Settling In

Praise God we finally got electricity on October 27 and were able to move into our home the last weekend in October! This is now our second full weekend in our new house, and it feels more and more like home every day.

It was a blessing that the children did not have school the Friday of moving weekend. That enabled our team to get the apartment cleaned out and move things into the ministry center that day. The team was made up of Eduardo (full-time do it all guy), Juan Carlos (caretaker at the property that flooded), Elisa and Iris (tutors). It was a small apartment, and since not much fit in it, not much needed to be moved out 🙂 Saturday was the big push to move us out of our rental and into our house. We recruited some extra help–including Jessenia’s brother’s family and a nephew–to get the job done in a day. It was a long day with many trips and logistics and moving parts (including internet installation!), but we successfully got everything from the old place to the new place. That Saturday night we were able to sleep in our new home, despite the house looking like a disaster zone. We continue to get things in place and figure out where it will all go, but it’s great to be in our house!

That Monday was another joyful day as the children came to the ministry center for the first time. Jeruahel greeted them energetically and raved about our new house. They were all clearly excited to see their new tutoring center, and they happily found their workstations after a quick tour of the house. Even having the dogs there was another layer of enjoyment for them. Going from the cramped little apartment to a spacious building was a welcome change. It is great that they will also have the freedom to play outside when they are finished with homework for the day.

This is all coming as we are in the home stretch for the ministry calendar year. The children begin their end of the year exams later this week. Each day the students take one exam and have time to study for their other exams. The last exam day will be Wednesday, November 23rd. There is an end of the year school activity on Thanksgiving Day, and then they will be on “Summer” break until the end of January. As far as I can tell, everyone is on pace to pass the school year. This is especially remarkable for Noel and Ezequiel, given the drastic change they went through this year. Noel felt so lost the first few months of school, but he has worked really hard and has figured out some more effective ways of studying. Ezequiel began third grade not knowing the vowels, much less the alphabet or how to read. Now he is a confident reader and his teacher is proud of his successes. Given the way Margine began the year, it’s maybe equally impressive that she will make it through. She definitely went through a dark place within her mind and emotions, and I know it’s still a struggle for her. But praise God that she has responded well to encouragement from her teachers and tutors, and everyone has noticed her spirits lifted. She is still in danger of failing one or two classes, so summer school will be required for her in January if that is the case. Please pray for all the children as they study and prepare for their year-end exams. Pray Margine rises to the challenge, particularly in Math and Language Arts, to give her best effort gain more self-confidence.

Other good news is that thanks to your generous response, we now have enough money to finish out the ministry year! That is a great blessing as there are always extra expenses at the end of the year. We will have a celebration with the children and their families the first weekend in December, and hopefully we’ll have an additional student or two for next year as well.

Several people responded to my last post asking what the specific need was financially. I will give some estimates of the various projects we still have pending to finish the houses.

Water towers. We have been without water 3 days a week since moving in. This is either due to the water company turning the pumps off or simply not providing sufficient pressure to get water up to our house from the street. We plan to build two elevated water tanks which would refill when there is water pressure so that gravity will give us water when the city water doesn’t reach us. Typically the lack of water gets worse during the dry season (late November to late May) as people use more water for grass and plants, so I feel urgency in getting this done. Total for both water towers and tanks–est. $5000.

Kitchen cabinets. This might be the highest priority for Jessenia at the moment, as she is anxious to get things in their place. She found a carpenter shop she likes who can make quality, cedar wood cabinets for both houses. The total estimate there is $1500.

Heightened security. Literally, we want to heighten the security wall. We were on the fence about making the original wall higher to begin with, but thought we would save money and improve security in other ways. However, our house ended up higher than we anticipated (result of the difficulties mentioned in the last post) and now I can see over the wall from our windows. This means people (thieves included) standing far enough outside our wall can also see into our windows. We would like to add a foot and a half to the wall to eliminate this problem. Estimate $3000.

Fix front entrance. With all the heavy loads of construction material being delivered through the front gate, the drive way sank a smidgeon. That smidgeon causes the gate to derail as it slides from the closed to open position. In the meantime we are using the side entrance. I don’t have an estimate, but it cost about $800 to put in the first time.

Garages (technically car ports). Last on this list is the least urgent. We want to build covered parking for our vehicles (the sun destroys things, like paint and interiors) with combined storage/tool shed space. This will also double as some shady space for the dogs. Estimate for both $6000.

Thank you again to all who have joined us on this journey. Your prayers, encouragement, financial support and faithfulness have helped carry us through. Living in our own house is the culmination of a over a decade of prayers and dreams! The fact that we’re debt free, which was a battleground along the way, is a testimony to His Love and care for us. Thank you!