Happy 10th Anniversary!!!

On December 3, 2004, we received our first baby, a 12 month old boy from a jail/street life! He now lives with his loving parents and sister in Italy (I visited him last year!), but he launched the adventure that continues today.

Special thanks to VivaBolivia for the grant to print our invitations and a little gift (below)!

Our calendar bookmarks! (Reverse side lists the requirements for Bolivian adoption.)

This week has been full of anniversary preparations and activities to celebrate the milestone! On December 3rd, we were blessed to be able to celebrate in government facilities downtown on our pretty main plaza. Here are a few pictures of that morning!

Getting set up (my four kids!)

Sophia socializing with some of CDA's babies

Seven years in a row of nativity pictures featuring a "baby Jesus" and our kids! 

TEN years of group pictures, beginning with our first arrival (start at top left corner and go left to right)

Display of hand prints of our current children

With permission from the mother, pictures of twin boys we cared for until their mother was more stable

Also with permission, pictures of the famous "triplets of gold" (as the press called them) that we cared for 13 months, until they went to live with their mother and doting godparents

 Display of the different areas of work of Casa de Amor Children's Homes

Speakers: Dra. Patricia Gisbert of Child Defense, Dr. Freddy San Millan (Director of SEDEGES), Jennifer Beaty (Founder/Director Casa de Amor), Celia Jordan (President of Bolivian Adoptive Parents Association), Maria Medina (CDA Health Coordinator)

Our administrator/social worker Rosa Sarzuri was the Master of Ceremonies

Lots of press came!!

 Not very far into the program, it was standing room only. I estimate nearly 100 people (many of those children) were present!

David, our accountant, presenting Jennifer with a very thoughtful gift, a plaque commemorating 10 years of service to Bolivia's children!

Maybe after another 10 years, everyone will know how to spell my last name (at which point, it will be officially Beaty and they'll have to start over learning, ha)...

Milling about for a long time after the event, catching up with new and old friends

It was a wonderful reunion of past children of our homes. So fun to see them all again!

Two mischievous girls (both in local adoptive families now)

The twin boys (so big!) and their mother (thanks for the picture, Hannah!)

The triplets on the front row with their mother

Jennifer with the triplets, all grown up (thanks, Carla Booher, for the picture!)

The next morning, Rosa and Jennifer got up early and went to a TV interview to share more about our work. As nerve-wracking as it was to sit down under those bright lights with cameras rolling and a well-dressed journalist, we had a great time! We might head back soon for a one hour long interview.

Many, MANY thanks to all of our faithful supporters who have made these ten years not only possible but so wonderful!!


Links to other blog posts and great pictures of our 10th anniversary celebration:

Hannah

The Booher Family

Baby Home Caregiver Presentation, Part 1

alternately titled "why our house is not yet decorated for Christmas"... :)

The creativity and energy of our caregiving staff at Casa de Amor (affectionally called "tias", aunt in Spanish) never ceases to amaze me. Last month the childcare supervisor programmed an end-of-the-year evaluation/presentation time for the two shifts of childcare workers at the Baby Home, eight tias in total.

From that day on, every naptime and evening after bedtime, the tias were working like busy little bees.

Here is the result, presented in three posts!

The toddler room at the Baby Home, decorated by Tias Adelaida, Consuelo, Lucy, and Elizabeth:

In English: GOD IS OUR STRENGTH, the guiding logo of this group of tias

PAZ Y AMOR means "peace and love".

The beautiful ceiling was the highlight in this room:

As Tia Adelaida pointed out, one generally finds a garden on the ground, just not in this case. :)

The crowning glory was this large rooster which became a joke between me and the tias. They had asked to leave some bags in my room but hid them so well I didn't realize they had done it...till one night and also the day of the presentation they joked that I had been "sleeping with a special visitor" and didn't even know it. :)

Next, the entrance to the baby room:

Bienvenidos: welcome!

This room has always been my favorite I think, even before it was the triplet room. It's been made even cuter in recent months by the addition of bookshelves, and now shelves with speakers (all thanks to our resident adminstrative-assistant-and-handy-man, Tio David!)

