Update on Donations

Thank you all for the wonderful donations so far!!! It's going to be so exciting to bless the children and staff with these items. We have a few boxes decorating our living room filled with assorted scissors, toothbrushes and toothpaste, shampoos, conditioners, body washes, soccer balls, soap, band-aids, glue sticks, hair accessories and pencils, among other great items. With 8 of us going and packing light for ourselves, we could easily take with us 12+ suitcases/bins of donations, so we have plenty of room! :-)

We just heard back from Project San Miguel (the child sponsorship program in Totonicapan, Guatemala) about the items that would be most beneficial to them, and here is what they said: "all kind of crayons, color pencils, water colors, art paper, puzzles, Legos and items like these would be of great use for the workshops they hold with both children and youngsters."

I can see a trip to the dollar store in my near future for lots of puzzles... :-) I also placed several orders for a bunch of Spanish books from Amazon (thanks Amy & Scott!)...that was fun! Free shipping on orders over $25, and most of the books I got were on their 4 for 3 special (buy four books, get the cheapest one free). When the kids look at the enormous number of books on each of their shelves, it's hard to imagine places where many kids don't have any books of their very own. We were able to get several of their favorite books in Spanish to share with our new friends in Guatemala.

We've had fun creating a little gift package for each of the families of the kids we sponsor. We'll be visiting Carlos, age 9; Yesica, age 6; and Karina, who will be celebrating her 7th birthday on June 26th when we are there! Our kids are working on making (tying) fleece blankets for Carlos, Yesica and Karina as a special gift to them. While Guatemala is known as the "land of eternal spring," Totonicapan is up in the Highlands where it gets below freezing during the winter and most places are without heating. Just now I got to wondering exactly how high the "Highlands" are, so after a bit of research...

...they are high.

The average altitude of the department of Totonicapan is 8136 ft, and it looks like we'll be driving over the highest point on the Inter-American Highway not long before we reach the town of Totonicapan- it's at 12,040 feet! Hmmm... Mt. Rainier is 14,411 feet, and I commonly think of that as being quite high enough for average traveling.... :-) Max wants to know how we'll stay on the road... "But what happens if we tip backwards and fall off?" I tried to assure him it's actually a road we'll be traveling on, not a tightrope or a slide (However, I've experienced a few of these winding mountainous roads on our previous trips myself, lovingly lined with small white crosses what seems to be every few feet to commemorate those that unsuccessfully traveled the road before us... it's quite confidence inspiring).

Before I go, several people have asked how one can comment or write on our blog. On the right side at the bottom of each entry from us is a place where it says "comments." If you click on that, it will take you to another page where you can read the comments posted by other people. At the bottom you can type your own note in the white box and then click "Post Comment." We'd love to hear from you and it will be great to keep in touch!

Coming soon... my little brother is getting married this weekend!!! Congratulations, Matt & Kim!