Update!!

Dear friends,
There is so much to say but so little time.

I'll begin with the children then talk about what we are donig here and then how God is changing my heart.

These children are so precious. Yes, they have their bad sides (one child comes to mind specifically hahaha), but all in all it's hard not to fall completely in love with them. There are children who live here and there are teenagers and young adults. Casa hogar is a home. It is a place where children who are unwanted can live. They can't be adopted however because Casa Hogar IS their home.

Some live here because their families were too poor or in too bad of a situation to raise their children so chlidren are brought here to Casa Hogar. However, a majority of the chlidren come from sad backgrounds of neglect and abuse. You can see the evidence in their physical scars and emotional ones. A lot of them were brought up learning that hitting is how to teach others. They remain very quiet about whatever is wrong in their life, but just being there for the kids or teens or anyone here is enough.

Despite their pasts, the kids are normally very joyous and playful. They play soccer frequently. They play with eachother and with us interns :] The staff here has an immense amount of compassion and are so easy to talk to! (Btw, all this interaction is improving my spanish immensely :D )

Normally, during the summer teams from the states come here to Casa Hogar for a week to spend time with the children and help with construction. Sadly, most of them aren't coming due to the economy and their fear of the drug related violence in acapulco :/ So this summer will be different from past interns summers.  We do construction without teams and help prepare meals for the kids and clean around Casa Hogar. Us inerns visit sobre el Puente (a ministry for kids who live on the streets as they remain involved in drugs and other various thing and can't live at Casa Hogar) and help out there. Many stories from Sobre El puente. Most of our time is spent loving and being with the children (my favorite :] ). We do homework with them and hang around and play soccer and games and it's my favorite. I get to know the kids the most during these times and get so much closer to them. I get to see sides of them I had never seen before (like sadness, anger, jealousy) that I get to be involved in with love. But they continually show their little angelicness too :]

Lastly, God is working on my heart immensely. My time here gives me so much one on one time with God. Also, the orphans have been a tool God has been using in me.  I keep seeing his Mercy... that's the biggest one.

In future blogs I will not summarize but rather tell stories of what's going on here. It's much more powerful that way. basically.... God has placed me in a place full of love hungry orphans. Through all this God is molding me.

Until next time.... Love,
Jesi