And it's now full of.....crib mobiles!!

So pretty...

Fun to see aquatic animals in a country with no ocean access.

(Side note: This framed picture hung above my bed in Texas throughout my childhood years.)

The tias even had snacks prepared for us!

And...we discovered the wife to Mr. Rooster of the next-door room garden. :)

More pictures to come!!

learned.

On July 19 I celebrated seven years living and serving in Bolivia! Since early last year I even have my permanent residency visa, which is WONDERFUL! This means I never have to apply for a visa again as long as I’m not out of the country for extended periods of time.

Right now is one of my ever-rarer trips back to the US. I have a week more visiting my family and this weekend we'll attend my cousin’s wedding in Texas!

As I add more and more time in between trips, it becomes a little like visiting a foreign country! The United States changes, my family changes (changing houses right now), and I change. The main reason I feel different since my last trip is all that I’ve been privileged to experience and learn in 2010 and 2011.

I’ve learned how to…

…Drive stick shift

…Care for triplets! (In a phrase, it’s exhausting, rewarding, and definitely felt like a once-in-a-lifetime blessing!)

…Lead a worship team at church

…Be part of a leadership team at church of university students and young professionals

…Make a real Bolivian “torta” (birthday cake)!

…Administer first aid (second aid?!) for many and various urgencies and emergencies

…Stitch minor wounds

…Give shots (to humans…before I’d only given them to goats)

…Choose medicines for various complaints and illnesses

…Coach soccer :)

…Get out ID cards for Bolivians

…Deal with macho police on a daily basis

…Speak and understand many, many legal and medical terms I had no idea of before 2010

…Speak “street slang” (literally dozens of new phrases and words in my vocabulary…some usable, others—well, NOT!)

…Go to a beautiful Christian wedding in the maximum security prison

…Enter the three main jails plus juvenile detention facility in Cochabamba

…Get someone out of a holding cell…or jail

…Navigate far reaching corners of the huge valley that is Cochabamba as I take street friends to their families

What other country and job would allow me to learn all of THIS in 1 ½ year’s time?!

I LOVE learning, what about YOU?

August 25

Life here in Bolivia, at least for me, has always been unpredictable and fast-paced. I can’t say I’ve always liked that, as my life in Texas was much more regimented. Let’s just say I could plan what I’d be doing all week and have things go according to “my” plan! I laugh to remember that now. Here I can’t tell you with certainty what will happen within the next hour. Even as I write this, I wonder if our newest child will arrive before I’m done…or if she’s coming another day.

Yesterday was a good example of how on many days, street work, Casa de Amor, and church responsibilities are woven together.


August 25...

If a new day starts at the stroke of midnight, then on August 25 I was still on the street. Actually I was just arriving back to the hospital with 5 or 6 kids to check on our friend. She had been on an IV since 9 something. I went in to check on her and she was glad to see me again, and that the IV drip was almost done. By 1am we had gotten her medications from my favorite pharmacy, always open (I’ve been there around midnight or later more times than I care to count the past couple of weeks!), and then I took everyone back to the bridge.

8:45am—A “buenos dias” to the staff and kiddos in the dining room

9—Arrive back to the bridge to give the next set of pills and pick up a 19 year old. While I waited for him and his girlfriend to get ready, I went back up top to where a few were starting their day of window washing. I was curious who the two visitors were, since they’ve so rarely had visits from anyone lately. I didn’t really recognize them but they have met me, when I was visiting another street group. The one they were inviting to participate in an activity told me later that he won’t go. He said “YOU can invite me to an activity, but THEY cannot. Were they here when I was sick the other night? No, you were. Do they come when we need help? No, YOU do.” Well okay then. Relationship is key!

10—Picking up the 19 year old’s mom to talk about some decisions he needs to make and also to take her to Hospitals of Hope for an eye exam. I hope that they have a more economical solution for an ongoing eye problem she has had! She noticed the constant phone calls I was getting and how quickly I was setting up appointments so she offered to wait and see the doctor alone, and I had to take her up on it. On the drive back, I had what turned out to be my breakfast and lunch when the kids I was with offered me a banana and an orange.

