Our construction crew has been working at an amazing speed the last couple months. The walls are already up and the guys are applying the stucco and putting together the roof structure.
In the next few of months we will be finishing up this house and the volunteer house. Both need stucco, a roof, and then the floors poured. We hope to have these houses finished this summer so we can free up the kid's homes for kids.
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Desperate for House MomsWe're are getting SO close to taking in kids. We have made a lot of progress the last few months with the Honduran Social Services. Awhile back we turned in our application and operational plan to be a Kid's Home. They've sent things back for editing a couple times, but we're almost, almost done with this legal process.
So far we've undergone two Social Services inspections of our place and both have gone well. The first was from the national headquarters, who will approve us a Kid's Home. This inspection ended up happening the day our son Josiah was born and we missed it! But even though we weren't there, our board member Gerald and right-hand-man David did an excellent job of showing our place and explaining our vision. Then in March we had a second inspection from a regional branch of Social Services. With this inspection we will be able to receive kids from the government home in San Pedro Sula. Now we're down to needing House Moms. We feel that the role these House Moms play will be so crucial in the lives of our kids that we don't want to hire anyone haphazardly. We feel it is a serious responsibility of ours to find the right people. Jason recently traveled around Honduras making connections with seminaries and community leaders looking for people. This weekend we will be interviewing two potential women and a couple. Please pray with us that we find the RIGHT people to care for the kids from the start.
We now have three future milking cows living in the mahogany plantation with our sheep. With our 2010 Gift Catalog that we had up during the holiday season, people seemed quite excited about our dairy project. So, with the funds that came in for the dairy we decided it was time to add cows to our land. Thanks to all who gave towards our dairy project!
For significantly less than the price of a full-grown, good milker, we were able to purchase three cows that are a year-and-a-half old. They will be ready for milking in about another year. Since we’re not ready for gallons of milk every day at this point, we figured this would be the most cost effective way to go. One interesting thing we’ve just learned is that cows supposedly make good shepherds. They are supposed to have a calming effect on a flock of sheep. Right now the sheep that we have are a bit wild and unused to being around people. They are quite literally very jumpy (who ever thought counting sheep jumping over a fence could be literal?). The cows had their wild and crazy time too though, as our guys worked to get them to the mahogany field.
In the future we are looking forward to getting the equipment for other sports, like volleyball and tennis. We want to expand the horizon for these kids, open them up to more things they can excel at, and keep the playground fads coming.
Also this year, we finished our Activity Center, bought cows, bought sheep, and bought beehives. In our REWIND we also talk about our plans to start a Children's ministry for young people in surrounding villages. We've got lots going on. Thanks for helping us be here and make a difference in the lives of vulnerable young people. Click below to visit the site.
In the middle of October we attended the Project Honduras Conference. This is an annual conference to bring together those who are working for a better Honduras. It's a great place to gain a broader view of the work being done in here, to connect with others working in Honduras, and to share ideas and resources. Jason presented for a few minutes about Give Hope 2 Kids and the work that we're doing. We talked about all the various things that we're working on, as there aren't very many ministries that work on their own project, in their community, and with agriculture to support themselves. We especially emphasized the idea of bringing volunteers to work inside the public elementary schools, as this has been an effective tool at building community relationships and benefiting the local kids. We are proud of all that we have accomplished -- with God's grace -- in the past few years. The President of Honduras, President Lobo also came to the event. He came for a few hours to listen to some of the presentations and ideas of the aid workers and to share some of his own thoughts. What an honor!
Getting sheep is one of our big goals for the next few weeks. We've been fencing in part of our mahogany fields for their grazing and building thatched structures for shelter. This fence has been a BIG project that's taken a lot more time and resources than we foresaw. We are excited though to go and find the first sheep to purchase.
In the next month we are also hoping to put up a chicken coop and start a flock of chickens for eggs, as well as getting our first beehives. Dialogue Church was kind enough to donate money for beehives in the spring. So far though, we have been unable to coordinate a time where we can travel to buy the beehives in a different part of Honduras and be able to get an expert to come teach us what we need to know.
We've also been working on putting up our new greenhouse. The goal is for this building to be a training center as well as place to start young plants. Right now the structure is up and we're ready to attach the shade cloth. We've already started a training program though, even without the finished facilities. A couple of our fall volunteers are doing an agricultural training program for a group of graduating 6th graders from our elementary school. We're trying to plant seeds of change in these young minds, teaching them about erosion prevention, crop diversification, and other important topics. Unfortunately with the way the soil is deteriorating in our area, the next generation will not be able to support their families by just growing beans and corn. We hope that by teaching the kids that we can help our area move into a successful future in agriculture.
As many of you know, it has been a long process to get permission to take in kids here in Honduras. For a year and a half now we have waited for Give Hope 2 Kids to be recognized as a Honduran non-profit. Our papers would slowly move from one desk to another, always waiting for the next signature. For about a year our papers pretty much sat in one spot, due to the unstable political climate here in 2009. Well after all that, we want to announce that we are finally a Honduran non-profit!
So, where to next? Now we will be working with the social services here to open our Children's Home. We have to travel to the capital of Honduras and submit our full plan for the operation of the Children's Home. They will review our plan, most likely ask for changes, and then they will review our facilities, and possibly ask for changes there too. Depending on what they require, this process could go very quickly or take several months. We certainly hope this final step will move along rapidly and smoothly, as we are very excited to take in the first kids. The other crucial step at this time is finding the right houseparents to care for the kids. Many people have advised us to go to a particular part of Honduras to find houseparents, which is an area where we have few connections. So this search for houseparents will be an adventure in itself. It is so important to find the right people from the start. We want our kids to have consistent and good caretakers in their lives from the beginning, so they can grow up in an environment that closely models normal family life. Please keep us in your prayers as we move closer and closer to opening Give Hope 2 Kids' Children's Home. She is growing and getting more rambunctious all the time. She loves swinging in the cocoa trees and chumming with the dogs.
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