Archive for 28 December 2006
« Previous EntriesDecember 2006 Newsletter
28 December 2006This December brought in a lot of changes to the orphanage. We had nine of our children placed with families en Peru. This is a real blessing because every child would rather have parents than an institution. Our madres at Hogar de Esperanza do a terrific job guiding and directing the children but still parents are better. The children that left the orphanage varied in age from 13 to 6. Many of the children that left have been at the orphanage for over three years. My prayer is that they will honor and glorify Jesus Christ in all they do.
The children have participated in a number of activities for the Christmas season. We had a number of Peruvians come to the orphanage to put on programs and pass out gifts. We have a gentlemen that comes to orphanage the children call Papa Noel (Santa Claus). He really looks the part and he just doesn’t come to the orphanage in December but three or four times a year and passes out gifts. We also have merchants come and give us fish, fruits and vegetables. This year we had many more Peruvians volunteer and support the orphanage.
Yesenia and Paul were adopted by the Testtorff family who live in the Kansas City area. There was a snow storm in early December and Yesenia saw snow for the first time. She was so amazed that she called the orphanage and in a panic voice wanted to talk with Liz our orphanage director. The person that answered the phone ran to get the director thinking it was an emergency. She found Liz and said that Yesenia needed to talk with her right away. So Liz ran to the phone and Yesenia told her that it was snowing in Kansas City and she did not know quite how to handle it. (Yesenia and Paul grew up around Trujillo where it rains about one inch a year and never snows.)
The new year will bring in new opportunities and challenges. Some of the things we are looking forward to is laying the water line for towns Alto Moche and Alto Salverry. Enrolling more poor Peruvians in growing guinea pigs for food and extra spending money. Helping with a new eye clinic starting in Trujillo and building a program to help poor children learn basic skills in sewing, carpentry, welding and electricity.
Vickie and I appreciate your prayers for this ministry.
Chau Dave
November 2006 Newsletter
28 November 2006
Janie Helm has been at the orphanage for about three months and has done a wonderful job of posting events and news on her web site at http://www.janiehelm.blogspot.com/ . Paul Roy a Canadian volunteer has done a wonderful job of posting new photos of the children and of the orphanage at www.perukids.com. I would encourage all our supporters to go to these web sites.
In November we had three children enter the orphanage. That brings the number of children to 39. When a child enters the orphanage we send them to a doctor for a complete check up. After that we evaluate their educational level and determine which of the four schools we will send them to. Also with the volunteers we have the capabilities of giving individual tutoring.
The President of Peru, Alan Garcia, has made a priority of supplying good drinking water to 15 million Peruvians. That is approximately 50% of the population that do not have healthy drinking water. The water project that we are starting this January will help 7000 Peruvians. We have some help coming from the Peruvian Army and also Christ Community Church from the Boston area are sending workers. The Army is willing to supply a machine that will dig the trench for the water line. We are also having the people of Alto Salverry help in the installation of the water line.
We finally have licenses plates for our bus and small truck. The process took six weeks. Also we are trying to sell one of our vans and and the paper work is taking approximately three weeks. I think the greatest thing Peru has taught me is patience and waiting on God to work. Which has been a good thing for me.
We are preparing special activities for the Christmas season. One big event is inviting all the people who have helped at Hogar de Esperanza who live in Peru and having them come to the orphanage to see the children put on a program. The kids love to perform and volunteers get to meet the children.
Vickie and I would like to wish all our supporters a great Christmas Season and God’s best for 2007.
Chau,
Dave
October 2006 Newsletter
28 October 2006
I would like to start with a small miracle. Pastor Gary Stabbs brought his church group in May of this year. While in a Trujillo eating, the car was broken into and someone took his Study Bible. He was certainly heart broken. In October of this year he got a call from a man who spoke broken English and said that he had his Study Bible. He bought the Bible for next to nothing in a flea market and noticed that he had his name in it. Gary remembered that I was still in Peru and he asked him if he could contact me. Two days latter he brought in the Bible and said he did not want any reward but Gary wanted him to have some money and so I gave it to him. He said that he was going to use the money to help another orphanage. Pastor Stabbs is delighted because the bible contains years of study notes that cannot be replaced.
