It’s team season here in El Salvador, and Love & Hope Children’s Home recently welcomed Golden Acres Baptist Church for a day. Golden Acres became involved via Operation Blessing and has visited us for several years now, completing projects such as a water collection system, a rooftop garden and a chicken coop. They also, of course, have taken time to play with and get to know our children! Several of the team members have begun sponsoring or donated to Love & Hope as a result of their visit. We look forward to seeing the Golden Acres team every year and always feel so blessed by their work!

This year, the Golden Acres team purchased and assembled new bunk beds for some of the kids’ rooms (we’ve completely grown out of the small-size bunk beds!). They also bought Love & Hope $400 worth of groceries. They topped off their visit with an ice cream party! Everyone had a great time interacting, playing and getting to know one another.

As always, thank you for your hard work and generosity, Golden Acres. We appreciate it so much!

Every Thursday morning, the staff at Love & Hope Children’s Home gathers for a staff meeting and training. The meetings have proven to be beneficial for communication between the leadership staff and caregivers. We start  with a devotion led by one of the staff, move on to a meeting with Gloria (our social worker), and then Jessica (our psychologist) gives a childcare training. The trainings provided by Jessica have helped our staff improve their methods of childcare and behavior management. Two of the most recent things we did at our Thursday morning meetings were first aid training and training in the LEPINA Law.

A few weeks ago, a fire inspector came to give the staff a training in primero auxilio, or first aid. We learned a lot about how to best help our children in the event of an accident that would require first aid or CPR. While first aid is obviously a very serious topic, we also managed to have some fun learning together (as we usually do). Asking for volunteers to help demonstrate first aid techniques always makes things more interesting! We are grateful to have had the opportunity to learn first aid, but hopefully we won’t be required to use it anytime soon.

Over the last few months, our staff has also been learning the parameters of la Ley de Protección de la Niñez y Adolescencia (LEPINA), or the Children and Adolescent Protection Law. LEPINA is a law that has affected Love & Hope Children’s Home in many ways. The rights it lays out for children and adolescents are consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Our social worker facilitated this training by having all of the caregivers summarize a part of the law and present it during our meeting every week. Last week, our study of LEPINA culminated with a test. Now it was the staff’s turn to be in the test-taking hot seat!

Our staff is constantly trying to get better and improve in order to serve the Love & Hope kids to the best of our ability. Please pray for us as we learn the best ways to care for these incredible children!

Many of our children at Love & Hope have been participating in intramural sports at school. And by sports, we of course mean soccer.

At Luz de Israel, most of the younger students have had a Friday free of classes and full of soccer matches between the different classes. Each class wore a different color shirt and held a snack venta, or sale, for their classmates to enjoy during the games. Herberth’s class even did a dance to open up the event! Before beginning the games, the national anthem of El Salvador was played.

All of the Love & Hope kids involved were excited to compete for their class and played with intensity. It was entertaining to watch the kids and their classmates join together and revel in the glory of winning against another class section, just like the pros!

At CEFAS, Esau and Jacobo have been participating for a few weeks in intramural soccer matches for their respective fifth grade classes. Between fifth and sixth grade, there are four sections and they all compete against each other. In some cases it has been fifth grade against sixth grade. In other matches the two sections of fifth grade play against each other, which means it is one twin pitted against the other! Esau and Jacobo don’t seem to mind though, they are both great winners and know how to lose with grace. Last week, Esau scored nine goals in one match!

Attending and watching intramurals has been a great way for us to see how the Love & Hope kids interact with their peers in a school environment. We are so used to seeing them here at home, relating to other children who are like their brothers and sisters. It is encouraging to see them running around with their friends, sharing snacks and interacting with teachers. We already knew that the Love & Hope kids were wonderful; it is awesome that others see that in them too!

If you follow our blog, you know that a good number of the children from Love & Hope Children’s Home play soccer. At 13, Michell is the oldest of our children who plays for the local Los Planes de Renderos team. She is the only girl in her age group to represent Los Planes, but she holds her own and is seen by the others as a leader. Michell has found her passion in fútbol. One day after school she expressed her anticipation for practice that afternoon, “I just want to play soccer!”

