Dia de Cenizas

I guess it was my Episcopalian roots. Today was a nice day at the center with a couple of very nice priests giving a service to the kids. A very thoughtful and appropriate homily. And then the ashes. Several kids were eager all morning for the service.

Very nice...

Prayer Partners on duty and looking for more....

We have prayer partners for our kids. Below is a prayer that was written by one of our prayer partners. What our kids need most is your love and prayers. Their material needs are principally addressed by the Guatemalan government. They need your love and someone who cares about them. We have shied away from the monetary adopt a child concept. Maybe someday we can have video cams operating to visit with kids. We really don't want money (at this point) but do want you to think about and love these kids. If you think you would be intersested in being a prayer partner pls let Ann Lane know at this email address...amml1221@gmail.com or me jamiewaller@gmail.com We hope to have the foto albums associated with the names. We have skad of fotos, but need to find the time to associate the names with the individuals.



The prayer one of our fearless and anonymous prayer warriors wrote -

"Lord, wrap your loving arms around these children and adults in Guatemala and let them feel safe and peaceful today.

Please Dear Father,Calm their fears, dry their tears, and heal their spirits and bodies. Let them know that help and hope is on the way.

In Jesus' name, I pray for your children -

Alter Moises Martínez Aguirre,
Alfonso Martín,
Evelia Martíz,
Oscar Mart,
Elfido Augusto Marroquin
Héctor Miguel,
Tomas F Muñoz,
Hugo Paìz



Thanks!

Productive day and prayer request

Went to visit Dennis McCutcheon at Vine International warehouse. Wow! What a tremendous facility and what a great ministry for the Lord. They gave us some generous donations of medical supplies which will come on very handy right now. Budgets are tight and there is always need.

The prayer request is that the pallets of materials they have ready to go to Haiti will be released by the government here. They have some critical supplies of antibiotics, latex gloves etc. that are in short supply in Haiti since the disaster. Please pray that the right buttons are pushed and the goods are released without onerous tariffs.

Also, please pray that the donations of medical supplies continue to be shipped from the USA. They have a unique and incredibly low cost process to ship missionary and medical materials to this needy country. They have been doing it for something like 20 years. Nearly usurious tariffs make it extremely difficult to get materials in and out of the country. You would think they would be more sensitive to the needs of the poor, but in a country of such rampant corruption, officials make bad decisions. Anyway, pls pray for Vine International and their ministry here in Guatemala.

The Week Ahead

Met with Blanki to discuss priorities. She is a ball of energy and enthusiasm. I am trying to evolve the management style of the upside down pyramid. In our case, the neneras who have the most face time with kids and the most unpleasant jobs of bathing them and changing poopy diapers are at the top of the pyramid and our goal is to help them do their jobs better and to bond with the children. Generally, management here is top-down and autocratic. Kind of an industrial era approach. Should be interesting to see how she is able to settle these quarrels and disputes. As for me, I have long grown weary of office politics.

Good sermon at Church yesterday. Kind of answering my current struggles. I become frustrated with the "battle" and I forget that the battle really belongs to Him. I need to suit up and show up, but he has the plan. Matthew 11 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.


Relationship: What my kids need more than anything is someone to love and care about them. One wish list idea would be to set up a mentoring/big brother/prayer partner program. I really am not crazy about the Foster international pay programs. My dream would be for relationship devoid of economics. The vague vision would be for each kid to have someone who loved them and prayed for them. Contacted them as possible; but was not in a funding relationship. Maybe I am too weird but I think that they need love more than anything and there just ain't enough of that to go around right now..... This is way early to work through, but directionally I would love to know what you think....

BTW: 13 more kids are coming this week. This will put us near 80!! When I started we were around 45. The physical plant can accommodate, but the government staff is stretched.. please pray for all...


I'm off to visit Vine International shortly. They do tremendous work importing wheelchairs and the like. Dennis and Cindy McCutcheon are the folks here who make amazing things happen: http://dennis51.wordpress.com/

Psalm 8287

Not really a Psalm, but maybe a confession - plea - lamentation - meditation.

Trying to find words and format to describe our challenges, joys, blessings and struggles. They are all so intertwined. This group of children are wonderfully perplexing and the challenges are truly multi-dimensional. Our lives together are as much an inner dialogue between me and God as well as the outward expression of improving their quality of life and relationship.

Covey calls it, "the thick of thin things." That is a huge part of my day to day struggle. When ministering to the needs of these kids; and importantly the needs of the people who work with them, what is a "thin thing?" I try to bring snacks and treats for the staff on weekends and evenings. Try to cheer them up and relate to them personally. Each individual is so very special in the eyes of God (and hopefully mine). Yet there is not time in the day or candies in the store, that can bring the joy of the Gospel.

I also frequently struggle with: micro - macro. My main focus is the clinica quatro (four invalids in the clinic). I try to spend as much face time with them as I can. I also try to spend what we USA parents call "quality time" with them. We could discuss the folly and complexity of quality time, but suffice to say, it means that we take time when not on the cell phone, making lists or planning to do something else. With Autistic kids, being in the now and having presence is brutally difficult. There are seldom major breakthroughs and each step forward is matched with one back, one to the side and one lying down...:)

Days here are full. Typically arise between 6:30 and 7:00. Morning prayers and organizing. Visiting with folks in the hostal and then off to work. Six days a week, I spend the day till 5:00 pm at the center with the kids. Cadanino has 4 employees and the government has 40 employees that I work with. Everybody is great and I love these folks. With a unique year end planning and restructuring, the government is doing an impressive job of trying to manage a process and improve the outcome and services. If you have a corporate background, you understand what I mean by that former sentence. If you don't know the ultra secret double entendre codes of corporate double speak; the organizational and budgeting process is brutal. Especially if there is too little money and too much turnover. Though I am not a part of the process of change for the staff, I certainly feel their pain. Many of these folks have become close personal friends.


