Our Week in Review

We had an amazing week in Mexico, as you could see from the video!

This is the 6th year that a team from CenterPoint Church has embraced the chance to go and grow at the Hogar de Amor orphanage in Colima Mexico. This year we brought 26 people from CenterPoint - singles and families, kids and grandparents - all bringing their own unique passions and skills to the week.

Over the week we were able to contribute about 600 hours of labor to jobs around the orphanage:

• We painted and painted
• We plumbed hot water to a house that previously only had cold running water
• We added shelves to closets
• We sewed curtains
• We mended clothes
• We paved a patio
• We repaired bikes and computers

We were blessed and so excited about the support and gifts for Hogar de Amor that we received this year. From this church and community we were able to donate over a thousand pairs of underwear, 700 pairs of socks, 800 toothbrushes, and almost $20,000 in support.

And we created some great memories with the kids:

• We got to host a pool party for 100 kids and 30 caregivers - that was a big day and we still have the sunburns to prove it!
• We got to play games and sing songs and do crafts with the kids each day.
• We stuffed and hid 1500 Easter eggs in an empty lot and reveled in the pandemonium of a crazy egg hunt.

It was a big week!

It was a blessed week.

Thank you for supporting us, for sending us, and for praying for us.

This trip matters. Not because of the dollars or the supplies that get donated or even the jobs that get done. Those things are what we do, but they aren’t why we go. Those things and those activities are an outpouring of our love. They’re the effects of our devotion to our brothers and sisters in Colima, Mexico.

This trip matters because it’s a time to learn from and actively participate in God’s sustaining love in action:
God’s love for each of us
God’s love expressed through us to the kids and caregivers of Hogar de Amor
God’s love expressed to us through the kids and caregivers of Hogar de Amor

This week I got a beautiful note from one of the caregivers at Hogar de Amor. I think it sums up our week perfectly:

Thanks so much to the whole team... I don’t think we have the words to thank all of you for your work and support… Thank you especially for all of the love and care you all gave us and for treating us like family - really for us you are part of our family and we admire you so much and love you. Thank you! You are like angels of God who make us feel loved. Thank you so much.

Thank you for being a part of what God is doing for and through Hogar de Amor.

Please keep Hogar de Amor in your prayers!

• Pray for the kids of Hogar de Amor - that they will know they are loved and precious and complete because they are children of God. 
• Pray for the caregivers and staff of Hogar de Amor, that they will be blessed with wisdom to parent kids in tough places and the energy to carry on in this tough calling. 
• Pray that Hogar de Amor would have favor with officials, would have ample funding, and would have many many hands to share the work 
• And pray that in the dark times, the tired times, the discouraged times that everybody in that ministry would know that they are loved fiercely and passionately and sacrificially and tenderly - by us and most of all by God.