Embrace the Dream Foundation, Inc.
PO Box 5558
Greenville, SC 29606
On March 3, I returned from an eight-day trip to Casa Hogar La Familia. I traveled to La Familia with a mission team from the Federated Church in Kingfisher, OK. We had a terrific trip, and I don’t believe I have ever found everything at the home with the children and staff to be so absolutely outstanding.
Our team worked hard this trip. We arrived in Teka on Tuesday night, February 25, and our first day at the children’s home was on Wednesday morning following a terrific breakfast at Sandy’s in Quecholac.
When we arrived at La Familia, we were blown away by the installation of beautiful terra cotta colored pavers on the entire area where we park the La Familia vehicles. From the front gate to the back wall and from the basketball court wall to the exterior wall was 100% covered with the pavers. The clotheslines are now made of iron posts and cemented in place.
La Familia now has 31 children, which brings the home to near full capacity if not at full capacity. Currently, we only have three volunteers, Chuy, Damaly and Karen, so we could certainly use another volunteer if anyone has a Spanish-speaking young adult in their church who might be interested in serving in this capacity.
Among the activities we enjoyed with the children were continuous games of four-square, soccer, and volleyball outside and inside, we played a lot of board games. We also hosted all of the children at the waterpark and enjoyed a picnic made up of rotisserie chicken, beans, tortillas and a homemade beverage.
The Federated team worked along side Chuy and several of the boys from the home to repair and put all of the toilets in working order, replace all of the shower curtains in the boy’s and girl’s bathrooms, and finally to install LED lighting in the kitchen, dormitories and dining room. We are using fewer lights, so we should save some money on our electricity bill while substantially increasing the brightness of the home.
My personal objective for the visit was to take individual photographs of each child and staff person along with a photograph of each family present in the home. We accomplished this objective thanks to a lot of help from the Federated team. Be sure to look at the photographs on the www.embracethedream.com website.
Many of you will remember Josue and Rodolfo, both of whom have been a part of La Familia for most of their lives. Both boys are outstanding students and have firm plans to further their education by entering a university this fall. Both boys hope to qualify for visas to allow them to attend college in either the US or Germany.
The most popular child at La Familia is without a doubt “Luca,” the new little boy belonging to Damaly and Chuy. Be sure to take a look at the photograph of this “muy guapo” young man.
Our thanks go out to James Schreiber of Sacramento, CA, for organizing the photographs and for doing such a terrific job each month of publishing the La Familia newsletter. We could never pull this off with James’ assistance.