11:15—Dropped them off at bridge and a couple of the little guys got in and asked where I was heading. I told them and they said they would get off as I passed the stadium.

11:35—Screeching in just on time, I pick up little girl A (uses hearing aids) from her twice-weekly speech/auditory therapy class. She is always so happy after her classes!

11:50—Pulling up to the Baby Home I see we have visitors, from the nutrition center hospital. I go right into a meeting between our social worker, psychologist, physical therapist, and the other party: a father, his little daughter, the social worker of the hospital, and a therapist from the hospital. This week we agreed to take in a 2 year old girl who is blind. Yes, this will be a first for us! I took a few pictures as the meeting came to a close.

12:40pm—I had a decision to make, because the unexpected meeting took up the time when I was supposed to be at boy A’s birthday at Casa de Amor II. I decided to try to catch the end of that later and go straight to the street (a community near the bridge) where I had promised to take another out for his birthday lunch. I already had to cancel with him the day before because of going to meet the little girl at the hospital.

12:45—Picked up C, his girlfriend and her cousin, and we go to their favorite place for birthday meals. C, turning 16, also realizes my phone is ringing incessantly and I’m having trouble not double booking myself, so he suggests we get the food to go. It took such a long time restaurant staff was feeling sorry for us, but the wait gave me a chance to catch up with him. He wants to get out his ID card and we decided to go speak with his grandparents (his parents have died) about it on Sunday.

1:40—Picked up another 19 year old and his 1 year old son (formerly from my bridge but currently doing well renting a room, way on the other side from where I live). They will be visiting his mother and family for the afternoon. This lands me near Casa de Amor II, so I spend nearly an hour checking on staff and the kids. One of our little girls asks me when she will have new parents, her weekly question for years now. One of the caregivers asks me about our plans for September 5, Pedestrian Day (no transportation) in Bolivia. How is it already the end of August?! We need to start coordinating with all the staff and volunteers to see how we deal with that this year.

3:30—Back at bridge with orders from the bridge boss to take his sister-in-law (the one who is sick) to a center downtown and get her seen by another doctor. I parked my car by the river wall yet again. Two girls and I changed her clothes and two guys helped her out and into the car.

4—I met with several people at the center, while talking to others by phone, reporting back to those from the bridge each time. (As an aside, there was a tense moment when the priest in charge mentioned the diagnosis of our friend right in front of everyone. Very few knew…until now.) In the end she decided to not stay. She was worried they might not help her in the multi-level building, but that at the bridge everyone helps her by bringing her food and drink and meds, helping her go to the bathroom, and just watching out for her. I didn’t know whether to be proud how everyone rallies around like family at our bridge, or be sorry that it’s so “nice” she won’t move to the center!! The two doctors asked me to come back with them as they examine my friend. I like how thorough they are and all the questions they asked to try to get to the root of things.

5:15—I drop everyone back off at the bridge and race to the office. I really didn’t mean to disappear the entire afternoon! As I arrive, 3 or 4 Hospitals of Hope volunteers are leaving. One girl came up to me and gave me a sincere hand shake, saying that she went to Sojourn Church in Texas the same time my family did. What a small world! Then office work: meet with my office staff, sign papers, tend to emails.

7:15—Drag myself away from the office to go to a church leadership meeting. I take my guitar to drop off for someone who needs it for a rehearsal and also a CD of Spanish songs that someone else asked of me.

7:30—Even though only two of us have showed up, we begin the meeting regarding our newly formatted webpage. I am miserably tired by this point but try my best to stay attentive. It helps to have several cell phone calls.

8:30—Talk to my Mom on my cell while buying a vegetarian burrito from a street stand and heading to the bridge

9—Give my friend at the bridge her next pills. Then I realize I’m almost alone (a rarity) with a young street couple who has accused me of something completely false the past couple of weeks and now they are willing to talk. We had a good long conversation and completely cleared up the air as they apologized through tears for how they’ve treated me. I’ve been getting calls from others telling me where they are, so we go pick them up from downtown and spend the next few hours going to the pharmacy, gassing up my car, talking to friends, playing with a 2 year old visiting his (street) mother, watching a few from the bridge play soccer with the neighboring street community, and taking friends to and from where they need to be.

