The Beginning

What an awesome opportunity it is to be a part of the work here at Montanita Verde Children’s Home. This is my third time here and each time I come back I find myself falling deeper in love with the people and the place. I can honestly say that after only 4 days here many of the team have developed lasting feelings for the beautiful children that call this place home.

Today we awoke with the anticipation of being able to do two things: spend time with the kids and begin some of the work projects we will be engaged in this trip.

We began our day by splitting our team up into two separate groups. Then each group went to one of the homes, Casa Jerusalem or Casa Shalom, to spend some time just hanging out with the kids. It is an awesome opportunity to just be with them and try, with the little spanish most of us have, to connect with these precious little ones. My group taught some of the kids how to play a card game called, “Gang of Four” and “Yahtzee”. It was a great time of laughter and friendly competition.

One of the young women on our trip, Hannah Jonker, also had an opportunity to take out her violin and play for the kids. Several of the girls really enjoyed this. Afterwards she had the opportunity to assist them in playing the violin. Seeing the smiles on their faces as they made music was an extremely amazing moment. One young woman, Anita, has always wanted to learn how to play but has never had the opportunity. She said her heart was beating so fast when she saw the instrument.

After that time we broke up into other groups and began our work projects. There were three main projects we engaged in today. The first was scrapping off old lacquer from bamboo railings around the home and re-lacquering them. It was a hot and difficult job but it was great to see the results at the end of the day. A special thanks to Dawna Harris, Alicia Hofland, David Hill and Joshua Smith who were troupers in getting this job partially done. The next job was painting a tin roof with special paint that will help keep it durable and fight against rust. Christian Sauvé and Lili Mejia took this job under their wings and got it half done as well as an unimaginable amount of green paint on the arms. We are assured it should rub off in a few weeks. Finally a group consisting of Hannah Jonker, Amanda Sauvé, Jeff Cavill, Joshua Smith and late game ringer David Hill received a lesson from the local workers (whose names I dare not spell) on how to lay bricks. With this newfound knowledge they worked hard all day in building a crucial retaining wall that will greatly assist in fighting erosion around the home.

We are now sitting here at La Cueva tired, hungry and preparing to head back into San Lorenzo for a group planned kids club. We felt a burden, as a group, to use our time more wisely and looked for an opportunity to reach out to the local community. We met and devised a plan. So in a little under an hour we will walk into San Lorenzo call in the streets for the kids to come out and play some games, sing some songs, give a brief bible lesson about the crucifixion and then provide some snacks. We are told it could be upwards of 100 kids so we are not really sure what to expect. This is an exciting opportunity for us because it is being done in conjunction with a new church in San Lorenzo and we were told that this has never been done before. We hope to do this several more times before we leave.

For all of the parents and friends: we are all safe and most of us are all getting healthy again. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers as we journey together.