Dear Family & Friends,

April has been a truly unique month. All of a sudden the world economy started coming apart. Where we were used to almost daily visits by cruise ships & tourists instead Puerto Vallarta almost became a ghost town. But life goes on and on and on.  For us locals not dependant on the tourist trade it was sort of nice having the whole town to ourselves until they decided to shut down our favorite restaurants etc. The fact that they closed the schools didn’t stop us but instead put a bigger burden on us at both at Casa Hogar Orphanage & The AGAPE Home for Abused Girls as they couldn’t attend Public Schools for 3 weeks and as I write they are still not in school.   

Casa Hogar Orphanage

The construction (remodeling & finishing of work started but never completed) is really making the place look nice. But with it comes dust, confusion, noise and constantly moving to find locations within the complex to be able to teach without distractions etc. So there is no continuity for us or the kids. As their lives are already not consistent this just adds to the confusion.

Because of the construction the DIF (Social Services) is not bringing new children to the orphanage for safety reasons. Those that remain are dwindling (now only about 35 children) which we teach only 13 school age children. This is good in some ways as Faye’s older children (5 in her class, ages 10 to 13) are now reading from their ESL manual. I have 8 (ages 4 to 8) younger children in my class. The biggest problems we are facing are trying to teach proper classroom behavior while still trying to teach English. The children have a tough time with structure due to the ever changing daily routine caused by the construction, lack of staff supervision etc. We have just found out that the government provides no financial help when they drop a child off except for some food staples like flour, oil etc. They provide no monies for paid kitchen staff, full time native teachers or babysitters, or utility bills.

The donations from visitors during the low seasons fall short of the monies needed to operate this facility. And now with the economy and the Swine Flu ruining the high tourist season they are really struggling to hang on. The cruise ships have discontinued until June 15th. and it looks like a ghost town because folks have cancelled trips fearing the flu. Most of the news from the states is bad and not even accurate. We have yet to have one case of the Swine Flu in Puerto Vallarta but it looks like you could roll a bowling ball down the street and not hit a tourist. Sad, sad, sad. These organizations depend a great deal on visitors donations for which we have had very few. Faye & I also depend on visitors to help us teach which now makes it even more difficult as there are no visitors but more children because the Public Schools are closed.

Please help us provide for these precious little children as a chicken or two in the proverbial pot would sure help. And please always pray for them. And my friends truly count your blessings that you are blessed by where you live.

We first want to thank Garry & Karen Gregorius for visiting us in November & catching our vision for installing a drinking fountain for the kids. They told me to hold off buying the fountain as they wanted to see if View Ridge Community Church would do it for us. Well, it didn’t take long and they personally made another trip in February to PV to deliver the $23,500 pesos to pay for the fountain & filter system. I have included a picture of the fountain and will show more pictures next month after the installation is completed.

Now I want to once again thank Sharon Hnatuik from Canada for making another trip down and blessing the children and us. How many people do you know who would give up their precious vacation time twice this year to help our little ones? Sharon is a retired Coronel (Pharmacist) in the Canadian Air Force.  P.s. Sharon, Alexa, Fatima & Dalia want to know when you are returning. Hehe.

Also need to surely thank volunteer newcomers to Casa Hogar. Mike & Caroline Spence from Colorado who have helped us teach & have provided us with resources for many years at our other schools. Also our dear friend Nella Merrell from New Mexico who is also a long standing donor of time, energy & funds to bless the work the Lord has us doing here. Make sure you look in the picture gallery for all the photos of volunteers and kids.