Shopping for the Orphanage

Last Friday, we went to the Remar orphanage with the team from Christ's Chapel Bible Church.  We had a great day playing board games, playing soccer and preparing and eating lunch with them.

During the visit, the house mom and I talked about their on-going needs (clothes for the boys, personal products and kitchen supplies, specifically, pots and pans.)  I told the team leaders about the needs and we had a short brainstorming session.  They decided it would make the most sense to give us money to buy the personal products and kitchen supplies here in El Salvador.  By the time they got back to the hotel on Friday evening, they had collected $200.  As far as the clothing, they will collect it and send it down in July when their high school students come down for a week.

So, today, Guillermo and I took the $200 and went shopping.  We wanted to get the most possible with our money so we went to several shops in downtown Apopa. Since Guillermo lives in Apopa he knows all of the good places and isn't afraid to ask for discounts.

At the first stop we found the large stock pots, frying pans and other kitchen items.  After our discount the total was $102.88.  

Second stop we bargained our way to two dozen Speed Stick deodorants, a dozen bars of soap, a dozen boxes of Colgate toothpaste, six extra large bottles of shampoo and a dozen toothbrushes, which totaled $98.65  The grand total was $1.53 over our budget, but we had it covered.  (By the way, I now understand why most of the Salvadorans think PriceSmart, our Costco, is expensive!) 

We have a college team coming on Saturday, and we will be going to the orphanage on Monday.  They don't know that we're bringing these things, so I'm excited to see the smiles on their faces when we unload!

If you are interested in helping these kids, we'd love to hear from you at parrisinelsalvador@gmail.com.  

Two Full Days

It's been two very full days of VBS preparation and we're done with some things, but not others.  We've just printed some documents that we need for the orientation tomorrow and are heading to "Kinkos" to get the copies made.  

I spent most of the day cutting fabric for the crafts which will be made by the mom's and grandma's who have signed up for the adult VBS class.  They are making a different Christmas craft every day and the adult teachers are preparing a kit for each women each day.  

Stephen spent time making buttons, helping wrap the props and decorations and loading them in Javier's truck and then unloading everything at Javier's house.  We also finished up the translator/gringo assignments and made the maps/visual aids which will be posted at the registration desk.

Among other things, yesterday we did shopping for the snacks and for the prizes which will be given away during the closing session each day.   

Today there were 14 people here for lunch and 8 of us at dinner time. So in the midst of all the work, Rosemary stops and makes lunch for everyone.  

It's amazing to work along with the people from the church here.  They have a heart for kids and VBS is a great way to reach children and their parents.

The team from Bakersfield arrives tonight; the rest fly in tomorrow.  The Salvadorans are leaving from the church in San Salvador at 8:30 in the morning.  Everyone should be here in time for orientation before the evening campaign tomorrow afternoon.

Prayer requests:

1.  Kids and parents to respond to the gospel message presented in the music, Bible verses and Bible stories in VBS.

2.  Endurance for the workers--it will be a tiring week

3.  Divine appointments during the evening campaign and an overwhelming response to the gospel that can only be explained by God's unmerited favor.

  

Quiet before the storm

We followed Pastor Nelson and his family to Guatemala on Friday morning.  We are at their home helping prepare for the Happy Feet mission group that flies in this afternoon.   By helping prepare I mean going to PriceSmart and buying almost $500 worth of food for the trip then chopping onions, celery and other veggies to make a pot of soup that will feed 40.  Later today we must shop for the fresh fruit, bread, cheese and other perishables.  Nevertheless, this is the quiet before the storm of loading up 5 vans and driving to the mountains with 40 people.  Monday we will spend our first day passing out new shoes and sharing the gospel with the children in the  little town where we will be staying.  The team is bringing 1000 pairs of shoes and we will try to give them all away, although Nelson says it is difficult to do more than 200 per day and we will only have 4 days.

Please pray for the team, the kids and those of us from the church in Guatemala who will be helping, translating, cooking, etc. 

Baggies are a girls best friend

I wish I owned stock in Dow Chemical, the owners of the Ziploc brand, or in the Glad company or in the Reynolds Packaging Group who owns both the "baggies" and "hefty" trademarks. 

Why you ask?  Well, sometimes I think it's because I'm only cooking for two (sometimes for one since my diet is different than Stephen's), but I've been doing that since our youngest went off to college in 2000.  Sometimes I think it's because shopping is more time consuming here and requires quite a bit of planning, so I try to buy in bulk when I can and I don't won't to waste anything.  It's just not that easy to "run to the store."  Sometimes I think it's my reaction to the lack of availability of canned foods and convenient sizes.  Whatever the reason, one of the things I absolutely couldn't do without is baggies.  I only have 4 drawers in my kitchen and one of the four is filled with my collection of snack-, sandwich-, quart- and gallon-sized bags.  Some of the sizes are available here, but others I have to bring from the states.

As I said, I buy almost all of my meat in bulk at PriceSmart (our Costco) and once I have it home, I divide it into two-portion sizes in sandwich bags.  

Of course, the individual bag is just the first step; the large freezer bag with label is the second step!

The same goes for the things I have to make from scratch.  For example, you can't find canned beans here . . . . so I cook two pounds of black beans in the crockpot and then freeze them in canned-sized servings in sandwich bags.   What else?  My frig is full of individual bags of home made chicken broth (oh, for Swansons in a can), vegetable broth, applesauce, garbanzo beans, white beans, etc.  My most recent use is to move hot dog buns and hamburger buns into individual bags so that I can easily thaw out just one.  

Not all of the bags I use are in the freezer, however.  Since we must co-exist with ants, anything that has been opened has to go inside a sealed bag.  So, my kitchen shelves are also full half-used taco and chili seasoning packets inside bags.  

Well, this is definitely a light-weight post when compared to my last one.  Isn't that just the way life is?  Sometimes it's about weighty words and important truths and sometimes it's about baggies and how they make my life easier!