In October, we finished the children’s water fountain. I want to thank the Christ Community Church for their donation and work on the project. It was a gratifying moment when Christy (13 years old) while in the fountain said in Spanish “It’s a lot of fun”. We will be using it for the next 4 months and especially for school vacation.
The six children that were adopted in October are safely back in the US. Also in October, a private school held a special event for our children. Each student parent adopted one of our kids for one day. It really turned out well and one of the student’s parent got so attach to the child that she is asking if she could adopt him. Also the children were overloaded with gifts and candy.
The good guys won the election in the water district that serves 7000 poor people. The President is 35 years old and interested in changing things. This month we came up with a plan where we are going to lay 7 miles of 3 inch tubing from an artisan well in the mountains to the city. What a change, going from water that you can hardly swallow to the taste of the best bottled water in the US. We have one church that is going to help financially and we would like to have others join them. Contact me if you want to help.
Update on the Ranch: We are currently using the facilities for Youth Retreats, special training seminars and housing for large church groups. The youth program that we had started with, ran into problems. When you take a 13 year old street boy that has been living on the street for three years and put him in an environment where he needs to get up at 6AM, do chores, go to school and study . That is a real shock and if you do not lock them into the rooms (which we did not) they just take off. If you do not have parents that are putting pressure on them to stay in the program then they take the path of lest resistance and take off. One third of our time was spent on chasing the boys. I am open to any suggestions about how to reach those boys.
God is so good and it is fun to see him bless the ministry here.
Chau,
Dave
September 2006 Newsletter
28 September 2006What a month !! Six children adopted from the orphanage, a money gift to buy a 28 seat bus and a small pick up, and the orphanage is below 40 children. God has richly blessed us. We now have a capacity to accept 20 more children. The key to this ministry is placing children with wonderful families. By the way, we still have a number of beautiful kids that would like to have parents.
The Hubbard Family
The Brooks Family and Liz
We have two new long term volunteers that came in September. Janie Helm and Emily Buescher. Janie has volunteered for 3 months until December and Emily has volunteered for one year. They have set up a web site where you can follow their work here at the orphanage. Janie’s web site is www.janiehelm.blogspot.com. Emily is setting up a link from Janie. Also, the Hubbards,who are adopting three of our children in September, have set up a web site at www.losnino.blogspot.com.
Janie and the kids
Emily
A brief update of the water project in Alto Salverry is that we are waiting for an election which will be held shortly. The tough guys are running against the nice guys. The old saying” Nice guys always lose” I hope is wrong.
Also this month we had are most unique gift. A chicken farm donated 175 tons of chicken manure to the orphanage. I was very fortunate in shoveling some of it personally. Sorry, we only except chicken manure in Peru.
I want to thank everyone for their generous support for the ministry here in Peru. May God bless all you very richly.
Chau,
Dave
August 2006 Newsletter
28 August 2006
It is winter in Peru but a lot of things were accomplished. The Christ Community Church from Boston, Mass. came with 31 people eager to work. Pastor LLoyd organized them into two work groups, one group put on vacation Bible school and the other did work projects. 
The VBS people put on two programs, one in Salaverry and the other in Esperanza. It was a real joy to see the response of the children and adults to the program. The work group worked. They finished the widows home, put in 1100 feet of irrigation tubing, planted 43 fruit trees and started on a water fountain for the children. Thanks for the great job.
We heard word in late August that the three sisters have been approved to be adopted by the Brooks family of Champaign, Illinois. The Brooks planned to fly their whole family (three boys and Tim and Andrea) down to the orphanage. The process will take about 4-5 weeks to complete.
I heard some good news from Alto Salaverry. The people there have very little drinkable water. The orphanage allows those people to come down and get water. The tough guys that control the water in Alto Salaverry have expressed there dislike of the orphanage giving away the water. I got a call just last week that the tough guys have lowered the price they sell good water by 50% to get back some business. This is a real blessing for the poor who need every sole.
We started our guinea pig program with the poor in Alto Salaverry. We are setting up training programs on how to feed and take care of them. We hope this program will help a number of families to benefit with some extra money and to have some more meat in their diet.
