Their Story

Most of us have a story. A story of where we were born, who our family is and a story of how we got to where we are. These sweet little babies, who recently were abandoned, unknown, without a name, what will their story be? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I think about the issue of babies being abandoned here, and as we work toward opening this Family Style Home for abandoned babies, I pray that God can use all of us to help write their story. I pray this home can be a place that will lead them to a story of life in Him. I pray that God will bring people who want to be a part of their story, to pray for them, care for them and help support them.

 

 

Inviting you to partner with us!

We invite you to help care for the babies of Guatemala who have been abandoned! There are many ways you can partner with us.

Most important, we need you to lift this project up in PRAYER. This is big but we know God is bigger. With your prayer support, we know the paper work (already in progress) will be finished in a timely manner. The upfront costs will pour in as needed and we will overcome the spiritual battle that can sometimes come with a project like this. We also ask you to pray that His will be done, not our own.

We would love for you to send TEAMS that can assist with fixing up the house that we will be renting for the Baby Home. We should have the house by Nov 1st! The teams can bring supplies for the babies. Most of the stuff needed is much cheaper to get in the US. Once we have the babies, the teams can come and share the love of Jesus with them and the staff. The profit from the Guest House will help fund the home.

This project will be requiring FINANCIAL SUPPORT. We are asking people to pray about a monthly faith promise they can commit to the project. We are praying the Guest House will eventually support the home, but to get it going we will need financial supporters. Please see below the approx cost of running this home.

James 1:27

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Estimated Monthly Expenses

Rent - $800

Utilities (are very expensive here in Guatemala) - $500

Expenses for Babies - 4 @ $360 each = $1440

Staff - 3 nannies -$1,200

Social Worker - $200 - part time

Psychologist - $200 - part time

Miscellaneous - $110

Total - $4,450

Starting with one baby = $2,670 ( $360 + $50 social worker + $50 psychologist and only 2 nannies ).

To set up your tax deductible monthly donation

Click on the link below. Please make sure to put "Baby Home" in the Designate My Donation box

https://www.justgive.org/basket?acton=donate&ein=26-3624540

If you would like any more information on the home, please email us at cherryfamily@photasministries.com

 We are working to change the way the world cares for orphans and asking you to partner with us. Join us in what God is doing on behalf of the fatherless.

Becoming Dependent

Well, we did it! We got all three girls through their first week of school. Here is a picture of them on their first day. We had our first night of Youth Group Wednesday night. Did I mention Sean was asked by our Pastor here to be the youth group leader? I am so proud of him! The first night of youth group was great! Getting through all of these things might not seem like much but let me tell you, when you are living in a third world country that is new to you, all of the accomplishments are HUGE!

Today as I was driving the kids to school, (I said I would never drive here) I was scared for our lives! It was crazy! Now hear me on this, the path to school is not a bad one (compared to other routes) and it is fairly close the where we live but my goodness, it adds 15 grey hairs to my head every time I drive it! There are lanes here but nobody uses them and there are turn signals but they are optional and I think there might be a speed limit but I have never seen one and I am pretty sure nobody else has either.

Isaiah 41:13
For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.”

Last night as I prepared myself for today's drive to school I realized something...... I am becoming very dependent. I am becoming VERY dependent on God! This kind of dependency is new to me. Don't get me wrong, I prayed before we came here and I tried to rely on God but it was different. Living in Colorado, I had everything I needed. It was easy to get to where I needed to go or to get what I needed. It was easy to go to the Dr if we needed. If there was ever a problem we could call 911 and trust all the people that showed up to help us. There was very little need there.

Things are different here. I completely depend on God to get us to and from school or anywhere else we are going. To bring my husband home safely from the airport at 4:00am in the morning. To protect us from getting sick if we eat something that wasn't prepared correctly. To give us strength to deal with the severe poverty that we see all around us. Strength to care for the children we work with at orphanages, some who are sick or some longing for a mommy and daddy. I have become dependent on God bringing me peace when I miss my family and friends or when our family and friends are hurting and we can't be there for them because we are so far away. I have no control here over anything.

To be honest, it is a little scary to not have control but everyday that I can give up a little more and become a little more dependent, I feel a little more peace. It is starting to make sense to me! A good friend reminded me today.......

