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Silvia’s Christmas Letter

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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

Jazmin Urbina Gonzalez, Student in the Nursing School, University of Colima

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We are blessed with so many success stories at Casa Hogar La Familia because the children there have grown up in a Christian environment with the love and affection of directors, Juan Francisco and Silvia, along with their brothers and sisters in Christ.

I am especially happy to share with you a group photograph of a nursing school class with our own Jazmin Urbina Gonzalez on the far left of the front row of the photograph below:

nursing students

I received a message from Jazmin yesterday. In her message she told me that she had just left the delivery room where she assisted in the delivery of two babies.

Jazmin

Jazmin is one of five children from the same family who grew up at Casa Hogar La Familia and all five are doing well.

We are already beginning to enroll mission team to visit La Familia in 2018. To see the dates that are still available, go to www.EmbracetheDream.com.

Personal Items Needed for the Children of La Familia

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Letter to La Familia Mission Team Leaders
from Bill Lee
Embrace the Dream Foundation
Greenville, SC
864-303-8366
 

We are working diligently to improve communications between Juan Francisco and Silvia, the La Familia directors, and the mission team leaders who visit Casa Hogar La Familia.

The purpose of this letter is to discuss one of the needs the directors have that we can satisfy without too much trouble and expense to any of us if we all work together to coordinate what we take down when we visit the home.

One of our mission team leaders visited La Familia a couple of weeks ago and learned that there were some items that we have an excess supply of at La Familia and other items that are in short supply.
 

First Aid Kits

There is an ample supply of first aid kits — over one hundred — that some mission teams use to set up first aid stations and supply these kits to the local residents who live near the vegetable fields that are located behind the casa Hogar. Please do not take any more first aid kits until we advise otherwise.
 

Personal Items for the Children

We badly need a supply of personal items for the children to use so the purchase of these items doesn’t continue to eat into the home’s grocery budget.

The mission team leader who brought back this information suggests that each team member take a LARGE Ziplock bag and fill it up with the following:

Toothbrush Shampoo Razors Cough Syrup
Toothpaste Deodorant Neosporin Athlete’s Foot Medicine
Bar of Soap Hair Bands for Girls Band-Aids Body Wash

We believe by following this suggestion Silvia can free up money for larger purchases of food and household supplies. Thank you in advance for your help.

Altech Investment in La Familia

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A dozen or more years ago, I was visiting La Familia when the hogar was located in Cd. Serdan, about an hour’s drive from Palmarito, the current home to Casa Hogar La Familia. One of our missioners from Signal Mountain, Tennessee was out jogging one morning when he met a fellow gringo running on the streets of rural Cd. Sedan. As it turned out, the gringo runner was the owner of Altech, a Serdan-based bio-tech firm that extracts an enzyme from Yucca trees they use as a supplement in chicken food. The purpose of the enzyme is to practically eliminate chicken house odor.

Discussing La Familia as they ran together, the bio chemist later made a commitment to invest not only money, but moral support to the casa hogar. So for the past 15 or so years, Altech has been no stranger to the children of La Familia.

On a recent visit to the home, one of the Altech executives asked the directors what were some of their needs Altech might help with. Silvia pointed to the balconies cantilevered off the main building — the balconies had no railings, making the balconies unsafe to use.

Altech committed to fund the installation of railings for the balconies. On the same day, they also committed the funds to complete the perimeter wall surrounding the children’s home.

As you can see from the photographs below, the balconies on both ends of the casa hogar now have railings. Our thanks go out to the good people of Altech for the contribution they are making to the children of La Familia.

Work On Balcony

New Railings

The bottom photo shows cultivation of yucca trees for harvest. For every tree Altech harvests, they plant three more. Pictured in the distance is Pico de Orizaba, which at 18,800 feet in height is the second tallest mountain in North America.

Yucca Plants

Bill Lee, President
Embrace the Dream Foundation
PO Box 5558
Greenville, SC 29606

Chuy and Damaly “Tie the Knot” on April 15, 2017

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Over 250 special guests were in attendance at the wedding of Damaly and Chuy with Juan Francisco officiating. The wedding theme was the 1980s.

Juan Francisco escorted his only daughter and oldest child to the wedding venue in Tecamachalco in a 1985 Ford Crown Victoria. The moment the father and daughter stepped out of the huge Ford, it was apparent that this was going to be a beautiful wedding.

Damaly’s dress was simply stunning and Juan Francisco was wearing a sport outfit from the ‘80s.

Damaly and Juan Francisco arrive at the wedding.
Bride and groom draped in the traditional lasso symbolizing the unity of marriage.
The weding ended with Juan Francisco, Silvia and all of the children of La Familia singing a special song Juan Francisco wrote especially for his daughter’s wedding.
The outdoor dance floor was illuminated with huge sparklers held by the wedding guests.
The reception was a sit-down dinner for the wedding party and all of the guests. Pictured above are several of Damaly’s family members. (L to R) Paco and Alucy and Damaly’s maternal grand parents. The woman standing behind the grand parents is Ale, Silvia’s and Alucy’s sister.
L-R: Tim Baker, Chuy, Damaly, Mark Beatty, Robbie Hamilton, Marshall Sansbury.