About three months ago, Michell was asked to play on another soccer team in San Salvador. She was practicing four days a week and playing on two different teams, still the only girl participant. We here at Love & Hope Children’s Home knew she was talented, but maybe didn’t realize the extent of her soccer skills. What happened next was a wake-up call.

At the end of April, someone approached us at Michell’s soccer practice about an all girls soccer team. Upon investigating further, we realized that Michell had been asked to try out for the Salvadoran national team for girls 17 and under! Obviously, Michell was excited, and so were we! The more we found out, the more impressed we were at the Federación Salvadoreña de Fútbol (FESFUT), and that Michell was able to garner this kind of attention. She had a chance to be part of La Selecta!

At the beginning of May, Michell participated in a week of try-outs and was asked to return for the next few weeks to live and train with the team. She lived at FESFUT, practiced a couple times a day and made a lot of new friends. Michell came home on the weekends during the month of May exhausted and noticeably more muscular and toned. Michell even had to follow a strict diet, limiting her fat and sugar intake while at home. Since she wasn’t attending school, Michell spent most of the weekend catching up on school work. Somewhere in there, she tried to get some rest. Yet, she was loving it! It was all in the name of fútbol.

At the end of May, Michell came home and at the moment is no longer practicing with the team, but this certainly isn’t the end. Michell is in high spirits about it, knowing that in the coming years she will have more opportunities. Michell was one of the youngest girls to participate in try-outs and we couldn’t be more proud of her! We are so excited to see the opportunities that Michell will have in pursuing her passion. Please pray for Michell as she continues to make her mark on the Salvadoran soccer scene. Please also pray for our other children – that they would also discover their passion and use it to glorify God!

Go Michi! You are awesome, chica! Estamos muy orgullosos de ti. We are so proud of you.

About two years ago, a teaching position at the British School brought our friends Rob and Sarah to El Salvador from England. Shortly after, we met them at the Union Church of San Salvador. They seemed excited at the prospect of becoming involved at Love & Hope Children’s Home and we were too! They quickly offered or were willing to do more and more for us and we love having them around.

In a couple weeks, Rob and Sarah are moving back to England to be closer to their friends and family “across the pond.” Love & Hope has been so very blessed by their relationship, presence and the love they have for our kids. Here are some of the fun things we got to do with them over the last year.

They came and hung out with us during our ¡CINCOKILOMETRO! 5k run last October.

Rob and Sarah dressed up as Father Christmas and an elf on Christmas eve. They hid on the roof and then came down the stairs to surprise everyone with new pajamas! They even slept over and spent Christmas morning at Love & Hope.

As a math teacher, Rob has been tutoring Jocelyn in math and statistics once a week for the last six months. We are so grateful for his help and equally proud of Jocelyn, who is earning higher grades than ever in math (or as the Brits would say, “maths”)! It has also been great to see the special relationship that Jocelyn has formed with Rob and Sarah as she spends time at their house every week. She is pretty sad they are leaving El Salvador (but also has a new interest in visiting England one day).

A couple weeks ago during a “career night” Sarah took time to share with all of the Love & Hope kids about her profession, midwifery. She kept the kids very engaged and everyone learned something new about caring for pregnant women and delivering babies.

Every Sunday after church, Rob and Sarah, along with two new friends that they introduced us to, James and Manjit, take a few of the kids on an outing or to their house to have some fun. Every week was different. The older girls went bowling, others ate pupusas (and read the newspaper- see below), Rob and Sarah shared their Wii, and there was even some homemade pizza making involved! We loved that our kids got to spend time with them every weekend.

As a way to say goodbye, Rob and Sarah took us all to the beach last weekend. It was a wonderful time playing in the ocean and the pool, enjoying a meal together, and spending time with this awesome couple.

Thank you Rob and Sarah for spending so much time with us over the last year. The relational way in which you have blessed us is irreplaceable and we will miss you so much! ¡Buen viaje y que Dios les bendiga! Have a good trip and God bless you!

