We've Moved!!!

Hi Everyone!

I just wanted to let you know that we are taking the plunge and moving our blog over to wordpress!

http://orphanhelpersblog.wordpress.com/

Please come on over, check it out, and keeping visiting the Orphan Helpers blog. We don't want to lose you!

Laura Parker
Communications :-)

Miles Apart Still United in Heart

Meet Karla Auceda! Karla is currently assisting in the Hogar Torrech halfway home for teenage girls in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. She has been working for Orphan Helpers for about 1 year and absolutely loves her work mentoring these girls! Many of the Hogar Torrech residents come from various government run centers in Honduras-including Mujeres Adolescentes in San Pedro Sula.

Karla recently had the opportunity to spend several days in San Pedro Sula learning about Orphan Helpers ministry in this location. During her trip, she spent time in both Nueva Esperanza (an orphanage for girls and boys ages birth-12 years old) as well as Mujeres Adolescentes (an orphanage for girls ages 13-18 years old). This trip gave Karla the opportunity to get to know her OH counterparts as well as encourage the girls of Mujeres Adolscentes about the opportunities available to them through the halfway home ministry Orphan Helpers provides.

What a blessing to have a united OH team!

Karla (far left) is pictured with the 3 Orphan Helpers staff members at Mujeres Adolescentes (Jackie, Olga & Betty).

Liberty Baptist Church Update No. 5

On Saturday of their trip, the Liberty Baptist Team spend some time at a nearby beach in El Salvador. Pictures from the Atami Beach Resort that the team visited are below.

Liberty Baptist Church Update No. 4

A group of 5 families from Liberty Baptist Church traveled to San Salvador, El Salvador where they will be serving in 2 orphanages for a week. Check out the update below from Keith-the team leader.

The team worked 10 hours straight all day Wednesday (after a 2 hour delay in delivering our supplies...NO PROBLEM!) putting in a wall, running electrical, installing a false ceiling (that is my new area of expertise!), and painting the room that was once part of a classroom building but is now still being split into a library/classroom space. I say still because after 10 hours, we are still not done. We put in another hour and a half today (after doing 2 orphanages and before spending 2 hours at a halfway house). Tomorrow, we will do the 2 orphanages one final time and then work on the library until we finish!!!!!

The team has been INCREDIBLY flexible and has been a picture of the body of Christ, each team member adding their own giftedness to minister to the less fortunate of El Salvador. We´ve been a heartbeat from Christ´s heartbeat daily and can have a tear develop in no time. At the halfway home, a boy asked some of us to give our testimony. After I gave mine, 9 year old Zac raised his hand and wanted to give his for the first time in front of a group of Salvadoran teens. It was a moment to remember!

It´s been a life changing trip. Please continue to pray us through the last days of the mission until we are safely back in Virginia!

A few random words to describe our time here so far: hot but not as hot/humid as we expected, insane traffic, incredible college student interpreters, poverty, teamwork, papusas are good to eat if you are ever in El Salvador, who has the hammer?, volcano, big brown eyes of little orhpans with outstretched arms, rain every night, parakeets as alarm clocks, God is here.
Blessings!

Keith and team

All of the pictures below are of the team woring on the construction project in the girls' rehabilitation center. The Orphan Helpers staff and the children of this center have been asking for a library for a long time. Thanks to the LBC team for making this possible!

Liberty Baptist Church Update No. 3

A group of 5 families from Liberty Baptist Church traveled to San Salvador, El Salvador where they will be serving in 2 orphanages for a week. Check out the update below from Keith-the team leader.

Even with reversing the order of the orphanages to what we were supposed to do, the second day of ministry was 100% smoother than the first. The major snag was that two of our team members left right after the first orphanage for an hour to go buy supplies for the Wednesday construction project. The hour turned into 6 hours and they totally missed the second orphanage, the boys! We had to scramble and fill in where we could but all went well. God came through again!

There were tearful moments as the team did a tour of the girl´s orphanage and several of our team got to hold the babies that have either been abandoned or are the babies of some of the girls in the orphanage. One of the girls in our morning program was pregnant and could not have been more than 12. They really have nothing. How much we take for granted in the US.