All interspersed are moments of giving advice, encouragement, checking up on relational issues or problems that needed to be resolved, and answering questions from the few who now know our friend’s diagnosis as they process that. The guy I had taken to visit his mother jumped back in my car at one point. We talked about an argument he and his wife had the other night but how he took my advice and was able to resolve it without creating a big scene or one of them returning to the street. I was so proud of him and told him so! We found his wife a little later, 4 months pregnant with their second, and since they are known for drinking binges and big fights, I told them about the blind girl we are about to get and how her mother drank every day—and to let it be a lesson to them!! They listen attentively and she promises me she’s not drinking anything besides soda these days. May it be so!

12:20am—Arrive home completely exhausted and a fever (??) even though it was a relatively quiet night on the street (no bad fights, no police trouble, no medical emergencies). I still need to get the glue out of a large section of my hair before it completely hardens - a first for me but not surprising, seeing as street peoples' hands are often coated in it. Meditate on my "verses of the week". Briefly check emails.

12:35—Crash into bed!

Happy Easter! ...and Voting Day

For those of us in Bolivia, this year political elections overshadow Easter. Quite the bummer, since use of vehicles is prohibited on election days. Also meetings of over 10 people are normally outlawed, as well as the sale of alcohol for 72 hours before, although this year a concession was made and religious meetings are allowed. Still, my church is not close and it's a complicated day to get staff members to and from the homes on time and successfully, so I won't get to go.

Since the days when my Dad lived here, we get authorization for a vehicle which is VERY helpful, especially when a lot of medical things are going on...which is definitely the case once again! David will stay busy all morning taking tias to and from the homes and the polls, and possibly to the clinic depending on how Nataly's IV cooperates.

Here’s my to do list for the day:

Be with the kids/triplets more (started off my day with them, pictures coming!)
Bake!!! I don't know what, but it will be yummy whatever it is...and must use ingredients on hand
Iron clothes
Pick up room (I've been a chinese laundry for 24 hours by now...since I went two weeks in between washes for lack of time, everything is too close together and isn't drying)
Learn more Italian words (tomorrow an Italian couple meets our little girl C, yeah!!)
Start catching up in my read-through-the-Bible in a year plan
Finish the book “Mercy Moves Mountains” by Nancy Alcorn
Try to reach the triplet's godmother again (she doesn't know that her namesake Nataly also got sick)
Print more triplet schedules
Make a chronological list of bridge birthdays
Bake something for Tuesday night's volunteer fellowship
Finish C’s album for her new family (I have about a year's worth of pictures to hunt through)
Look over my March personal expenses
Choose songs and think through the next song list for the praise team at church

And...my bridge friends really want me to come even with no transportation. They will be bored with no cars to wash and (I imagine) no visitors. I wonder how long it would take to walk the 4 ½ kilometers? If I don’t go, it will be the first time since mid-February that I miss a day.

So yeah, just a few things on the list, but this will be a RESTFUL day whatever I do!! I seriously need a quieter day.

HAPPY EASTER!! HE IS RISEN INDEED!

the organization

The triplets have been a fun organizational challenge for us!

Baby stuff x 3!

Our master organization sheet!!

I LOVE this and didn't even do it! Some tia took a moment to separate their clothes, blankets, and accesories according to the colors we use to distinguish each triplet (you get the idea in the pictures below): white and/or blue, yellow or green, and pink!

springing up babies, or "what's in the water?!"

Since 2004, we’ve never had more than one caregiver pregnant at once. That is, until now!

Now it seems like every week another staff member sits me down to tell me the news: you're going to be a tia (aunt) again!