John 15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches: He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.

Without Him, I can truly do nothing!

Thank you for the prayers

One of the craziest things I have seen here is the number of people who drive at nights without their lights on! The streets here aren't well lit, there are a lot of curves in the road and the traffic is usually moving at a very fast pace. It is so scary!! People go flying around a curve with little time to stop and you can not see the cars without lights until you are almost on top of them! There is a reason cars have lights, right?

The other day a friend asked me how we do it. She had googled Guatemala to try and learn more about it and she wondered how we could live hear and not be afraid.

As I thought about this question I realized we don't do it. We are completely dependant on Jesus and prayer. The prayer support that we are getting from friends, family and even people we don't know, is what helps keep us going.

If I really stop and think about where we are, what we are doing, how will we do it, it would be easy to live here in fear. Almost everything we do here could lead us to some level of fear. We all feel peace here. Don't get me wrong, it has not all been easy and there have been moments of fear but for the most part we have chosen faith instead. There have been some nights of little sleep and a lot of prayer but we have been able to wake up to a new day of comfort and peace. It is truly amazing and hard for me to describe.

Luke 18:1Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.

Getting through a day without prayer; would be like driving in the dark, really fast, around curves, without lights. SCARY! Thank you for being 'lights' for us.

So for everyday and everything we do, we will continue to pray.

Psalm 55:17Evening and morning, and at noon, I will pray and cry aloud; and He shall hear my voice.

An Invitation to Guatemala from Eduardo Ramos

Hello to all who visit this blog. My name is Eduardo Ramos I am from Guatemala City and this time my friend Tiffany gave me the opportunity to share with you in the blog.

I want to tell you about my country is a very nice place with big mountains and volcanoes, plains, lakes, rivers, pleasant weather is called "The Land of Eternal Spring". The people are very friendly and somewhat dare I say "happy." But there is something called poverty is a disease that affects my country and in most cases the children die for lack of food. Actually not only poverty is the country that attacks so is the lack of education, health and safety, these being the most relevant points. That's why with your help and God will make a big change, not that I mean you end up with all the bad but we will impact many lives and share the love of Christ.

We are beginning to work in an area called Cerro Alto, Chimaltengo. In it we are building houses (since most live in houses made of cane and metal roof where in winter the water is filtered making this an unsuitable place to live), installing wood-saving stoves (in this place cooked over an open fire using wood and smoke affects people), cages for chickens (do this for people to have an income because they need to care for the chickens, feed them and when they sell a healthy weight buy more and so on, almost business) and share with the children at school.

By this I invite you to come and share with people how much Christ loves us and He is so great that we never imagined traveling hundreds of miles to change the lives of many people. I thank you for taking the time to read this and tell them they are always welcome.

With love, God bless you always.

John 3:16
 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Quick update on Kelly

Thursday morning we got up early to take Kelly to the Dr. You aren't able to make an appointment so we had to get there and get a number. We arrived and sat in a big waiting room that already had a lot of kids waiting. it didn't take as long as i had expected and they called Kelly back. I went back with her, her Mom, her Dad and our translator Eduardo. the Dr asked them to take her clothes off her and set her on the table. My heart sunk as I looked at this beautiful little 5 year old girl that appeared to be the size of maybe a two year old. You didn't have to be a Dr to know something wasn't right. I had noticed she was tiny but her baggy clothes hid how fragile she really was. I turned to look away as I felt tears swell up in my eyes. She was already upset about having to take her clothes off, there was no way I could let her see my tears.

The Dr began too look her over and started to speak to the parents......... Eduardo (my translator) didn't say a word but I knew why. I was able to pick up enough Spanish to hear the Dr say that Kelly was severely malnourished. the Dr then asked the parents how many other children they had and they told her 10 more. The Dr firmly but nicely told them that was a problem. She said it is very expensive to care for one kid well, let alone 11 kids total. She told them to tell all their friends and family the same. The room was silent.

The Dr said that her scabies were gone, she saw the scars from them. What is left on her and still causing her discomfort is mainly due to malnutrition and too much sun. Se asked the family to bring Kelly back next Friday to meet with a nutritionist. she also told them it is necessary for them to put sun block on her 3 times a day.

