2019 – Never a Dull Moment
Our goal is to break the cycle of poverty for the orphaned and underprivileged child through education, vocational skill building, spiritual development and improved nutrition. We are grateful for your financial support, prayers and mentoring as we wrap up year two of this adventure with God. He asks us to care for His children and, with your help, we seek to glorify Him with our work! As always, we hope that these updates will encourage you and lift you up as you join us in the fight. We have so many reasons to praise our God and we are lifting YOUR names up as we do so!
EDUCATION
This year was a pivotal one as the elementary children changed schools! The new school is a block away compared to a 40-minute drive. It is a full day school compared to 2 ½ hours and the quality of teachers is MUCH higher compared to teachers in the old school. While the first month was a bit tough, the kids are now thriving!
Learning Center Monday-Friday 10:30am-5:30pm Saturday 11am-3pm
· Preschool education in the mornings
· Tutoring,computer access, school projects, and a quiet space for homework in the afternoon
· Saturdays are open for activities, reading, music and special tutoring
Vocational Skill Building
Many of the children will not continue their education into university level studies. Our desire is to create opportunities for self-sufficiency through technical skills.
Panaderia Motocarro – the new motocarro will allow the sale of the delicious pan dulce (sweet bread) to local flea markets. The kids are learning howto make the bread and can help sell it as well. The purchase of the motocarro was a joint effort between a high school senior who raised the majority of the funds, Gift of Dignity and several other donors.
Carpentry Workshop – a 800 sq ft workshop, built by Gift of Dignity and stocked by a partner, Gifted.global.Casa Hogar is blessed to have two men on staff who have experience with woodworking and in 2020 we look forward to creating training for the older kids and product sale opportunities. The desire is for sales to 1) restock materials, 2) go into a fund for the child who created the product and 3) give Casa Hogar money for food and supplies.
NUTRITION
Aquaponics - With the knowledge and experience of our friends and fellow missionaries, Zack and Tere Jones, and the sweat and muscle of the kids 😊 the tanks were taken down to the cement, resealed, repainted, restocked. We had a small harvest this year and learned a lot about how to have a more fruitful harvest next year.
Garden - What looked like a great start ended with more lessons learned. The dirt in the garden was contaminated and the seeding pods we used this year did not decompose leaving the roots constricted. AARRGH!! Over the winter we will pull out the old dirt and prep the area with new soil. We will use the greenhouse to grow our seedlings so they can be placed directly into the soil. With all the lessons learned over the last two years, 2020 is looking like the year we are going to be smiling from garden to table!
Chickens - a new roof was added to protect the birds from the weather, and we improved the quality of the feed. Unfortunately, we were surprised with 40 additional chicks and the overcrowding put a strain on all the birds. Many fell ill to bronchitis and we lost 35 birds. ☹ Our intention is to get the flock back up to producing 20-25 eggs a day for the kids at Casa Hogar Elim come springtime.
Snacks-Monday through Friday we provide healthy snacks that range from fruit to sweetbread with milk, to smoothies. One of the most serious conversations we have every day with the kids is answering the question ‘Que es snack hoy?’ 😊
SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
As our Spanish improves, we are able to speak more about Jesus and bring Him into what we are doing in the Learning Center. We still can’t speak deeply, heart to heart with the older kids, but God is teaching us patience while the language develops. We do provide materials (bibles, coloring books and crayons, story books) for the dorm parents to use as they minister to their children and the older children have access to many excellent Christian based books in the Learning Center.
FOCUS FOR 2020
We have made a great start setting the foundation for the work that God has called us to. Some of what we will focus on this year includes:
· add on a clean room to the carpentry workshop for varnishing/painting the woodwork
· provide materials for woodwork classes
· replace some of the worn-out furniture in the Learning Center
· completely replace the soil in the vegetable gardens and replace shade clothe
· implement floating beds for leafy greens fed by the water from the fish tanks
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SPECIFIC NEEDS: A $500 monthly food donation has ended,and an individual donor reduced giving by $500. We also need to increase our cost of living to cover dental/basic healthcare costs and are praying for $200 increase for that. That equates to $1200 a month or $14,400 a year.
As I write this request it is really humbling because it seems so large. But God loves doing big things and so we will simply praise Him as He does what only He can do – the seemingly impossible! Please pray over this request and, if you would like to get involved you can
-call to get more information Anita 214-505-6601 or Thad 972-567-8868
-donate through text Just text the amount to 84321
-click the donate button above and donate online
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May you draw closer to Him this year than ever before,
Anita and Thad Maddox with Lucy, Jackson, Stevie, Marshall, Cheech, and One Eyed Winnie (the new chihuahua 😊)