At this point, here’s the rundown:

Psychologist Carmen gives birth to a second son, January 25, 2010

Baby Home caregiver/shift supervisor Sarin is expecting a boy, due April 2010

Baby Home cook Silvia, due August 2010

Baby Home caregiver/childcare supervisor Adelaida, due September 2010

Administrator/Social Worker Rosa (wife of our accountant David), due September 2010, and get this, WITH TWINS!!! (YES we are in shock!!)

Every time I get this news, I focus on receiving it on a personal level first, with hearty congratulations, big smiles, and lots of joy. I mean after all, we're all about babies here and each one is a blessing!

But unfortunately, then comes the "business" side of things....

~Way more paperwork for the next 21 months (pregnancy till baby is 18 months)

~Taking care of the tia's health as best we can in what's a very strenous, physical job. Often they are admitted to the hospital and I visit at least once.

~Finding a suitable substitute for the 3 months paid maternity leave

~Apart from the mother's salary, we pay the baby a minimum wage salary from the 2nd trimester until the first birthday (that adds up to nearly $100/month for 18 months!! and we'll soon find out if that's doubled for twins)

~Paying the sub, although there is some compensation for this with the health insurance

~Working out if the tia can bring the baby to work or not...and if not, pray hard that they find someone to watch the baby!

~We cannot fire the staff member until the baby is born...or maybe even turns 1 year (can't remember)?...because too many would do that to simply get out of paying the myriad of benefits
It's actually less expense for us to receive a new baby into the home than all the benefits for staff babies, ironically enough. That's Bolivian law for you! Of course, only the largest institutions/businesses are normally able to comply with all of this, but we are committed to legality here and trust that God will provide all that we need.

So as you can see, I would love to just be excited about a new child for these women who are like family to me, but thanks to the very heavy handed laws on the side of employees, and due to the nature of the work (kids won't wait for you like a stack of papers will!) there are plenty of ramifications.

And now 4 of my 16 female staff are expecting, and the 1 male too, considering it's his wife due with twins, ahhh!!!

It will be quite the year!! :)

January 11...

~A baby I’ve been visiting at a bridge turned 3 weeks old.

~I’ve been back in Bolivia 3 weeks (Can’t believe that 3 weeks and a day ago I was in Tennessee, in the winter! Another life!)

~Baby F turned 4 months old, wow! (Yeah, I agree it would have been super if I’d had a chance to take pictures of her. It’s on the list...)

~Gabriel was a day away from turning 1 year and 4 months, although I have my hunch that he and his sister were also born on September 11.

~It was the 3 year anniversary of street fighting and bloodshed in our peaceful city, as opposing political/social groups clashed. Much of the blood ran on our prettiest avenue, where I had been literally a couple hours before. “Enero Negro” (black January) 2007 was a very sobering month that changed the political and racial scene in our city forever.


It was a full, busy Monday too! Rosa (social worker) and I started the day at court and ended it at child social services.

Actually technically I started it by following up with a Friday meeting with our physical therapist. This year we have asked her and another staff member to change from full time to part time. There were various reasons. Of course saving money is a nice one, as we want to be wise with sacrificial donations. The crazy thing is, even with reducing staff this year in several ways, we still end up paying roughly the same each month thanks to continual government ordered increases and the fact that most of our staff has been with me years now (a great thing, really) and that means they get extra benefits.

So for the court hearing, we had high hopes that Gabriel would go to live with Caregiver Luz yesterday. The hearing had already been postponed and everyone was anxious. In the hearing with the judge (which was almost changed again because child social services’ lawyer wasn’t showing, unfortunately all too common), all was found to be in order, all 4 parties were in favor, but………one piece of paper was missing and thus Gabriel returned home with us instead of his waiting adoptive mother. Because of the timing of when his twin sister died last year with a big national vote coming up, we were unable to obtain the official, signed, stamped, sealed death certificate. Social services promised us they would take up the charge. Then those people changed out. We insisted again. Then those people changed out. We insisted more. And so on and so on until yesterday, Gabriel did not go home with a doting mother and three siblings because of one piece of paper. What to do? That's life here so we try not to dwell on it

As an aside, due to all the recent judge changes, it was the first time we’ve had a hearing in the actual “Palacio de Justicia” instead of the crumbling old court building (literally unsafe for habitation!) or a nearby office building. We were in lawyer land as we navigated the huge building full of court rooms and judge offices. I had a chuckle when I saw a window all decorated up for Christmas exclaiming (in Spanish) “Merry Christmas from the correctional jail court!” How nice.