As our children have gotten older, Love & Hope Children’s Home has developed into quite the bilingual household. We function in “spanglish”, if you will.  Obviously, we mainly communicate in Spanish and English can also be heard all the time. But more often than not, we mix the two languages together! Even our Salvadoran staff surprise us sometimes, replying back in Spanish to a question that was asked in English or chuckling at words that were exchanged between two English speakers.

While clearly fascinated by language, the kids have a funny way of showing it sometimes. They like to experiment and play around with it. For example, Jacobo and Esau enjoy patronizing the Americans by speaking in Spanish with an American accent, leaving verbs in the infinitive, and speaking unnecessarily slow. Antonio thinks it is funny to sit in on a conversation between two of the Americans and repeat back everything they say, laughing hysterically to himself the whole time.

Little do the kids know that we Americans are secretly compiling a list of funny instances where they have spoken in Spanglish or broken English. It sure is adorable!

Eliseo: “Rapido, no! Fast, no!”

Irene: “Come-a here.”

Antonio: “Okie dokie!”

Michell: “Tell the boys to stop throwing earth at me!” (Meaning to say, “dirt.”)

Jeremiah: “I go to bathroom.”

Brenda: “I’m boring.” (Meaning to say, “I’m bored.”)

Jefferson: “Whaty?” 

Antonio: “Come on!”

Eliseo: “Solo one.” (Spanglish for “only one.”)

There are also a few phrases that we hear over and over. The kids translate literally from Spanish and it sounds a little funny:

“Did you paint your hair?”

“I have hunger!”

“I need to make pee.”

As you can also imagine in a house where the fluent speakers of two different languages are living, there is a lot of correcting that happens. Some are more helpful than others. Ezequiel, for example, is wonderful at gently correcting mistakes that the English speakers make in Spanish. He helps one through a conversation rather than chuckling at the wrong words or pronunciations. The English speakers are always teaching too. The Love and Hope kids sometimes approach us directly: “What does this word mean?” “What is the past tense of this word?”

Our house is also full of text in Spanish, English and Spanglish. A lot of times, it happens unintentionally as we are thinking in one language but writing in another. Interesting outcomes are bound to happen. For example, for a while there was a sign in the kitchen that read, “Feliz Birthday!” Here is some of the bilingual signage around the house:

It is so interesting to watch our children learn more English and function in two languages. Everyday we hear them using new words and gaining confidence. We can’t wait to see where their language skills take them!

May 23rd is a special day in our house because it is Kevincito’s birthday! Even though Kevin was adopted in February, we made sure to celebrate his 10th birthday here in El Salvador. The kitchen was decorated like it is for every cumpleañero and we got to talk to Kevin via Skype! Since Kevincito couldn’t be here to blow out his candles or take pictures, Mandy put Kevin’s head on a stick and we held it while singing the Birthday Song and eating cake.

Since his arrival in Ohio, Kevincito has gained eight pounds and is finally getting the medical attention he needs. He looks like a different child! We have loved talking to him over the computer and seeing him gradually get healthier via pictures his family shares on Facebook. Feliz Cumpleaños, Kevincito!

May 23rd is also special for us because it is World Turtle Day! A few posts ago, we told you about the enthusiasm that many in this household have for turtles. More than just a love for turtles, celebrating Turtle Day has become a tradition for us thanks to Mandy. We marked the occasion by taking turtle shaped cookies to school for a snack, having a turtle costume contest, turtle coloring contest, and eating turtle shaped sandwiches for dinner. Kevincito’s birthday cake even looked like a turtle!

The most exciting activity may have been the turtle scavenger hunt; hundreds of paper turtles were hidden throughout the house with varying point values written on the back. The Love & Hope kids raced around the house collecting as many as they possibly could to win a prize!

Here’s hoping your Turtle Day was as exciting as ours! And a big “Happy Birthday” to Kevincito!

