Dear Friends:
First of all, I want to remind you that we post a lot of pictures each month on facebook of the activities of the kids that month. I encourage you to go to Casa de Amor para Niños on facebook to see them! We are able to put many more pictures up there than we can here!
In May, we held our annual Mother’s Day and Family Day Fiesta! We had about 400 people in attendance, and it was a good time for everyone, but a huge amount of work! Fortunately, we had about 50 volunteers, which allowed us to get everything done that was needed. A group from Iglesia Ebenezer in El Paso, led worship, a message, and prayer for families. Local churches prepared food, brought in tables and chairs from the Pink Store, and took everything back and helped with clean up when it was all over. Our college kids ran the games for the students. We held a raffle with prizes from microwaves to blenders. Some college students from Cd. Juarez performed required community service work by coming and helping and in cleaning the building when all was done. Mexican Moses Ministries from Durango helped with preparing food distribution packets for families. It was a great effort by many volunteers!
In June, we will have a ceremony of graduation for all of the students who successfully completed the Alas program this year. We are hoping to have the school principals speak and help the Pastors in handing out the certificates. Without a doubt, our program is making a big difference in the lives of many families in Palomas! And now that we have our tutoring program going, we are working on helping the kids who have never really learned to read and write, and hopefully we can help them get caught up in school.
For the graduation ceremony, we are busy getting all of the certicates printed up, then we will get signatures on them from their Pastors, and then prepare everything for the presentations. It will be held at the San Vicente salon in Palomas on June 13. If you would like to come and join in the festivities with us, one van will be leaving from The Light on Friday morning, June 12, and the other van will be leaving in the afternoon around 4:30 p.m.
We are busy praying about our theme for the coming year. Our theme this year really helped to bring families together, and we need an equally valuable theme for them for the coming year!
We have 168 kids in our program for the coming year, so we are busy contacting you who are sponsoring kids to see if you will continue to sponsor your student, and also, we are looking for some new sponsors!
Please talk to Pat (505)670-5659, Bere (915)667-9669, Eunice (505) 394-6505, or Ceci (505) 930-0117. We also use “general” donations to help fund our college students.
We have 4 high school graduates this year, and 3 of them are seeking to go to college or technical school: Omar Fierro H.,(auto mechanics), Sergio Barrera A., (Engineering), and Juan Carlos Nieto B., (Social Work)
May the Lord Bless you and keep you, may He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; May He turn His face towards you and give you peace.
Jim & Pat