If you have read this far, you are still wondering why I named it Psalm 8287. Clearly this is not a psalm nor a prayer. Not even really a meditation. The number 8287 is the number of days since I was last separated from alcohol. Not very interesting to most folks, but certainly relevant to me. The challenges of this ministry need to be maintained within the context of recovering people. My grandiosity really wants me to fix all these kids and right now! I am massively frustrated with how slow progress is and how limited the improvement in physical and educational milestones are.

Thanks for reading...

Not the most esthetically pleasing venue

Some shots of the yard at CRPN. Some kind folks are talking about helping us renovate or improve our dangerous yard. There had been jungle gyms and the like in another era, but appropriate equipment for this wide range of mobility may be difficult to determine, yet alone acquire and assemble...

Anyway.... Overview vid:






The yard....






The Yard and Orchard




Th th th... thats all folks

My Susi gets a Reprieve!

We took Susi this morning at 5:00 am to be evaluated for a possible placement in a specialized Children's Hospital in Antigua called Hermano Pedro. Looks like she and Elfido will be moving there at the end of the month. Realistically, they can much better serve her needs. We all love her: since she has no communication skills, she expresses everything through her face. She has a smile that could warm any heart. She is really quite capitivating. We ran out of formula so I had the pleasure of helping her devour mashed potatoes and then she did me the favor of also devouring my Flan - which kept those 300 calories going straight to my waist. We were also able to place Joannah at the Hogar known as Manchen. She is a sweet teenager and has fairly normal intelligence so her needs will be much better met there. All in all a few wild days. I won't post anything about Rudy's funeral because it was so sad, complicated and raw. It was a beautiful ceremeny and the long procession to the cemetery was unbelievably moving.

Place holder for accident video

Very sad news today

The 20 year old son of my friends Hilda and Obdulio died this morning of Dengue hemorrhagic fever. He was in a hospital, but may have been misdiagnosed initially or had a secondary infection.

I work with Hilda and got to know her family when I first arrived here a year ago. My first project was to acquire t-shirt fabric for her at the center because she is the seamstress and she constructs all the children's pajamas. We drove around the "Garment District" looking for quality and good prices for big bolts of fabric. The garmento experience of my youth was of little help as the fabric was already fairly cheap and there was little room to negotiate.

I know their other children better than the boy who died. Their youngest son, Williams has a learning disability and is nearly blind. I went with them to several appointments with specialists and neurologists. He is in school now and doing fairly well. Unfortunately, their house was robbed last week when the Dad stepped out the a nearby store. They locked Williams in a bedroom and ransacked the place. And now they lose their oldest child who also has an 18 month old kid. So very sad...

Getting in Shape for the Special Olympics

Olimpicos Especiales

I understand that Rahm Emanuel will be more supportive of the Special Olympics and I would like to personally invite him to spend some quality time here with us.

That being said, the season of excercising is starting we went to the Park on Friday and made some progress. The group we took are less experienced athletes and we somewhat reluctant to take instructions. That means.... it was a lot of fun and they had a good time in the sun!!

Visit CRPN....

Come Visit

A few people have visited us here in the capital of Guatemala and a few more have expressed interest in helping out in person. It would be great to have you here and it is fairly easy to get to. Lot's of major airlines fly directly to the capital city and I am literally an 8 minute walk from the airport. A normal US Passport is all you need from a legal point of view and no special shots or medicines are necessary. My apartment is inside a small hotel and they have rooms from cheap dormitory style to less cheap private rooms. Lots of housing options.
We are right accross the street from the center so I have no excuse for arriving to work late. Other volunteers can come and go as you please.
Now for the tough stuff. These kids have profound disabilities and substantial physical and mental challenges. They are not for the faint of heart. Most where adult diapers and all kinds of smelly germy events occur continuously. Runny noses and coughs in your face as you move a kid from a wheelchair to the play area are common. Prior to my time here I had little or no experience with this type of kid. Frankly, I was uncomfortable with the sounds and smells. Have I scared you away yet??

At any rate: come for an afternoon or come for a week. We can put you to work whatever your skillset or area of interest is. Most of these kids are just starved for individual attention. The weather this time of year is pretty good so we put down pieces of carpet outside and generally spend several hours a day in the sunshine and fresh air. You won't have to change diapers!! I am ashamed to admit that I don't.... But the smiles and hugs you get will last a lifetime.

They get it!!

We played with Photo Booth application in my MacBook. Pascual and Pancho had a ton of fun messing around with the images. Pancho is unable to use any words, but he really understood the fun of being in the amusement park photobooth distortions. Pascual was loving it too and he is very verbal. In fact because of a speech impediment he is almost slaways shouting at the top of his lungs.

Groundhog Day (+1) in Guatemala

Just flew in from Dallas with 200 lbs of clothing donations. Thanks to First Rate and all our friends there, we had more clothing donations than we could carry. One of the old duffel bags bit the dust with the zipper busting open and TSA taping it back together,,,, kind of..

Special shout out thanks to Kat, Bonnie and Jud....

And now another typical sunset....