We put up a gate in front of the orphanage to control trucks that are dumping construction material and garbage behind the orphanage. We stopped the traffic but the poor of Alto Salaverry are complaining that they want the trucks to dump so they can break up the material and sell the steel rebar and other material that is in the trash. We are considering letting them dump construction material but stop garbage. Things are not easy in Peru.
Your support and prayers are greatly appreciated. Thanks so much.
Chau,
Dave
July 2006 Newsletter
28 July 2006
We had 5 children leave the orphanage in July. Three children were adopted and two went home to their natural parents. It is very difficult to see the children leave for the staff but we stay in touch and know that they are in a better situation. The goal of the orphanage is not how many children we have but how many we can adopt.
We had one large group come from Platte City, Missouri. They worked on two major projects. The large project was building a home for a widow lady in Alto Salaverry. The lady is 40 years old and lost her husband and is raising two children. She collects metal and plastic during the day and makes approximately one dollar. Her house was made of old metal, straw and trash. The group built a brick and concrete house around her shack. I wish I could have had a photo of her coming back from a day of collecting and seeing her new house take shape for the first time. She will have a window out of her house for the first time. The second project is planting 100 fruit trees next to the orphanage that will supply fresh fruit for the children. The group also performed a evangelistic play in the Plaza that was well received.
The water project is getting more interesting. I was invited to a town meeting that pit the tough guys against the nice guys. The nice guys want to start their own water district and control how the water is distributed. The tough guys like how things are going and are quite happy to kept the status-quo. The tough guys had their screamers and shouters there blasting anything the nice guys said. I am in the middle and do not want to start the project in the midst of a political war. I think I might wait until there is a new election this December.
The guinea pig project started with 23 people signing up to raise the little critters. I was in Alto Salaverry explaining the program in my broken Spanish. I told them all they had to do is get a man and women to have guinea pigs and I should have said a male and female. (They really got a big laugh out of that).
With so many people coming to visit we now have a 3 year supply of baby clothes and formula. Thanks for your generosity of supplying the needs of the orphanage. Pray for more families that are willing to adopt our children.
Chau,
Dave
June 2006 Newsletter
28 June 2006
Adoptions our the highlight of the month. Trish and Brady our finishing their final paper work in Lima for Paul and Yessenia. In the next two months we may have 7 more children adopted. My goal is to have the remaining 47 children in the orphanage placed in loving homes. The success of Hogar de Esperanza is not on how many kids we have but on how many adoptions we have.
In June we started remodeling the ranch. We are putting in hot showers, tile floors and painting the interior. We had two volunteers Robin and Bonnie who took on painting the dinning hall and the small auditorium and came up with a very colorful paint job. They also worked with the children in our special school at the orphanage and started planting 100 fruit trees.
The water project of getting water to the poor in Alto Salaverry is moving forward. We had a meeting of the people in the town. One person went around the town yelling “Reunion de dulce Agua”. The people started coming out of their houses and gathered on a flat sandy area. ( It was like for me going back 250 years to a town meeting in New England) The problem is that the people do not trust their present water counsel and in fact the water counsel is run by three tough guys that are opposed to me running water to the town. The people do not like the high prices these guys charge and the quality of water. So at this meeting they were forming a new water committee to challenge these three tough guys. I will keep you posted on their progress.
One thing I have learned in Peru is expect everything to take two to three times longer then normal. I was getting my Visa to stay in Peru for one year. It is not a simple matter of filling out forms but of persevering the process. The Immigration minister took my paper work and started taking is merry time. He would type a little bit and then leave the office, a friend came into the office and he stopped everything and spent 20 minutes with her. He was signaling me that he needed a little grease (bribe) to get the process going. He started with 200 dollars and my lawyer said that she would file a complaint. He then hem and hawed around and began to work. I finally got my Visa with only paying 30 soles (9 dollars). He called this fee a verification fee.
We would like to thank all the people gave special gifts to the children. The children really looked forward to these gifts and appreciate them greatly. Thanks so much.
Chau,
Dave
May 2006 Newsletter
28 May 2006
In May we installed a video cam on one of our computers. The parents that are adopting our children can phone the orphanage with the US number that we have and then see each other with the video cam. We tried it out and it works just great.
