New Homes New Hope

Happy Sunday Fabulous Ones!

This week at our team meeting we learned about the families that some of our team members will be building new homes for during our trip. Each of these families have been selected by the local churches as being in particular need, none of them attend the churches but they are significant because of their desperate circumstances and thus are the people we are privileged to serve. The pictures below show the families with the Pastors who have recommended them as being new home recipients, please pray that our work with these families will bless everyone involved and above all, will make God look good.

1. Living in the first house will will be an aunt with four children, ages 10-20. The oldest niece Gloria Maria, who is 20, is pictured here with her one-year-old son Maurice and the local pastor. The mother of the four children has abandoned them. The remaining three children are Jesusita (16), Mariano (12) and Juan Rafael (10).

2. Living in the second house will be Cesar (pictured with the pastor of the local church), his wife Ana Maria and child Moises (10) who will live with Cesar's parents Alejandro and Rosiario. Rosario is blind.

3. The third house built this year with Bridge Builders support includes this grandmother, Inez, who speaks only Tzutuhil and has two grandsons from the same absentee daughter. The grandsons (pictured) are Pedro and Keneth (who has a heart problem). The mother of the boys does not visit and will not be living in the house. 

4. The fourth house will be the home of a 68-year-old mother named Teresa (pictured), who is deaf. She has three adult children. A daughter, Josea (27) pictured with the local pastor, will be living here too, and two sons Pedro (29) and Antonio (40). 

Another highlight of this week's meeting was the arrival of our rather gorgeous team t-shirts...

 ...Wow! Isn't it a beauty? The verse is John 15:11 which with verse 10 for context says this "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete."

The whole group (60 something so far) will wear these when we travel on the February 18th and we'll leave them in Guatemala along with the wonderful items you supplied and various other bits and bobs we will take to leave. The idea is to bring home considerably less than we leave with, so we'll see how that goes!

As ever, I cherish all your thoughts, prayers, encouragement and contributions so please keep them coming :-) 

BEST blessings

Alison

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