I met with several staff members and volunteers to straighten out which specialist appointments happened while I was gone, and which did not and why. Then we talked about which babies/children we should get new medical certificates/reports for just because they are close to being assigned and we could be asked any day for all new papers. Then I started making appointments and coordinating with the houses and THEN completely overhauled my master “doctor check up” list. Organization, organization, organization!

I emailed my sister an updated kid list because she said she was “missing a kid” in her head after the recent changes, and that she’s glad that at least I know how many we have! :)

My accountant and I had a meeting with the owner of our new house for Casa de Amor II (yeah!). The important point here is that his daughter and grandson (an extremely noisy, wiggly child) also came. And almost everything we had decided on just 2 and 3 days before had changed. Funny how that happens. When we were simply talking about the house, every answer was a “yes, of course!” but now that we were ready to sign a contract, it was like “wellll, we discussed that over the weekend and changed our mind”. Sigh. Reminds me of a time or two when I’ve hired one person and found they were another person entirely once the 3 month trial period was up!

And then we were in social services until way past their closing, trudging through our 27 page Foster Family Program proposal, with a lawyer with a completely pie-in-the-sky vision of how things "should" work. After 10 months of this, I still get the feeling that they think I’m proposing some new and unusual punishment, when in fact even other developing countries in the world use this model!

I’m discovering that this lawyer's favorite thing to say is, in a calculated way while staring deep into your eyes like she’s trying to figure out why you’re such an idiot, “We just really need to keep thinking through all of the details of this very slowly and very well, now don’t we?”

If the lady only knew how I live, eat, sleep, and breathe this work, my life passion, whereas she clocks out Monday through Friday and goes to a quiet house….. Just because SHE can’t wrap her mind around it, doesn’t mean that we haven’t spent 10 months researching this and presenting dozens of well-thought-out documents to them so that they can collect dust in her office and get lost!! Sorry. Gotta vent somewhere. They just have the strangest capacity to overlook any benefit to children, or child rights, over their need to have full control and say in EVERYTHING. I just don’t get it.


As I’m writing this in Outlook, we’re having a major windstorm and thus little-to-non-existent internet. Who knows when it will post! Have I said “such is life in Bolivia” yet?!

2010 Word-of-the-Year

Last year, my word just came right to me: rest. Since last month I’ve pondered what my next word-of-the-year might be. It was so much harder! Maybe it’s because “rest” turned out to be so appropriate and I thought of it so much and thus there was more pressure on the word to choose this year.

Some of the words that continually came to mind were:

Self-control

Perseverance

Patience (okay, so I didn't seriously consider making that my word)

Hope

Excellence


Finally in the past few days, I decided to go with “diligence”. It doesn’t make you think ouch! like self-control, or a “p” word (we have a joke at our women’s Bible study about the dreaded P words!), but it’s still a challenging goal and it encompasses the other harder words.

Webster’s definition is “1: persevering application; 2: the attention and care legally expected or required of a person”. Other definitions include conscientiousness or determination or perseverance when doing something, a zealous and careful nature in one's actions and work, decisive work ethic, budgeting one's time, and willingness/ability to work steadily and carefully.

Then I started looking up diligence and diligent in the Bible. My eyes popped out to see that exact word used here:

"Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: ….he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness." (Romans 12:6-8)

Even though I’ve lead Casa de Amor since I was 20, I do not want my first passion to die down. Actually during our administrative meeting last week, after we all reflected on the challenges and triumphs of 2009, we decided that the first five years could have been foundation building and that we’re just now poised to really carry out our vision and mission. We need continued diligence to move forward.

There are many other wonderful verses that use the word diligence. Here are a few:

“Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” Romans 12:10-12

“For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” Hebrews 6:10-12

"But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love." 2 Peter 1: 5-7

"Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble." 2 Peter 1:10


So this year...

