This is the Christmas letter I received from Silvia, our director at Casa Hogar La Familia located in Palmarito, Puebla, Mexico. I am late translating Silvia’s letter and getting it posted because I had a freak accident while visiting my daughter and her family in California. I’m okay now, but the accident prevented me from posting this BLOG as soon as I would have liked.
From Silvia:
Thank you very much for your letter. I hope you have had a very happy Christmas and New Year’s celebration. The children, the staff, Juan Francisco and I have been praying every day for Patti as she battles ovarian cancer.
Thanks to God we had a very happy Christmas. This time we were all together for Christmas. None of the children left the casa to be with local families this year. It was fun and nice to all be together. With the donations we received, we bought the children the gifts they wanted for Christmas AND we prepared for them a rich dinner with deserts, but the best part was we bought a live hog.
It was a lot of fun for the men (Chuy, Juan Francisco…all of the men of the house) to go get the hog and bring it to the casa. The following day, we had the hog slaughtered so we could begin roasted it over a fire pit. We hired a person to come and make chicharrones and carnitas for the children. We also cooked the ribs of the roasted pork in the oven in a mango sauce, chile habanero and a Bar B Q sauce. In addition, we made a salad, a carrot cake, bananas with chocolate, a fruit punch, etc.
We began our Christmas party all together by giving thanks to God for everything and everyone. We worshipped God together and after the meal, we exchanged gifts. Since Ale and Hadasa are the smallest children in the house, we all handmade a nice card for them. And after we exchanged gifts, we brought out the piñatas.
Aleksei, Daniel, Jazmin, Juan Carlos and our grandson, Josue (Gordo) son of Isabel were with us in the home. It was great fun and beautiful to all be together. We thank everyone for all of the support they always extend to us with so much love and for all of the grace of God we received in 2017.
The Christmas holidays gave us an opportunity to travel to Mexico City to visit Six Flags. The park was wonderful and a lot of fun. We were there all day and until 11:30 PM that night. We played all day and we got to enjoy all of the games, rides and mountains in the park. It was incredible and so much fun to climb with all of our children, even those who “almost died from fear” (ha, ha, ha, ha) but everybody enjoyed the games we played.
The members of my family who donated the funds for the trip were with us all day in the park and my uncle purchased all of us a VIP pass that allowed us to enjoy more of the park without having to wait for the train and without having to waste so much time standing in lines.
I also bought everyone one some food at a dinner buffet, so everyone was able to eat exactly what they wanted. I know this day at Six Flags was a day the children will never forget.
Yesterday the children started classes at school and thanks to God all of them began to work very hard on their classes.
Regarding Aleksei’s motorcycle accident while in college in Colima, he is much better. He is slowly recovering the mobility and strength of his arm and at the end of February, the doctor will tell us if he believes surgery is necessary to return his clavicle to its place. We pray that everything goes well and God will supply all that’s necessary for this. Thank you all for your prayers.
Forgive me for not having written sooner, but I have had some problems with my telephone.
Silvia