October 2022

 

   This October we were blessed with the opportunity to serve the children at the feeding center as well as build a home for a family in need.  

    The children have been excited this month at the feeding center,  not only for the food, songs, and devotions that were shared but also mid-October marks the beginning of Summer for the school aged children.   They have summer break from mid-October to mid-January.   Technically we do not have summer here in Guatemala,  we have dry season and rainy season.  The end of October is usually the end of rainy season and the children are off school.

 

 

This day we had boiled chicken noodle soup and, of course, tortillas.

Not readily visible but this boy could not wait and was eating the noodle during the prayer

This is her daughter she is feeding

 

 

    We were also blessed with donations this month to build a home for the Castellanos family.  The father, Lucio, and his wife Argelia have two children,  Melvin (16) and Heily (7).   

     Lucio has a job as a janitor at the local special needs school which is about a 25 minute walk each way every day of the week.  They were living in town but were forced to move and given a small piece of property on the side of a mountain.  It is very difficult to access.  Their closest neighbor is about 100 yards away but allow them to run a wire for electricity for a light.   There is no water access, it must be brought up by Lucio and Melvin each day from the community pila at the bottom of the mountain.

      We are so grateful for our friend Fidel that is local to the village of Santa Maria and helps us with each home build.   He has been working with us for over 5 years now and is an elder in the local church.   One of his friends was Lucio.   Lucio had a major drinking problem for years but after much prayer and sharing of the gospel by Fidel,  Lucio accepted Christ a few years ago and has not drank since and now is attending church and it has changed Lucio's life and the life of his family.  We were honored to be able to build his family a home and they were so grateful for a dry place to sleep and a roof over their head.

 

 

Entrance to their old home of borrowed metal sheets.

Most of their time was spent under a plastic tarp cooking and cleaning

Even though they lived on dirt floors with holes in their metal siding,  they try to make it as nice as they can.

Their land was up the side of the mountain by the tree that is circled.  It took over an hour for all the supplies and tools to be hauled up the mountain.

Heily with 2 of her cousins

Argelia and her older daughter that lives down in the village helping erect the back wall

Fidel instructing Lucio on the use of a drill

Helping build the beds

The family with older daughter and cousins.  Their son Melvin was working in the fields each day of our build.

 

House blessing and sharing of the gospel.

 

As this season of Thanksgiving approaches let us be grateful to God for so many things we have been blessed with.  If you would like to bless a family with a dry bed, a roof, and a concrete floor, we have many families in need of a home here in Santa Maria.

We build each home with the donations we receive.  So if He is touching your heart, you can definitely change a family's life both physically and spiritually with a donation.   A home cost $2000 and includes the kitchen,   a stand-alone kitchen is $400.  We have many families that have a home that does not leak during the rainy season but they have no kitchen.  

Thank you for remembering the desperately poor and thank you for loving us.  May He pour His love upon you.   

Blessings,  Cary and Rita