Month: June 2017

Several of the Love & Hope kids have finished school until August. Their schools follow an American schedule, as opposed to the Salvadoran schedule, in which the school year ends in November. They are so happy to have a break and relax on their “summer” vacation!

We decided to have the kids do a summer reading program over the next couple months. It’s easy: read a book in English for 20 minutes everyday. For every 20 minutes they read, they earn a link for their paper chain. Once they have 50 links, they win a grand prize! They can read as much as they want to earn the prize faster.

The reading program started this past Saturday and the kids are off to a great start. Look at their paper chains so far:

Love & Hope Children’s Home has a few “readers” who we find reading for fun often. But reading is a habit we want to form in all our kids. It’s difficult when there are so many other things vying for their attention (electronics!), but we hope that doing simple reading programs like this will help foster a lifelong love of reading.

You’ve heard us talk about Tio Julio before. Julio has been working at Love & Hope for over six years as caregiver for the older boys. A couple years ago, he also took on the position of “Spiritual Director.” As Spiritual Director, Julio organizes devotions with the kids and the staff; he is also in charge of our annual Love & Hope family retreat/camping trip.

On Valentine’s Day 2016, Julio got married! He met his wife, Maricela, essentially because of working at Love & Hope Children’s Home. Maricela attended the same church as the Love & Hope kids when we lived in Los Planes de Renderos. Many of the kids and staff attended the wedding to celebrate with them.

Last year, Love & Hope Children’s Home found itself in need of a new caregiver for the “little” boys (they aren’t so little anymore!). The leadership had the idea to approach Julio and Maricela about the job. Would they be willing to work together as “parents” with the boys? Julio and Maricela took the decision very seriously and considered working together at Love & Hope Children’s Home much more a mission than a job. After much prayer and contemplation, Maricela accepted the position!

We think it is important for the Love & Hope kids to see Godly married couples around them. The cool thing is that we’ve watched Julio and Maricela get to know each other, fall in love, get married, and now, find mission and obey God together. We like to think we are giving them good practice for parenthood!

Please pray for Julio, Maricela, and the rest of our staff as they care for the Love & Hope kids.