I have come to the orphanage for two months to do a lot of projects. One project we are working on is raising guinea pigs for the orphanage. Guinea pigs are a luxury meat and well liked in Peru. What we are doing is co-opting with the poor in Alta Moche. We furnish the alfalfa to them and they grow the pigs. Three months later the people give half their pigs to the orphanage and they kept the other half. A three month old guinea pig is worth 3 dollars in Peru.
Another project we are working on is supplying fresh water to the poor in Alta Moche. Their present drinking water is salty and poor in quality. Currently we are furnishing the city with fresh water for free, however the people have to walk 1 mile and climb approximately 200 feet in elevation to get it. I want to install a pump in our well and pump it up to them but I need permission from the government officials. In Peru,working with the government is like moving mount Everest one foot. Very difficult and painstakingly slow.
We had two children brought to the orphanage and this increaseed the total number of children to 49. Also we had two visitors from the United Kingdom who are doing a documentary on Peruvian children. They stayed in the orphanage three days and took a lot of film on the kids and interviews with the staff. Also we had a group of 21 students come from the University of Florida who helped with some projects and played with the children.
Please pray for more families who will be willing to adopt. Thanks for all your support.
Chau,
Dave
April 2006 Newsletter
28 April 2006
We heard good news from Peru . Brady and Trish Testorf, who are adopting a brother and sister (Paul and Yessenia) from the orphanage, have been approved. The process has taken about 10 months and Brady and Trish are very excited about their two new additions to their family. One of the real blessings the Testorfs have had is that their church has come thru and really supported their vision. So when Paul and Yessenia come to the US, they will not only have the Testorf family, but the church family as well, welcoming them home.
The big news about Peru is the election of a president. There were 24 candidates running for the Presidency, and after the primary election there are two remaining. Mr. Humala is a far left candidate who received 31 percent of the vote. He is for redistribution of the wealth in Peru and for taxing the foreign companies. Mr. Garcia is a little right of Humala but has a bad track record. In 1985 -1990 he was the President of Peru and the economy fell apart and the Shinning Path tried to take over the country. This election could have some repercussions in a lot of areas for the orphanage. l
I want to remind everyone that we have two large groups going to the orphanage in July, one from Kansas City and one from Boston. If you have been wanting to send some items to Peru, now is the time! I also have a list available of most needed items as well as kids clothes and shoe sizes.
Some of you who send contributions have been asking about using your credit card. We now have the option of Visa and Master card. Any and all donations are tax deductible. Thank you most of all for your continued interest and prayers.
Chau,
Dave
March 2006 Newsletter
30 March 2006March 6 2006 was a big day at Hogar de Esperanza, we wrote our first check for food and diapers. What an experience, it took me exactly four weeks to the day to open up a checking account in Peru. Many trips to notaries , government bureaucrats and bank officials. So when we wrote the first check there was a lot of consternation. Then I had to get two other signatures on the checking account which took another two weeks. So now I can report that finally we have a functioning checking account. Praise the Lord. (The problem now is that I have to keep money in it.)
We are very close to having two of our children being adopted, Paul and Yessenia.Their parents Brady and Trish came to the orphanage last june with a group from First Baptist Church of Platte City. They were thinking of adopting but after their visit to the orphanage, they were convinced that they wanted to go ahead. Their church really came thru with financial help, help for remodeling and moral support. Also we had the Brooks family come this month to consider adopting three of our children. Pray for both of these families that all the details will work out quickly.
Students of Corban College of Salem Oregon took their spring break in Trujillo Peru. They asked to come to the orphanage to do projects and play with the children.We divided them into two groups, one group worked in the orphanage and the other worked in planting alfalfa The children really received a blessing from the young people coming to Hogar de Esperanza.The 25 students did a great deal of work and I know they received a blessing as well.
The children started school the second week of March. We are sending 30 children to one private school in Trujillo. The other students are going to a special school at the orphanage for children that are far behind in their educational level. This allows us to give each student more individual attention to their educational needs.
Just a heads up. We are having a group of 35 adults go to the orphanage July 1. This gives us a great opportunity to send about 2000 lbs of shoes, diapers, and clothing to the orphanage. If you would like to donate some articles, please send it to our home at Saving Street Children 2124 Oakcrest Dr. Liberty Missouri 64068. and we will make sure it gets to the Kids. Thanks for all your support.
Chau,
Dave
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