We added a third layer of ministry today by going to 2 halfway homes (males to one and females to another) to eat dinner with them and spend time with these youth that are between orphanages and the real world. The team was tired but pressed on.
Pray for Wednesday. We have no idea how construction of the library with 18 people, 8of them under 15, will go.
Blessings!

Keith and team


Babies at CIPI, an orphanage for boys and girls of all ages


The team at CISNA, an orphanage for boys ages 7-18 years old

Liberty Baptist Church Update No. 2

A group of 5 families from Liberty Baptist Church traveled to San Salvador, El Salvador where they will be serving in 2 orphanages for a week. Check out the update below from Keith-the team leader.

Key Learning from yesterday: Don´t set your room air conditioner on 16 degrees Celcius when you don´t know how to make the conversion! We FROZE to death in the heat of summer on our first night in the hotel!

Key Learning from today: If things can get reversed or break down to teach the lesson of flexibility, they will!

Our first full day of ministry was quite the challenge. After arriving an hour late to our morning orphanage due to a protest shutting down the street because of no water, we found that our schedule had a misprint and we were at the boys orphanage instead of the girl´s orphanage!´ Fortunately, Principle Fernando let some of the boys out to participate in our program which was chaos at best! It was a great way to be broken in! It was a Kodak moment as we walked through the gates, all of the little boys ran up with open arms to give us hugs....that´s all that they really want is someone to love them. After a quick stop (by Salvadorian definittion) at a mall food court, we headed to the girl´s orphanage. All worked well. Not 5 minutes after we departed, our bus broke down....nice. We were thankful that it had not happened when we were an hour away at the volcano on Sunday! Orphan Helpers sent their 2 vans to pick us up and get us back to the hotel.

We took an adventure on foot this evening and walked a block from the hotel to Little Caesar´s and fed 20 people and then went across the street and those same 20 had ice cream. Food is much cheaper here. I think that is because the minimum wage for an El Salvadorian is $200 a MONTH! $2400 a YEAR! We saw such poverty today which made us even more thankful for the blessings in our lives. It was then on to repacking our supply/craft/snack bags in prep for tomorrow and lights out by 9pm! The heat and schedule is keeping us wiped out by then!

Continue to pray! Blessings!
Keith and team


The broken down Orphan Helpers bus

Liberty Baptist Church Team Arrives Safely in El Salvador

A group of 5 families from Liberty Baptist Church traveled to San Salvador, El Salvador where they will be serving in 2 orphanages for a week. Check out the update below from Keith-the team leader.


What an eventful day! We saw God working in the following ways:

1. A door being open at our locked church at 4am and a random key opening the Missions Room that had 6 of our bags in it (thanks Laura!)

2. Getting all 36 checked bags, 36 carry on bags, 10 adults, and 8 youth from Newport News to El Salvador without a hitch!

3. Getting all of the above through Customs without the blink of an eye!

4. Allowing us to order our first meal in Spanish at an El Salvadorian restaurant (took forever and we way over ordered)

5. Safely manuevering 18 people through a ´Walmart´on a Saturday night in El Salvador to buy water bottles, snacks, and other essentials (like diet coke and oreos!)

6. Hearing the 2000 parakeets that come to roost in the trees around the hotel every night!

Our hotel is really cool and local with an outdoor garden where we just finished our first team meeting in Central America. Check it out! http://www.arboldefuego.com/We have not found a phone card yet so are not able to call home yet.

On Sunday, we will go to a church service of 900 that has translation in English over headphones. We will then go to a craft market for some siteseeing and lunch. Next stop will be hiking a volcano and then back to the hotel for final prep for Monday morning at our first orphanage.

We are exhausted but excited at what God will do this week. Thank you for your prayers today...we REALLY felt it!

Buenos Dias!


The Liberty Baptist Church mission team prior to departure for their trip.


Pictures of the lobby at the Arbol de Fuego hotel


The team with all of their luggage - totaling over 30 bags!