Emily's Birthday

Emily celebrated her 12th birthday on September 20.

Emily and her cousin, Katy, had a joint birthday party at Grandma Horning's house.

A close up of the girls' cake.

Emily celebrated a second time with the Weaver family.

Emily posing with her gifts.

I wore my Guatemalan outfit for the presentation we gave at our home church.

Hunting Cabin

We spent three days at the hunting cabin with Grandpa and Grandma Horning.


Maria beat Grandma at a game of Memory.

Nick and Ben spent lots of time reading.

Feeding fish from the bridge.

Tony loved the mountains.

Alisha, Emily, and Tony playing on the rock in the middle of the creek.

Blue Ball Church Camp-out

We spent a wonderful month in PA visiting family and friends! We were so pleased to be able to attend our church's annual camp-out at Woodcrest Retreat over Labor Day weekend. The weather was perfect and we had a great time.


Best friends Megan, Becky, and Emily relaxing in the camper.

Alisha holding her little cousin, Connor.

Charlie and Rosie relaxing by the campfire.

Tony with his cousin, Abby.

Grandpa Horning cooking hamburgers over the fire.

Procession in Antigua

We visited the historic town of Antigua on Sunday, August 23. La Merced, the Catholic church, was celebrating a festival. By chance, we came upon this procession as we were walking down the street.

Most of the men were dressed in black robes, and some were wearing strange hats. They paraded down the street carrying banners. The women walked along the side and wore white veils.

A few of the men wore purple robes.

Men dressed in black suits were carrying incense burners.

The main focus of the procession was this float. Men dressed in black robes and hoods carried a statue of Mary on their shoulders. A woman dressed in white occupied the place of honor at the head of the float.

Very interesting. It was another great "cultural experience".

Rehoboth

On Saturday, we also took the children from the Rehoboth orphanage to Pollo Campero, a Guatemalan fast food restaurant, for lunch.


The kids loved the chicken! It was a special treat for them.

Tony is sitting on Jay Hurst's lap, the ORI board member who served as leader for this work team.

After we ate, we took the children back to the orphanage and spent some time with them. Alisha and Donna are coloring with one of the girls. Some of our group also played soccer and basketball with the older boys.

Larry Fox is pushing Tony on the swings.

Sheryl Leaman, Molly Ressler, Emily, and Tony are having fun with bubbles.

Missionaries del Camino

Saturday, August 15, our family spent the day with the current ORI work team, a group from Living Hope church. Charlie was our bus driver. First, we visited an orphanage called Missionaries del Camino where 57 children live.


Alisha found a friend.

Tony loved this rocking horse and the many riding toys.

This little girl latched onto Charlie.

This is the school building. The orphanage children, as well as, children from the village attend this school.

The preschool classroom was the most colorful and cheerful.

Back to School

On Monday, July 27, we began our school year. We started early because we plan to take off when we visit the states in September.


Emily is in sixth grade this year, and Maria is in second. They sit at our dining room table to do their schoolwork. Emily's favorite subject is science. Maria loves everything except math.

Alisha sits at our kitchen table to do her work. She is in 9th grade this year. She enjoys having the freedom to do extra work on some days, so she can go along with work teams on others.

Ben is a senior this year. He likes to do his schoolwork in his bedroom, usually while lounging on the bed listening to music.

Our greatest challenge is keeping Tony relatively content and quiet! Thankfully, he likes to look at books.

I celebrated my 46th birthday on August 1st. Alisha made supper for me, including this delicious chocolate cake!