Sunday, January 28, 2007

 
News from Jerry ...

Hugo's Eye Problems: Hugo Sandoval, on staff as our Spiritual Life director, had eye surgery on his only good eye. He has been without sight in his left eye since the age of 18 when he was seriously injured playing soccer. He has since had two surgeries on his right eye due to blood clots within the eye. The high altitude aggravates his condition. This last surgery has not been as successful as the earlier two, however he has also had an infected tooth which he believed contributed to his blurred vision. He had it pulled two days ago and believes this has already helped some to clear his vision. Please continue to remember Hugo's eye in your prayers. He and Jenny are wonderful assets to the work here and we regularly thank God for sending them to help us.

Pat's Knee Situation: Patricia is still suffering with pain in her knee every day. She gets relief when she stays off of it for a long night of rest. She is determined to be a part of things and gets discouraged if I fuss about her staying off of it. Thank you for your prayers in her behalf!

Mold related health status: The last few weeks have been dry and we are both better, though we still suffer from a mold related cough.

New House: We are still working toward finishing our new house. We pulled off of it in order to flood the school project with enough labor to complete it quickly. We have returned to work on the house and are eager to complete the project. The retaining wall is being constructed this week. Patricia is busy painting the interior. She insists on doing this work herself and is doing a marvelous job. As you may know, this is the first house we have ever built for ourselves and we are both really proud and excited about it. We know that it is a home that God will use to host many people after us, but it is very special to us at this point in time. We hope to be moving in within the next 3 weeks or so, but we want the school to be complete at the same time, so our labor is split between the two projects. We will finish up the lateral lines of the sewer system this week. This system serves both the school and the house. We hired a bulldozer and trackhoe to do a lot of work around the site. The large water reservoir just above the old house was removed. We noticed that the new walls of the house (which are made from cement blocks) were not drying out properly even though we had placed several French drains around and under the construction site. After we removed the reservoir, the walls began to dry within days! The whole site looks 100% better without the reservoir ...and we placed the dirt in front of the house which made a very nice flat front yard.

New Casa Construction: Although we have not actually started construction on the final two casas, we did complete the site work the first week in January. We are getting price quotes on bulk steel purchases for both casas as well as brick cost, but we must finish our present projects before moving onto this next job.

Additional Children: God has not sent additional children yet. We are searching for new houseparents and once they are in place we will pursue additional children. Pat and I are currently serving as house parents to Christian, Jorge and Jon. We took them into our cabin about a month ago. Kent and Sharla gave us a Christmas puppy (Boxer) about the same time, so we have really had our lives change since the last week in December. We have learned that God seems to want to teach us more about patience! These changes have taken more of our time than we could ever have envisioned! However, it is very rewarding to know these precious boys better.

Monday, January 01, 2007

 

Updates Coming Soon!

Our apologies for letting so much time pass between postings. With the turn of the new year, we are planning to post more frequently in order to keep all of you up-to-date with regard to activities at the Hacienda of Hope. We count all of our supporters and prayer warriors as true blessings from the Father!

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