The last news that you received from us regarding the status of receiving children  at Sonshine Hacienda was that DIF officials had met with us and had given us a list of changes that needed to be made to both our facility and our staff in order to satisfy their licensing requirements.  You might ask if we were disappointed, frustrated, and angry?  Yes, the entire staff did move through those emotions, BUT the good news is that we moved through those feelings and we have now arrived in a place where we are ready to take on the tasks that have been given to us.  We are renewed and refreshed through our faith in our precious Lord and Savior. Nothing is too big for our God!! He can move any mountain put before us.  How high do you want that wall??  It can’t be too high for God!! 

We have an action plan in place and have already completed a large majority of the tasks that were presented to us.  So we continue on - determined to finish the course and have children running in our courtyard as soon as God is ready!!  We will give you an update in a couple of weeks on our action plan, on “the wall” project and a few other announcements that we pray will bless all of us.

I love the old Afro-American spiritual, “I Shall Not Be Moved”.  I have taken some liberties with this song and changed the “I” to “we”, and just listed the first sentence in each verse. We will not be moved from our purpose, our commitment:

“like the tree planted by the water, we shall not be moved.”

“When my burden’s heavy, we shall not be moved”

“Don’t let the world deceive you, we shall not be moved.”

“Come on and join the army, we shall not be moved.”

STAY TUNED!!

December 2^nd, 2011 was an evening that all of us at Sonshine Hacienda will remember for many years to come.  To me, it was like how Cinderella must have felt going to the beautiful ball.  It was truly a night when our beloved Sonshine Hacienda got all “dressed up” in her finery and was able to show off how she had become this beautiful sanctuary!  She was a wash of dazzling brilliant blue and silver, with twinkle lights aglow and beautiful tables decorated for the 200 dear friends that came to officially celebrate the opening of Sonshine Hacienda, a refuge for the children in San Felipe. 

The evening was filled with a variety of different activities, prior to being seated for dinner.  As guests arrived for the evening, they were invited to participate in regularly scheduled tours of Sonshine Hacienda, or they could visit the Silent Auction room where they could place their bids on over forty items donated by local businesses, artists, restaurants and private individuals in the San Felipe area.  We also invited our guests to visit the “Giving Tree”, a Christmas tree decorated with decorations that were actually suggested items that people could commit to buy from our inventory list of needed items for Sonshine.

We had a delicious Italian dinner prepared by Rebecca Mann.  Thank you so much to Rebecca for all her dedicated work and long hours.  Thank you also to her right-hand man, husband Jim for helping her out!!  We are also so thankful for the delicious cake that was made by our favorite “Cake Lady” in San Felipe, Gloria Mater.  You out did yourself once again.  All of these services were donated out of love to Sonshine Hacienda!!

I must say that one of the highlights of the evening was when my date for the evening (the guy I have been hanging around with for 45 years next month) became the Auctioneer for our live auction for the evening.  All I can say is that if he hadn’t become a Preacher, I think he could have made a living selling other peoples “stuff”!!  We had a lot of fun, laughed a lot and made a lot of money for Sonshine Hacienda.  In total we cleared $6,000.  Praise the Lord!!  A big thanks to Paul and Donna Korneliussen for the beautiful powerpoint pictorial history of Sonshine Hacienda that closed our evening together…you made me cry tears of joy!!

I cannot close without thanking Paul & Donna Korneliussen, our Administrators and Erin Howard, our Sonshine Missionary and Alvaro & Diana Sandez, our Caretakers, for their countless hours that they spent planning and working diligently to make this celebration the wonderful night that it turned out to be.  

We want to thank all of you who so faithfully support Sonshine Hacienda.  Thank you for coming to our celebration and helping us “show off” our beautiful sanctuary in the desert!!  The Lord is using each of you to obtain His purpose….to have this refuge for children open and operating soon.  We claim that victory in His name.

This month has been filled with activities and lots of hard work. We have been working with DIF, our local version of Family Services from Mexicali. We are making great progress on our certification process. We also have received clearance on our building and facilities by the Mexicali Fire Department and the local authorities in San Felipe.

We have hosted two mission teams this past month at Sonshine Hacienda. In this article I will share about one of those groups. Watch for future updates on the certification process in my next post. 

What an amazing time we had with this group of dedicated workers from Crossroads Community Church, located in Parker, Colorado.  This team of 3 men and 7 women arrived November 5^th, ready to work and they never slowed down until the jobs that they came to complete were done. Paul and Donna Korneliussen, our Administrators at Sonshine Hacienda had worked with this team for weeks prior to their arrival so that all work was planned, budgeted and materials on site for each project.  The team worked like a well-oiled machine!! 

The first project that was undertaken was the building of a state of the art Clothes Line…big enough for hanging the wash of 48 children (whew)!  It is sturdy and well built and should stand for years without any problem.  Soon after that project got started, Paul began the work on the ultimate challenge for this group…the installation of a rather elaborate playground system for our kids at Sonshine.  Paul, Gary and Darrell Grant had a few weeks prior made a trip to Citrus Heights, California to disassemble and transport this playground equipment, located at a daycare center, which is now closed. We owe a big THANK YOU to Oakside Community Church for donating this playground equipment to Sonshine Hacienda.  According to Paul, taking the playground system apart was a lot easier than putting it back together again.  It took a lot of cement, bolts, patience and manpower, but the team got it done!!  It is such an awesome structure.  We can’t wait to see children climbing all over it and sliding down all the slides…Praise the Lord!!

While those projects were going on outside, there was work going on the inside in the dorm rooms.  Our “Cubbies” or Wardrobe Closets were getting a coat of stain and varnish by some of the team members.  They required two coats of stain and varnish and it was quite a “smelly” job!!  We also had a few team members who helped us with painting projects.  There was touch up painting done throughout the entire building and our Laundry Room looks amazing with our new “Waverly Green” walls and gray shelves.

One evening the women of the team hosted a “Coffee and Desert Get Together” for the Mexican Pastor’s wives in San Felipe.  They handed out invitations to 18 Pastor’s wives, prepared desserts and decorated the great room at Sonshine Hacienda with flowers.  A tour was given of Sonshine Hacienda, followed by a time of sharing and getting to know one another. At the end of the evening, each lady left with a beautiful scarf as a gift.  It was a wonderful opportunity to get to know the women of the community. All the ladies agreed that it was a wonderful evening.

The entire week was a blessing to each of us.  Not only was work accomplished, but friendships were built as well.  We look forward to having Crossroads Community back with us again in the Spring of 2012.

For all our supporters who are interested in attending this special event, and do not live in the San Felipe area, please contact us at our email: missionaries2@yahoo.com for ticket information. We would love to have you join us.

Well, it is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and in this case, I believe that is certainly true!  I wish that I had a "before" shot of this blessed bus to adequately illustrate to you the drastic change in the appearance of this bus. This bus was donated to us in 2006 by River Oak Grace Community Church in Oakdale, California. It has been patiently awaiting it's beauty makeover for the past five years in the business maintenance yard of San Felipe Disposal. A big THANK YOU to Gary Dilley for allowing us to store our two busses at his business site!

In 2010, Gene Jensen (a fellow Lions Club member) took custody of the Sonshine Bus and has lovingly transformed the formerly white and tan bus into a rainbow of colors for our children to enjoy.  We are so excited to see the wonderful job that Gene has done on our bus. We can't wait to see it filled full of laughing children, heading down the road to school. What a blessing! Thank you Gene. Just one more question...when can we start on the second bus???