SUMMER MISSIONARIES
We were so blessed this past month to have three summer volunteers come to spend a month at Sonshine Hacienda. At the end of May, Rayne Knapp came to renew her friendship with the children at Sonshine. She and her parents, Ron and Rebecca have been great friends of the kids since we first opened our doors one year ago. The children love her....as do we! What really surprised me about Rayne was that she found her "forte" was doing laundry and helping our cook (Papa Rafael) in the kitchen. Why was I shocked? Well, That is not what you expect from a 15 year old. Way to go Rayne!! We will see you again soon!
At the beginning of June,we also had the pleasure of getting to know two new friends from Christian Family Fellowship in Santa Rosa, California. Danielle Cowles and Ruth Ann Gomes came to us with huge enthusiasm & ready to get to work!! They were really wonderful with the children and were wonderful support to the Dorm Mom's. No job I asked them to do seemed to be too hard or uncomfortable (like washing sheets everyday to eliminate a head lice outbreak). Come back soon you two!
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A TIME TO SAY GOOD-BYE
Sometimes there are parts of our work here at Sonshine Hacienda that can only be described as mixed blessings. I guess that applies to what we feel when we have to say good-bye to children that we have had with us for many months. That happened just a few weeks ago. Jorge, Jose, Marta and Maria came to us with many problems. The worst issue was with Jorge. He had a very serious Kidney condition. That eventually led to him being hospitalized for over a month. Thanks to the Lord, he recovered well and returned to us. We watched the children heal from anger issues and health issues. We also were blessed to see Jose, 10 years old, accept the Lord as his Savior and Pastor Gary baptised him this spring. But while the children were healing, their mother was also working hard to overcome her addiction problem and DIF (our Child Services Dept.) and the Judge that placed the children here decided that the Mom was ready to take responsibility of her children once again. Diana and I were together the day that the mother came to pick up her children. It was so wonderful to see the joy on the faces of the four children as they walked to the front gate holding on to the hand of their mother. After we hugged them good-bye and shut the gate, Diana and I hugged each other and then hand in hand, we walked back to where the other children were waiting for us. We look at one another and said, "We did a good job". Now we leave them in God's hands.
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A LITTLE CRAZY FUN
Ruth Ann and Danielle loved to have fun with the kids... and they brought a few things with them to make sure that they had the supplies necessary for the"fun times". Above is a picture of one of their crazyWATER BALLOON FIGHTS. Of course the kids loved it. It was so much fun that the staff got involved and were targeting each other. We were all soaked by the end of the water fight. The funny thing about the water fight is that Ruth Ann and Danielle discovered that it took a couple of hours to fill the balloons and just 20 minutes to bust them. So as the summer is now in full swing, we are trying to find activities to keep the kids busy. We are still going out every Saturday and doing our garbage clean up. The kids love it!! We are also playing in the sprinklers, playing with play dough, legos, checkers, doing Bible memory verses and watching movies. OH YES...Monday thru Friday we do Summer School here at Sonshine. Mama Diana is teaching Spanish(reading & comprehension) and Math. I am teaching English. Papa Alvaro is teaching Discipleship to the older children. Pray that the children who are behind in school will begin to catch up on their skills.
MARKETPLACE MISSIONS & SONSHINE HACIENDA
MAILING ADDRESS
P.O. BOX 9011
PMB 41
CALEXICO, CA 92232-9011
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