February ’16 Highlights (Photo Blog)

 

    All of our beautiful kiddos started back to school this month! I love the first week of school excitement and to see all of our kids dressed in their school uniforms. I am excited to see how well they will do this year. 

 

    I love working with Cadence in this program! I love constantly deciding how we can improve our sponsorship program and seeing all of her creative problem solving ideas. This year we have made several changes to our program giving our students id cards for unlimited research access at cyber cafes and requiring service hours for our high school students. I am excited to see how these changes will improve our program this year. 

 

    Starting back to school means that tutoring groups have started back. I love getting back to work with my first and second grade loves! It’s been exciting to see some of our high school students who have a heart to teach and are doing their service hours learning teaching skills and tutoring groups of struggling students. 

 

    One of my favorite parts of tutoring groups…. story time with my kiddos! I love reading aloud to our kids and seeing them fall in love with books. 

 

   I have been so proud of are youth! We have been preparing to take a few of them on a one-day mission trip outside of Leon. We told them that they would have to work together to raise their own money. It’s been so cool to see them get excited about working hard for their own money, to come up with ideas, and work together to complete it. They have such great hearts! I’m so excited to see how they are going to grow through this entire process. I’m so proud of them!! 

 

   The second floor of the Abide Home continues to rise. Walls have now reached roof height. I am so excited to see this house look more and more like a home. It’s been fun this month to stand in the window of what will one day be my bedroom and dream about this home being filled with children and laughter. Every day we’re one step closer! 

 

    Bonus: At the end of the month, Cadence and I were able to take a vacation after the craziness of school starting. We spent a week in Belize and Guatemala. The first several days we were on Caye Caulker enjoying island life at the beach. The big adventure there was snorkeling where we swam with a sea turtle, sting rays and nurse sharks. It was incredible! Then we spent the last couple days meeting up with some incredible people serving in Honduras and South Korea to explore the Mayan ruins at Tikal and to visit the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave outside San Ignacio. It was such an unbelievable fun, adventurous, and relaxing week. I’m so thankful for vacation, beauty, and friendship!