Monday, December 29, 2014

Christmas Shoes

As I mentioned in the last post we received two recent donations to be used to bless the kids at CADIN and the second amount was used for shoes.

This is a pair of shoes that one of our CADIN kids wore all year!  There are stores here that sell good used shoes and even though they are relatively cheap it doesn't help if a person just doesn't have the money for shoes.

We told the volunteers at CADIN that we had some funds for shoes and they went to work.  They measured all the kids feet and then went shopping in the market and these women can get a deal!  In fact, they were able to buy brand new shoes for all the kids who have participated in CADIN over the past four years and that is over 60 kids!

On the day that we handed out the food bags we told the kids to come to the CADIN house the next week for shoes.  The day we passed the shoes out took an amazing amount of organization!

Here Esmerelda and Ellen are checking the CADIN roster for each child's name and then that child was given a number placing them in their group to receive shoes.  Because it was a much larger group of kids then normal we actually took over the front porch of the house across the street to organize the kids.

Here are two brothers who were in CADIN this year and we invited them to bring their two younger siblings to receive shoes also.  This is a family of seven children, living in simple one room 'house', and being raised by their single working mother.

We brought all the kids in the CADIN house and sat them down to start the day off with a lollypop!

Then we all prayed and thanked God for the many blessings He has bestowed on our lives.

Auora told the story of the birth of Jesus and included many little dramatizations with the children.  This made it extra fun for the kids, caused some giggles, and also kept them more attentive!

Here she explained what each of the gifts were that the magi brought to Jesus and that Jesus is the gift of God to us for the forgiveness of sins so that we can have a relationship with God.

We also did a memory verse:
"Give thanks in all circumstances; 
for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."
1 Thessalonians 5:18

Then came the new shoes and BIG smiles!!

The shoes had been separated, bagged, and labeled for each child.

The difference for so many of the kids is rather huge and their new shoes had them walking on air!!

What a great blessing and time to talk into their lives about the greatest gift of all, Jesus!  I pray that some of these kids may grow up to tell others about the love and forgiveness they have received in the name of Jesus!

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, 
so that everyone who believes in Him 
may not perish but may have eternal life." 
John 3:16

God's perfect Christmas gift was given in Christ Jesus!


Christmas Meals

We received two end of year cash donations specified for the CADIN program.  The first was to buy food for the families of this year's kids.

I asked our neighbor where the best place to buy the food would be and she said it was a "bodega" just off market street in La Paz.

Only the front part of the bodega is open to the counter so there's no walking aisles and touching merchandise.  The variety might be low but they have one of just about everything you would need for cooking and cleaning.

The owner, Manuel, came out to help us.  He asked us if we were missionaries and buying the food for distribution.  He said he has helped other missionaries do the same and so if we just give him the list of what we want, for how many people, then he will figure out how much of each item to get for each bag based on how much we wanted to spend.  This was AMAZING!  He helped us with the list, gave us a GREAT deal, and then had his guys make up the 30 bags of food!!

Manuel told us to come back in an hour and when we did everything was ready!!

Each bag had 2 bags of corn flour, 5 lbs of beans, rice, sugar, coffee, oil, oatmeal, seasoning and salt.  Each bag was over 25 lbs of food!!

We met with all the CADIN volunteers to put a name tag on each bag and started the delivery process!

If it wasn't for the help of the other volunteers there is no way we could have found all the kid's homes!

Some of the streets within the city were less streets for cars and more like walking paths but we managed to drive in and out, up and down, through the neighborhood to each home!

David, in the brown shirt, is the son of one of the volunteers, he is a great Christian young man, and was super excited to help out with the food distribution to bless the families!

I include this picture of the donkeys just to emphasize that while we were in the town of La Paz it is quite different from what may be your US paradigm for what makes up a town.  While most folks don't have cars they may have the work vehicle of choice... the all terrain sport burro!!

As we gave out each bag of food we told each child how much we enjoyed having them in CADIN that year, we told their family what a blessing the child was and that the food is a blessing freely given in the name of Jesus Christ!

Here is the latest Equip missionary, Kelly Zell, helping out!

Ena, in the green shirt, is the founder of CADIN, and is here blessing this mother as she gives out the food.

As I have mentioned before, the ministry at CADIN is amazing because the volunteers themselves are giving from the very little they have and so some of the volunteers were given bags of food also!

We spent the entire day having fun together passing out the food!!  When we were done we were quite exhausted but also full of the joy of giving!!  What a great way to prepare for Christmas!!

"Give, and it will be given to you. 
A good measure, pressed down, 
shaken together, running over, 
will be put into your lap; 
for the measure you give 
will be the measure you get back.”
Luke 6:38