What's going on at Dulce Refugio
I know that many people have passed through this orphanage and left their mark at Dulce Refugio. I want to keep all of you informed about what is going on with the kids and the construction process. Please remember to keep us in your thoughts and prayers; I hope you continue to help us out here at Casa Hogar Dulce Refugio. Gracias amigos!
April has been full of fun and activities. The kids have been on break from school for the last couple of weeks and we had lots of things planned for them to do. But in the midst of everything I was still able to get a lot of work done and move things along in the school and our new garden.
In the construction...
We poured a concrete floor for the garden. Aguascalientes has crazy rain for a couple months of the year. It downpours for an hour or two almost every day during summer and this causes grass to grow incredibly fast. The grass would ruin the fruits & vegetables that we are going to plant. With this floor and the boxes on top it should be a lot easier.
Welcome to the "Crooked Garden." We have all the boxes made and almost all of them are filled with soil. In total it will take 280 bags of soil. I didn't purchase enough the 1st time, so I had to make another order. We are ready to start planting as soon as we get the seeds!
It's called the Crooked Garden because we didn't take the time to get everything perfect. We used our eyes instead of levels & string lines to make everything straight so there are lots of things that are a little off. But oh well, it is structurally sound and what grows inside of the Crooked Garden is the most important part.
And to help add the finishing touches, the youth group from the church I go to came and helped dig 25 holes to plant the fruit trees that are going to go around the outside of the garden. Thank you CFC - Centro de la Familia Cristiana!
I finished installing all of the door handles & locks...18 in all. I think sometime in the future I'm going to have to get a locksmith to make some master keys so we won't have to carry around 18 keys all of the time for the school.
I started tiling the hallway on the 3rd floor of the school. Each one of these tiles had to be uniquely cut due to the type of bricks we used on the wall, so it took a lot of time and detail. Now the rest of the hallway should go much quicker.
The kids started their vacation from school. They get about 3 weeks off for spring break and it was FULL of activities. We took the kids to the park, the movie theater, an ice skating show, a museum. We got invited to a nice Italian restaurant and the owner gave us all you can eat pizza, pasta & drinks. Also, many different people came to the orphanage and put on events for the kids. Plus just about every night the kids got to watch a movie on our soccer field with the projector. They are having a great time and definitely enjoying their break so far!
For Good Friday I took most of the kids to climb "Picacho," the most popular mountain in Aguascalientes. I gave a quick Bible message to the kids about how our feelings and emotions don't change the Truth. Jesus didn't want to go to the cross but He did it anyway because He knew it was the right thing to do.
We celebrated Mia's 8th birthday. Mia is the granddaughter of Marce, the director of the orphanage. We had a big pool party with our kids and other kids from Mia's school.
We said goodbye to 2 kids this month:
Miriam unfortunately ran away. We were having lots of problems with her. She was stealing money and she stole a key to one of our storage rooms. We punished her by not letting her out of the building but she found a way out of a window and took off. I hope she will start making better choices outside.
Luis was such a good kid. He was very mature and helped out a lot. We got along really well and I was sad to hear that he left. The government agency gave us no advance notice that they were coming for him so I never had a chance to say goodbye. He will be missed
And finally, we had our annual Día del niño (kid's day) event. The theme this year was "Circus" and people wanted me to go as the bearded lady but I refused. It was a fun event and about 500 kids showed up. Each one received a gospel presentation, pizza, a bag of candy & a toy. What a blessing to share Jesus with the local kids and to teach our kids to share/give what we have to others.