I want to be more diligent in reading the Bible. Since I can’t remember the last time I read through the whole Bible within one year, I’ve started through a set schedule to ensure that happens.

I’m being more diligent in eating less, healthily, and well.

Practicing “early to bed, early to rise” takes diligence.

Read each staff report with diligence and attention even when it's #15 in a stack of 20

Work through our 2010 goals and objectives for Casa de Amor with diligence.

I'm sure I'll think of many more, but these are what come to mind right now.

I've always remembered a sermon preached by Dudley Hall probably 7 or 8 years ago titled "Pay Attention". This is the year to wake up and pay attention! :)

What word is the Lord giving YOU this year?

and then there were six

We hardly know what to think! It hasn't sunk in yet. Six children who have been with us since our first days have left. The last time we "lost" several in a week, we received even more, so this is a first!

Six year old A summed it up perfectly when she said, in response to how she was feeling as she packed, "A little good, but a little bad, too". I assured her that I felt the same way and that was perfectly normal!

When the caregiver asked the kids how they felt about the four siblings leaving, boy A expressed our feelings exactly when he burst out "somos muy pocos niños ahora" (we're just a few kids now)!

After having between 12-15 children at a time since opening Casa de Amor on July 4, 2006, this is definitely different.

Today I was going through years of pictures to choose some to print for the kids as memories. They changed SO MUCH!

July 10, 2006, arrival day (the 4 kids to the right)

December 28, 2009



J, July 2006



C's first birthday with us, August 2006

V with a puppy at Tia Rosi's farm, August 2006

Does anyone recognize these kiddos, from 2006? What babies!!

Since early last year, CDA’s staff has worked towards the successful return of the 4 siblings to their mother. The childcare staff prepared them to live in a much smaller space, cook for themselves, heat bath water in the sun, and good life skills such as finishing homework first.

While we carefully moved closer to the 4's return, little did we know that the same week another two would return to their father! So after 4 years and 4 months with us, including the time for the whole paperwork process and reports, A & E were finally reunited with their father on Christmas Eve.

A (right side of my lap) & E (baby at far left) in July 2005, the month they arrived as some of our very first children

December 24, 2009


A's first birthday with us (2 years old)

E's 2nd birthday

While the house seems empty without these six, their excitement to be with family again is heartwarming! We have the next several months of follow-up visits/court reports planned out, and it begins tomorrow as the social worker and I go to visit the four siblings in their new home.

Pray with us for these children, their families, and us as we all enter a transition time. (More news soon!)

what a meeting!

Now that I'm posting this, I'm thinking....uh, probably people could care less about our meetings. They want pics of the kids. Well today you're getting a picture of a meeting!

After a couple hours of work in the office this morning, we then moved to a quiet CDA II (all the kids were out) for a reunion de planificacion.

I met with Rosa (administrator, social worker) and David (accountant, administrative assistant, resident handyman, etc.) for 3 1/2 hours as we poured over the numbers from 2009 and set our budget for 2010. Good stuff! Numbers aren't normally my favorite, but it was really good to sit down and focus without distractions. It was also interesting to study our averages over the year. I was glad that I took so much time to prepare myself beforehand!

Then Maria (who does everything from social work to health to pastoring) joined us and we had a lovely lunch (thanks for your help, Elena and Savannah!) then continued on for 4 1/2 more hours.

I should have recorded the summary each gave of 2009, as a brief evaluation. In spite of it being our most difficult year thus far, again their passion for what they do shone through. To hear how each is moving on and looking upwards was a great encouragement.

Then we launched into talking through ten areas, including topics for staff seminars, upcoming staff and schedule changes, responsibilities in the area of health, education, and reviewing the 2009 evaluation sheets from each staff member.

We left tired, but a good sort of tired after a very productive day. It doesn't hurt that we all really enjoy being together as well! As I've said before, seriously, I am so grateful for my office team. How blessed I am to have not one but THREE right arms to carry out this work the Lord has given me!

And, just in case you were worried, we most definitely have a full 12 months worth of work ahead of us. =)