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