Russ and Sue Gifford of Agape Christian Academy in Troy, Ohio visited Love & Hope Children’s Home on a “vision trip” in 2012. While here and upon returning home, they began exploring the idea of sending their 11th and 12th grade students on a mission trip to Love & Hope. This past April, Mrs. Gifford, along with two teachers, returned to El Salvador with a group of seven high school students.

Leading up to the trip, students from Agape and the Love & Hope kids exchanged pen pal lettersseveral times. This was a great way to build relationships and introduce our children to some of the students that would come in April. We have had pen pals in the past, but knowing that their new friends would actually be visiting El Salvador made it all more exciting. “When you come, we will go to the park!” “I can’t wait to meet you!” “Do you like to play video games?” “Do you like soccer?”

Upon arriving in El Salvador on April 4th, the Agape students did a great job of jumping in and getting to know our kids right away. We (the staff) were so impressed by the willingness and enthusiasm of the Agape students! Unknowingly, they became great, positive role models for the Love & Hope kids. It isn’t often that we get visitors so close in age to our own children, so it was awesome to see our kids respond to and interact with their brothers and sisters in Christ from Ohio.

The Agape students and faculty took the time to write a few words about their time here. Here is some of what they had to say:

“Being with the children in El Salvador has left me with a desire to become a missionary.”

“God really worked on the hearts of the team that went and helped me to see the calling He has in my life.”

“To see the thankfulness on people’s faces when receiving a simple gift of dry rice reminded me of how much God has blessed us with that we often take for granted.”

“Rachel Sanson, who founded the home and runs it, shared with me that it was great for the Love & Hope children to see ‘cool, young people who love the Lord.’”

“While I was gone God also showed me how blessed I am. Now I can tell others about everything I experienced and about what God has done for me.”

“So often we go on mission trips thinking we will be a blessing to those we minister to; instead we find ourselves on the receiving end of blessing beyond measure.”

The Agape team blessed us with vacation Bible school (one of their skits is pictured above), completed cleaning projects, handed out food in a poor community and spent a lot of time loving our children. On their last night, we all went out for pizza together. It was hard to see them go, but we are hopeful and excited at the thought of an ongoing relationship with Agape Christian Academy. Thank you for everything, Agape! We can’t wait for next year!

May 10^th is Mother’s Day here in El Salvador. Salvadorans take this special day so seriously (rightly so) that the Love & Hope kids had the day off from school! Celebrating Mother’s Day at Love & Hope Children’s Home is important for our kids. The children view Rachel as “mami,” and they have many more motherly figures present in our house or involved in our ministry. We often joke about the fact that our children don’t have to answer to one mom, they have to answer to about 10!

The day before Mother’s Day, our two littlest boys put on a show at school for all the moms. They even had to dance! We also had a little party at home where Rachel was honored with lots of hugs and handicrafts that the children made at school. Some of the kids dressed up like moms, we sang songs for the moms, played “Mother Says,” and all of the “moms” received a present!

On May 10^th, we took it easy and went out for pupusas for lunch. Afterwards some of the children visited the Puerta del Diablo with some visitors. It was nice for Rachel and our other “moms” to relax and spend time with the kids.

The word “mother” means a lot of things in this house. It means Rachel’s tireless mothering of 20-plus children. It means biological moms that come for visits. It means caregivers that come to work every week ready to give their all to these children.

Proverbs 31 says, “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.” We have found this to be so true. The acts of love, service and patience that we observe in Rachel and the other Love & Hope moms are certainly noble beyond measure. No one ever said that being a mom was easy.

Moms are awesome! Felicidades, Mamás!

We are excited to welcome back our good friend, Eric Elkins, from Ohio. Eric first visited Love & Hope Children’s Home in 2009 on a short-term trip and has returned to visit and help out several times since then. Eric plans on staying with us for at least six months.

During his stay at Love & Hope, Eric will be a substitute driver and caregiver for the boys. He is also very musically talented and hopes to give music lessons to our children. One of his greatest qualities, however, is being able to make just about every person in this house laugh. The Love & Hope kids flock to Eric for this reason, knowing that he will make everything (even doing homework) a little more fun!

Welcome back, Eric!