Fundaninos

We are currently hosting a work team from Living Hope Church. They will leave for PA tomorrow morning.



The team spent their work week at the Fundaninos orphanage. Charlie supervised as they built a new playset for the kids. Their old one was in poor shape and no longer safe.




Ben spent two days working with the team. Here he is helping Jay Hurst attach the roof.

Charlie, with his new straw hat, had lots of willing helpers. Charlie is so patient when the kids swarm around and always tries to find ways they can help. The fellow in the yellow shirt was handing Charlie the screws.

The team also did a bit of work in the director's apartment, priming the walls in preparation for painting. Alisha spent an afternoon helping them.

And I had a really difficult job! Snuggling this precious little bundle, teeny tiny 21-day-old Isabella. I don't know how much she weighs, but not very much!

Guests

Michelle Martin and Abbey Martin stayed with us for two weeks, from March 13 - 27. Abbey was a former short-term volunteer who spent three months in Guatemala last year.

We took the girls to visit nearby Lake Amatitlan where we rode cable cars to the top of the mountain.

At the top, Charlie and Ben played a game of chess with this giant set. I believe the game ended in a stalemate.

Last Saturday we also visited a rodeo held in a nearby arena. Pictured -from L to R - are Marlana (current short-term volunteer), Carol (a Guatemalan friend), Abbey, and Michelle. The bleachers were rickety and rusted...and very uncomfortable.

It was unlike any rodeo we'd attended in the States. Our tickets gave a start time of 4:00 p.m. We arrived around 5:00, but nothing happened until 6:00. We saw exactly one horse the entire evening. The only event was bull riding, which was cool, but there were such long pauses between each rider that it got boring. The rodeo appeared to be an excuse for many in the audience to get drunk. The couple beside us drank a six pack each. One tipsy lady behind us kept getting up and dancing on the bleacher seats in her high heals; I kept waiting for her to fall off, but somehow she managed to keep her balance. All in all, we were not too impressed with Guatemalan "professional" rodeo, and we left early.

Farewell Party

Sadly, Randy and Tina Weaver and family our moving home to PA at the end of March. This past Wednesday evening the ORI gang was invited to Manolo and Vilma Bendfelt's house for a farewell party. Manolo is president of ORI Guatemala, and Vilma is the founder of the Fundaninos orphanage.


Manola prepared a special Guatemalan dish called paella. It consisted of many types of meat, mostly seafood, and rice, cooked in a seafood sauce. This is the platter of raw meat waiting to be cooked. On the far left side is squid.

The party was held on the Bendfelt's recently completed deck. It is huge and very nice. Unfortunately, it happened to be chilly and windy Wednesday evening. They unrolled plastic canvas and lit a fire in the fireplace.

Manolo cooked the paella on his gas wok.

The finished dish. The seafood lovers in our family (Charlie and Ben) thought it was great. The rest of us weren't quite as excited. Emily and Maria refused to even try it.

Gathered around the tables with a music video playing in the background. We ate much later than we are accustomed to, 8:30, so it ended up being a late evening for us.

Amor del Nino

The Petra work team spent the past week painting and cleaning at the Amor del Nino orphanage. We visited the orphanage yesterday afternoon and then joined the team for supper in the evening.


The orphanage is built on a hill, so it was difficult to get a good picture. Amor del Nino has about 50 children, most between 0 - 6 years of age.

Some of the volunteers and older children were playing on the patio.

One of the team's projects was to construct these custom made cribs, eight tiny little beds, four on top and four on the bottom. These, of course, are for the tiniest babies.

Cribs, cribs everywhere! This orphanage has lots of babies. Currently they have 22 babies under one year old.

I'm holding the smallest baby, although not the youngest. She was born prematurely and was just a tiny little bundle.

Emily's got a chunky little boy.

Two 'gorditos' (little fatties). These were the two oldest babies in this room. Sadly, two staff members care for 13 babies. All of the bottles get propped until the children are old enough to hold their own. As with all of the orphanages ORI supports, resources are limited, so they do the best they can.

We had supper with the team at My Father's House, the guest house where the group is staying. Ben and Charlie had time for a game of pool before we ate.

Trip to Mexico

We spent the past weekend, March 5-7, in Tapachula, Mexico. Our family needed to leave the country and then return in order to renew our visas.


It was about a 5 1/2 hour drive to the border. The drive went well and the children did great - even Tony. Thankfully, we had no problems getting through immigration. I simply walked into the building and up to the window, handed the official our stack of passports, and he stamped them. He never even checked to see if we had people to match the passports. We had to pay 50 pesos to get the van "fumigated". The officials waved us through every other checkpoint. Here, Maria and I are just past the border, on the Mexican side.

We stayed in a fairly large town called Tapachula, about 17 km from the border. Our hotel was a very nice Comfort Inn, the nicest place we've stayed at since we're down here. We ate breakfast Saturday morning at the hotel. Tony enjoyed his Fruit Loops; I think he had three bowls!

We then visited Wal-mart, which was only five minutes from our hotel. What fun! I think the employees were amused that we were taking pictures of the store.

Ok, it wasn't quite like Wal-mart in the States. We discovered a huge display of fresh octopus in the seafood department. I didn't buy any seafood, but I did stock up on shampoo, soda, and breakfast cereal, as the stuff was cheaper than in Guatemala.

Alisha and Emily relaxing in our room back at the hotel. Once again, Nick and Ben got their own room while the rest of us shared. We had an extra single bed in our room, and Tony was content to sleep on a blanket on the floor.

The hotel had a lovely pool...and, boy, was it hot and humid in Mexico! Much different from our mountain climate. We spent both Friday and Saturday afternoons relaxing by the pool.

Saturday evening we visited downtown Tapachula, walked around the town square, and had supper at a tiny, tacky little restaurant with surprisingly good food. This photo is one of the fountains in the square. We thought the town very much resembled a Guatemalan town, but noted there were far fewer guards and less barbed wire.

Charlie, Maria, and Tony graciously posed for a picture in the town square.

Sunday morning we headed back to Guatemala. We breezed through the border crossing in a matter of minutes. They didn't even fumigate our van, although they still collected the money for it.

We spent a couple of hours at a wonderful water park called Xocomil on Sunday. Previously, Charlie had taken an orphanage on a field trip here, and when we realized that we were going right by decided to stop. It was really nice, nicer than any park I've been to in the States. We had a fun time. Praise God for a great weekend!

Hammercreek Work Team

Our third work team of the year, Hammercreek Mennonite youth group, was here February 22 through March 1. I think the group consisted of 36 youth and leaders.


The group stayed at the Los Humitos coffee plantation. Charlie and Jim provided an orientation for the group their first evening.

Some of the girls painted the interior of one of the houses at the Casa Bernabe orphanage.

Alisha took the day off school on Tuesday to help with the painting.

Charlie supervised the work at Fundaninos. One of the projects the group completed was repairing the pavers on the driveway.

Lawrence Martin, board member and team leader, supervised continued construction work on the director's apartment. The volunteers stuffed insulation and hung drywall.