Thursday - Last full day of work

Thursday was a big day of finishing projects and organizing supplies and - our favorite! - giving our donations! Our church family and friends of the church were so kind and generous in their donations and we were thrilled to have a ton of donations to sort and bless the houses with.

The whole caboodle took us a full three suitcases to transport! Here are the totals:

• 248 toothbrushes
• 151 tubes of toothpaste
• 160 underthings
• 90 pairs of socks
• 101 coloring books
• 126 boxes of crayons and colored pencils
• and a huge 

It was an amazing blessing to the houses - the houseparents were all smiles as they sorted everything into piles for each house.

Big smiles!

The house moms were pros at divvying up the donations for every house

And the Disney gifts were a huge hit! The houseparents are saving them to give out as birthday presents

We changed the schedule up on Thursday and started the day with projects. The crew working on the adolescent boys' home worked super hard and finished up their two-toned blue masterpiece before lunch. The house looks so good - a new coat of paint does wonders!

Hanging out in the newly painted rooms

On the sewing team we had a big old bag of boys' shorts from Casa Matriz whose elastic was simply not holding up on those very skinny, very active boys. We sewed until we were out of elastic and hopefully those shorts get a few more years of wear out of them before we have to replace the elastic again!

Rosa, the Señoritas' house mom, said Sam was a very good worker :)

We were treated to a fantastic carne asada lunch at Golondrinas, which was especially fun because we got to see the finished house we worked so hard on last year. Good food + good memories = one excellent lunch.

Checking out the view from the Golondrinas roof

The house looks so great all decorated and occupied!

And the green looks good in any light :)

The lunch was fantastic - the houseparents and kids of Golondrinas and Famoso worked so hard and put together an amazing meal

A few of us may have zonked out after lunch - when you're this tired, any surface is a pillow!

And after lunch it was time for our last set of activities! For sports, it was sidewalk chalk day. Good thing there's lots and lots of cement to decorate because the kids sure love to color it all!

One of the best parts of activities is that everybody, even the high school kids, like to get in on the action. The big kids help the little kids, the mid-sized kids make a big ruckus, and we all have a lot of fun.

In classroom games we played with stamp pads and made all sorts of fun art

We managed to keep most of the kids reasonably clean

And in crafts it was our very favorite day - crayon and coloring book day! Over the past weeks we collected over 100 coloring books and crayons and on Thursday we gave every kid and caregiver their very own set. It's amazing to see their joy at having a new box of crayons of their very own and it's so fun that the caregivers get in on the action, too! We love to bring a little color to everybody's day.

For dinner we went into the city center to stroll around the craft fair, hit the candy store, and eat (you'll note a theme, we do a lot of eating in Mexico!).

Like fresh Krispy Kremes, fresh churros outshine all others!

Health-wise we're doing much better. The sick in our crew are far from 100% but they're doing better and better. Thanks for all of your prayers and well wishes, for them and for all of us.

Here are some prayer requests for today:

• Please continue to pray for everybody's health, that the sick would be whole and that the well would remain so!
• Pray that the items we donated would bless the kids and caregivers of Hogar de Amor - that not only would they alleviate some budget pressure and help the kids be even better cared for, but that kids and caregivers alike would know that each donation comes with extra TLC and prayers.