Simple pleasures

Last week, as Cathy wrote earlier, I was able to spend 4 days at a new children's home we are beginning to work with called Casa Hogar Douglass in a town called Sabinas. This is a children's home of 22 kids in a very nice small town near Laredo. I was there with Rodolpho and Katey (2 B2B staff) and 5 college girls from the University of Florida. We spent time painting, pulling wires for a new laundry room that is being built, and sealing the roof on their kitchen.

But what I really wanted to share with you was the interaction we were able to have with the children. We played with them in various ways and one evening while I was picking a boy named Miguel up and swinging him around, I was really struck with how much he was laughing. He would laugh SO hard with something I thought was so simple. Later, the college girls handed out Beanie Babies that they had brought as donations. They had enough that they were able to give two to each child. They loved them. But soon, some of the kids found other uses for them besides setting them down on the foot of their bed. They were tossing them all around, back and forth. Again, there were tremendous amounts of giggling and laughter.

One afternoon, we were able to take the kids up into the mountains to a very nice park. There was a wide mountain stream about waist deep and a neat waterfall on the other side of the stream. The kids quickly jumped into the stream to swim (clothes and all- that's how they do it here when you don't own swimsuits) and though the water was frigid and there was a cool mountain breeze, the kids loved every moment of it.

All in all, I came away with a deep sense of how laughter-starved these kids are. They are so hungry for attention and affection and feelings of worth that any chance they get to laugh is an opportunity to make the most of the moment. They are not concerned with propriety- they just want to have fun. So please pray for the kids in this home as well as the near 400 other kids we serve as I know they all are in the same boat.

Thank you for praying for us while we were there. It means all the difference in the world.

Greg