Passion for Paraguay

Yeah, it's Christmastime!  Our 2011 Christmas letter is below.  May you enjoy this Christmas season and have a blessed New Year.  We will be taking some time off from blogging this year end, so we'll see you in 2012!! Christmas Letter 2011

I got an email this week from my college roommate, Julie .  She and her husband are serving as missionaries in Mexico.  They have adopted 18 children (and counting) and have a ministry called Refuge Ranch.  Julie told me that she saw a logo on my sidebar that sparked her curiosity that read, "Orphan No More" and clicked on it.  It took her to Reece's Rainbow, an orphan advocacy ministry which gives grants for children with special needs.  The site shows dozens of beautiful children from over 25 countries over the world that need loving families. I am a prayer warrior for two precious children Timmy's age, Lance and Sarah , and I would love to have you join me in prayer for their forever families. To continue the story, my friend Julie put a link on her facebook status about the ministry and her high school friend, another Julie from Ohio, read her status and felt led to investigate the ministry.  They prayed about it and are now in the process of adopti...

This Thursday was our annual Children of Promise Christmas party.  This is one of the favorite activities of the kids and they have to wait the WHOLE year for the day to arrive!     What beautiful children God has created!  Some of these children have gone through so much....from abuse to abandonment.  This boy, R,'s mom committed suicide this week.  Please pray for him and his two year old sister, that were left behind.  We played, "How low can you go?" Tug of war is a COP tradition.  Thankfully the weather was beautiful this year, so we could go outside and have a ton of fun. We had a raffle and each child took home a gift and a fruit cake.  One of the favorite items was this space shuttle, won by little Mauricio. Special thanks to the CMA group for donating some of the prizes!!  Muchas gracias to our new director, Sandra, for all her work in coordinating the fiesta.  And mostly, thank God for each of the sponsors of th...

First the personal one:  We would ask you to pray for our daughter's papers.  Since there was a strike in the judicial system last month, all documents have been delayed for weeks.  Our family Christmas is in Argentina this year and if Anahi's birth certificate does not arrive, we will not be able to celebrate with our family. This certificate is necessary for us to get her passport, which we need for travel for our furlough next summer. We know that prayers can change this situation and we thank you in advance for praying. Second, this request is for our ministry.   This year-end we have an immediate need.   ICCI (Instituto Cristiano de Capacitacion Integral) will need to pay $4,000 (for various documents and to help pay an intermediary) to become a legal tertiary institution recognized by the MEC (department of education) Paraguayan government.   Unfortunately, this important expense will really knock off of our budget for next year.   I...

Despite the heat and lack of rain (thank the Lord for the rain that just arrived) this month has brought a huge harvest! Here's a sampling:  green beans  black beans have been peeled and packaged and ready to sell  One of our many squash... cucumbers (from just one picking)...we've harvested over 50 lbs so far Our harvest has kept us busy canning pickles...  shelling nuts at lightning speed with the new nut sheller!! and making peanut products.  Here's the wonderful production team...  The more we can process our produce, the better the revenue for the institute. Our students have been harvesting and processing agro products this week so we can still have products to sell while they are on summer break.  This Saturday is our closing ceremony and Sunday is our last service and the students will go home for the summer, so they have been working hard to get everything harvested before they leave. We want to share with you about an immediate need we h...

Someone from the U.S. told me this week we should steal some time away before Christmas.  However, this is truly our most activity-intensive month of the year.  It is not only Christmastime but it is also the end of the school year, so it's like packing December and May into one month. This week we had several year-end activities: This is Tio Enrique's graduation.  He is now a licensed pharmacist!!!  We are so proud of our Tio (Priscila's husband) and we wish him the best with his new pharmacy. Timmy also graduated from kindergarten.  Here he is on his last day of school at Sonnenschein, Bi-lingual (German and Spanish) School. He is sitting by his teacher and she is inviting the graduating students to come back and visit next year.  Can you tell Timmy loved his teacher?  She is a wonderful person and we will miss her so much!  Graduation was on Friday.  Timmy's getting fitted for his cap and gown. During the program the kids did a skit ...

We had a lovely celebration last Sunday and we are still eating the leftovers!  Even though it was so hot (105 degrees on our thermometer), we had wonderful food and time of worship and giving thanks to God for all that He has done this year.  We are especially grateful for our family and our newest addition, Esther Anahi!! Here Nila, Norberto's youngest sister, is teaching him how to roll the dough to make perfect biscuits.  Norberto made German Zwieback rolls and boy were they great! It was a minor miracle, but we were able to find turkey and it was delicious!  Please don't ask me about last year's turkey fiasco. We also celebrated Timmy's 6th birthday with cake and pumpkin pie.  Yes, those are votive candles on his cake. I couldn't find the birthday candles anywhere. Then that evening, our church ended the national forgiveness campaign " Perdona ."  We had a time of testimonies and one son asked forgiveness to his father right there.  They...