This is hard thing and you see it here a lot, families with a lot of children. Life is hard and it is hard to properly care for all your kids when you have so many. I think some of it is due to a lack of education. Please hear my heart on this, they are very good people, they work very hard for their family. The dad works all the time and the Mom gets up at 3:30am every day to make tortillas to sell. All this to make ends meet and provide as much as they can for their family.  I can tell they love their children very much.

Please continue to pray for this family. Pray that they will bring her back next Friday to see the nutritionist.

A post from Sean, written last night

Tonight there is an unsettled feeling about us and a stark reminder that we have an adversary who desperately wants to distract us from slowing down to love the people of Guatemala.   I’m not one to look for Satan “under every rock,” but tonight, after a series of frustrations, distractions and strange issues to deal with I know we need the prayer and support of those back home who are in the all-important role of covering us in prayer.

I’ve been learning about “loving one another” at our Sunday night church, as well as in reading John’s gospel and letters.  God tells us bluntly if we want to be a disciple, then love one another.  Today I both struggled to do that and excelled at that.  I failed in loving my wife very well today, was distracted by issues with my business at home and a plethora of appliances etc breaking here and at our house in Colorado today, and thrown into a difficult situation by the abrupt firing of our Guatemalan maid by our landlord.

All this is taking place while we’re trying to focus on a very poor family from a village we chose to love by inviting them into our home and to needed medical care out of reach for their beautiful scabie-ridden daughter.  

We have spoken of 5 year old Kelly before.  She has been plagued by a chronic and severe case of scabies (we know all about scabies after Tiffany got them at an orphanage in Haiti).  We have provided medicine at a cost less than most of us spent out at lunch today, but with no clean water or change of clothes at her dirt-floor house there’s little hope of beating the scabies.

So we brought her family to our home today… shared a meal and as much conversation as we could.  They are very appreciative.  In the morning we will take them to get medical care for their girl, some new scabie-free clothes and hopefully some education on how to fend off these aggravating bugs.

As I tried tonight to focus on showing God’s love to this family I found my mind and my feet pulled in so many directions.  I know God’s enemy doesn’t like when His disciples do the simplistic thing of slowing down to look the “least of these” level in the eye and meet a basic need.  Imagine if I and all the others I “share a pew” with did this on a regular basis?  Satan would be quite unsettled. 

Tonight,  l’m thankful for those of  you keeping us in prayer, those of you looking level into the eyes of someone in your “village,” and one or two of you that might pray that Kelly can beat these scabies very soon.

Learning to Love,

Sean

“… let us love one another, for love comes from God.”  1 Jn 4:7

"Just Jump"

On Friday we went Zip Lining through the jungle near lake Atitlan. This was my first time going zip lining so Thursday night leading up to this adventure I was a bit nervous. I had crazy dreams that night about it and woke up thinking, this is crazy, we should not do this in another country.

Once we got there we had a 20 min hike up the mountain. It was beautiful! We saw a monkey and water falls, it was amazing! This helped keep my mind off what we were about to do. We make it to the top and there is a line of people waiting to get hooked to the cable. As I am standing in line I am thinking, this is crazy... I need to just hike back down this mountain and call it good. The line was moving quickly and soon it was my turn. The guide calls me up. I stepped up and I completely froze. The guide hooked me up and said, "Go" I couldn't move..... He said , "just jump".... JUST JUMP?!?!?!?!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!? If the equipment fails me I will be jumping to my death.
At this point, with the encouragement of my husband and some friends,  I realized I had to just jump, there was no turning around. So I jumped, I held my breathe and closed my eyes and jumped. two seconds in, I opened my eyes to see if i was still alive, I was, and it was AMAZING!!! It was like flying through the jungle! I loved it (good thing because we had to do it 7 more times to make it to the bottom)!

This is a lot like life. I was so scared to do something I had never done before but the reward of doing it was so great! Sometimes you have to"just jump". So we are going to jump. We are going to move forward with starting a baby home here. It won't be easy, and I am scared because I don't know how we will make it happen. We don't have an extra $4000 a month for all the expenses, but we are going to jump knowing that God's does not fail us and His word is our encouragement.

 

James 1:27

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Matthew 25:34-40
"Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
^{37 38} When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’