Kisses from Katie

My sweet friend Jessica Biondo has told me time and time again about this awesome blog she reads sometimes. It's called "kisses from katie." She was like 19, moved to africa and adopted 14 kids, started some huge child sponsorship ministry. Jessica had told me about her before but for some reason tonight, I decided to google it and see what came up. Well I did. And I could NOT help but share it with you:

http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/

The more I read, the more I praise God. So go ahead - read a bit. I dare you.

Still Loving it

Before I moved to Mexico in 2008, I wasn't 100% sure as to what I'd be doing everyday or where I'd spend the most time at or what my main job responsibilities would be. The only thing that I could picture in my mind was the faces of the sweet children that I had just come to love. And now almost 2 years later, it's those same sweet faces that make my day. A major difference between then and now though is that I can finally understand what these sweet 2, 3, and 4 year olds are saying. I've concluded that any child under the age of 5 can not comprehend that it's possible that you don't speak spanish. To them, everyone speaks spanish. They just start talking paragraphs as if you know exactly what they are saying. It's cute. The following photos were taken from a suburban as I was driving away from Casa Hogar Del Norte:

these kids are also too young to comprehend that a lot of the time when I'm at their children's home, it's to do work projects. They just think all day is play time. ALL day.
including when i'm literally driving away and saying bye. They just think it's a bigger game of hide and seek - and I use a car to hide.
how can you not love these faces? They make my job easy. They make my job a privilege. They make my life just beautiful. And thus... I'm still loving it here. Thank you supporters!

CHDN Library Mural

About 2 weeks ago, I had the opportunity to help Erica and Kim paint a mural at the new Casa Hogar Del Norte library addition. They did an fantastic job! Here are a few pictures to show the day by day progress of that week:

If you have ever been in Monterrey and visited this casa hogar, you'd remember it no doubt. It is the one that looks sort like it's out of some imaginary world - one where the kids have trampolines, a HUGE auditorium, outdoor kitchen, homework rooms, a bakery, music rooms, a computer lab and now a huge 2nd story library with outdoor patio. And to top it off, the woman who is the director of this home started the orphanage in her RETIREMENT. This home screams from every direction that God is actively blessing those children, He will hear them, come to them, lift them up, make them a home, give them food and clothing, execute true justice for them and all the other promises that God has made in scripture to the orphan child. And to top it off - those scriptures are actually physically written on the walls in case you missed the obvious.

Why a library? Martha, the director, was in the states visiting a church in Texas last year and saw their children's ministry area complete with a children's library. You know what they usually look like - bean bags, colorful carpets, fun art on the walls, tons of books, a few computers, etc. She asked the americans she was with if the kids liked this kind of library. Martha was a bit amazed at the idea that reading could be fun. You see, in Mexico the average school aged child reads one book a year. In the states - the average is not much better but at least it's at 12 books a year. The kids here very much so associate reading with punishment. But Martha - a woman of VISION - got another vision for her children's home and thus, the library addition began. We sat down with her and asked her on camera why she wanted a library for her children - she said something i was not in the least expecting - she said, "So the children will know who is God." Her reason for everything she does for the children was so that the kids would look around at the orphanage they live in and think, "this place is different. Why is this place so different?" And the answer would involve the reality of how much God passionately loves them and is caring for them. Pretty much NO ONE, no orphanage, no local civic center, no where has a children's library and if they do - it won't begin to compare to what Martha is building. And the reason is so that the kids might know who God is.

Listening to her testimony of the children on the streets that Martha would see everyday many years ago and how she made a decision to care for them which ultimately led to the children's home Back2Back serves today, it was all I could do to not just cry. Martha is incredibly humble. I've never met anyone like her. But what really gave me the chills that day was that she is BELIEVING on faith that the new directors of that home, whoever they will be, and she needs new leadership because she is really old, WILL BE ABLE TO BETTER CARE FOR THE KIDS THAN SHE CAN. After hearing WHY she was building a library, I was shocked. But hearing that Martha honestly believes that God will provide new leadership to follow in her footsteps that will do far greater things than she has been able to - will forever be imprinted on my mind. If you've ever met Martha, maybe you can understand a bit of my surprise at hearing this. I'm not sure I've ever met anyone as AWESOME, strong, determined, full of faith, dedicated, gentle, sweet natured, kind, generous and passionate as Martha Rojas.

I want to believe the best is yet to come like Martha does. Don't you?

God is always at work

One of my favorite bible verses EVER is 1 Thes 5:24. It says, "The one who called you is faithful and He will do it." The Message translation puts the last part of that verse as, "If he says it, he'll do it!"

A week ago, I had the opportunity to go to the states for a quick weekend trip to see some friends and family. Throughout that weekend, I had conversation after conversation with new friends and old about what God was currently doing in them and through them. I will admit that I struggle a bit when I get a chance to go to the states to focus on just my friends and family because I often find myself trying to make new friends and get to know everything there is to know about them in only the 15 minutes I might have after meeting them and determining that they are AWESOME and if I still lived in the states - we'd be BEST friends. I think I've digressed a bit... but maybe these new people I've been meeting will be important in my story. not sure yet- just telling it.

Over and over, I heard of God's faithfulness from old friends and new alike. I found myself laughing a lot when I was alone of just how awesome God is. He always knows EXACTLY what He is doing and what He is calling you to do. He confirmed again for me (which was oh so beautiful but seems to me now that perhaps he was just spoiling me a bit) that some of the things he has asked me to do in the past that just seemed out of this world to my friends and those around me, were NOT CRAZY. God had a plan. He always does.

