sunday, the Church had a potluck here and we did the meat. There were over 140 people who attended. It was a wonderful day of fellowship! Many stayed to play sports and just hang-out, I think the last people left around seven that night. To say the least our heads were ready to hit the pillow that night. We wish all of you could personally meet and know all our new brothers and sisters in Christ. They are such an encouragement.
Kaidan continues to do wonderful in school. We let her take a week off and spend it with my mother. I think she learned more in that one week with mom then she has in a month of school, so it wasn't at all a waste of study time. Her little personality keeps us on our toes and brings us many moments of laughter.
The picture of Kaleb with a little boy is of the little one we have been watching once a week. His Dad is a single Dad taking care of four children. This little boy, Josue, had been staying in a children's home in Quito until recently. So, he's very delayed and needs to put on some pounds...now I know what your thinking he looks chunky, but it's just his cheeks, the rest of his body is very,very skinny. Justin's parents bible class at Broadway has been financially helping this man take care of his little ones, because of them we have been able to take by formula, diapers, and food. Please keep this family in your prayers. The man's name is Adrian.
We love you all and pray you had a wonderful Spring Break. God Bless.

The Dr. just gave us the go!!! Yeah! Thank you all for your prayers. God Bless.

We want to thank you all for your prayers and words of encouragement. The Dr. came in this morning and was very happy with Kaleb's progress. He took Kaleb off oxygen in order to see how he does breathing on his own. So far so good! Kaleb seems to have more energy today and just looks much better. If all continues to go well we might be going home tomorrow. God is good! To answer some of your questions. We are in a hospital in Quito, it's suppose to be the best. It's been very nice and feels very clean so that's good.