And maybe you're reading this right now, thinking about something you feel like God has recently laid on your heart - a call to action of some kind. Maybe you think it's too difficult or doesn't make sense to your family so you've been trying to ignore it but you know in your heart of hearts that God is asking you to do it. Maybe God is trying to suggest that following him actually looks like following him - but you just think it's crazy. Well I'm saying right now that it's not. And if you pass it up - YOU are the one who will miss out on the JOY that you'll receive if you'll just obey the calling and allow God to minister through you. God will accomplish his missions with or without us. Yet he gives us the option and the opportunity to get to be his hands and feet sometimes in the things he is doing around the world. We can either get on board or ignore it. But I'm just saying... If he calls you to it - He will equip you for it and carry you through it. The one who calls you is faithful and just and sovereign and totally in control and HE WILL DO IT. Trust him.

below are some pictures from my weekend:

2 of my favorite people on the whole planet! We were at a beach and

this was the best photo we could pull off?!? wow.

My niece Olivia who said my name for the first time on this day with her graduates yogurt puffs that she will not put down for nothing and my mom's easter egg tree

my mom and my niece sitting around watching manatees and stuff

and my favorite picture ever because when I was little I also thought this giraffe at grandma's was AWESOME too - except not sure i ever kissed it hahha

Through the eyes of a child

Out at Rio 3 one cold day recently, I asked a little girl if I could take a photo of her. She said yes. This is the photo I took:

Then she asked me if she in turn could then take some photos of me. I figured, why not? That's only fair... she took quite a few pictures that afternoon. Here are a few:

Every time I'm out in communities like this one, I wonder what life must look like and feel like to these kids. Do they know any different? Are they embarrassed that they live in a trash dump? Will digging through the trash be this little girl's life work? or worse? I don't know but I'd like to dream big for this little girl and for all little girls just like her - She can climb out of the poverty she was born into. And she's probably going to need our help... so what does that look like to me? to you?

Biggest Outreach EVER at Rio 3

Several weeks ago, a group of about 60 middle school students from CHCA came to serve alongside our staff for a week. I'm not gunna lie - these 7th and 8th graders worked HARD! It never ceases to amaze me how much of an impact middle schoolers can make at the children's homes and the rio communities we serve.

One day during their week, the students split into 2 different groups and one half went to Rio 3 and the other half went to the Caderyeta to do an outreach of EPIC proportions. The students had raised extra money before coming down to Monterrey in order to give away the largest amount of anything B2B has ever given away in a rio since I've lived here. They were able to purchase groceries for 150 families in both areas - for a total of 300 families that day. I went with the group who went to Rio 3. The photos describe the day...

First, we made sure everyone had a hot meal. There were over 200 children on this day.

Then the students organized clothing, toy, and candy donations and outfitted each child with something in their size. As you can imagine, with literally hundreds of kids - this took a while.

Afterwards, the students organized all the food that was to be given away to each family into a big trash bag.

Pictured above is a rare photo of yours truly in action. At one point, in the heat of the chaos of trying to organize 30 middle schoolers, TONS of donations and food, and figure out the exact plan of how we would go about distributing it without causing a riot upstairs or in the neighborhood, I got out someone's phone and did some math to determine exactly how many eggs each family would receive. The calculator told me everyone should get 30 eggs. But for some reason, I proceeded to then cut all the egg crates in half so everyone got their 15 eggs?!??! About 75 families into the giveaway.... i realized what i had done and laughed a bit. However, in the end it was a blessing because we ran out of grocery bags full of food due to the incredible number of people who showed up to the church and were able to at least give them 2 dozen eggs and some clothes.

Each family received about $30 usd worth of groceries: 15 eggs (which somehow did not break), beans, oil, rice, flour, sugar, a frozen chicken, some taco meat, a box of cereal, some milk, pasta. And a new bible for their family in spanish.

After the outreach, we were able to walk through the neighborhood and see where and how the people live. We made a house call to the home of 2 sweet Christian women who can't really get out of their house much.

In the photograph above is a sweet woman in the rio named Linda. Whenever we bring groups out to serve here, we always try to walk to her house and bring clean water and some food to Linda and her middle aged daughter. Both Linda and her daughter have amputated feet due to poor circulation and lack of treatment for their diabetes (incredibly common in Mexico I'm finding). We bring clean water to help treat the wounds near these amputations. And we come to visit them, pray with them and listen to them sing. During this visit, I was just overcome with the obvious JOY in the Lord that Linda has. She radiates JOY and HOPE and LOVE and PEACE in the midst of circumstances that would cause many to despair. I was humbled to even be in this woman's presence on that day. To me, she looks absolutely beautiful in this photo - she is truly beautiful in the Lord.

All in all, it was an AWESOME day and I've never seen people in the rio - THAT happy and thankful and gracious. The church is once again, providing for their needs. I love it when Jesus gets a good name in a community like that. Jim (another B2B staff member) kept saying over and over again how awesome it was going to be when all those women brought home all those groceries (some needed help carrying them due the incredible amount of groceries) and their husband or boyfriend asked where they got the money for all the food and they could answer with, "the church gave it to me." You can tell people all you want about Jesus and what He did for us on the cross, but other times, you can SHOW people what Jesus has done for them and continues to do for them. On this day, I know some seeds were planted.

I often bring candy with me whenever I walk through the community there because I know some parents refuse to let their kids go to the church. I give them candy and say hi and give them toys if I have them sometimes. And there is this family of little kids that I often literally throw candy to all the way up some hill on the side of the river and dump. But on this day, they asked me if I could climb up and hand them the candy --- so I did. I wasnt really sure where I was going but I found them and emptied my backpack of candy for them. Their dad was sweet and wanted to know where I came from. So I gave him some tracks in spanish with the gospel on them and told him all about Olga's church just over the river and the classes and meals she provides for kids throughout the week. He was super excited to talk to me and said he'd look into her church. And all I needed was some candy.