We have had the priviladge to minister to and host various groups, families and individuals so far this year which comes to an approximate of 290 people! They each have done a variety of projects and ministry, bulding homes, building water fountains, re-wiring, ministering to the children in the rescue homes, surf camp, vacation bible school, field trips with our students at the school, medical care and painting. Thanks to all of you who have come down this year to work with us in furthering the kingdom of God! We are expecting about 17 more groups for the summer! Please continue to keep us all in you prayers! God has been doing great things through and with the people that have come down and we look forward to being witnesses to more of God!
Thanks to all of you for your continual support for the school! We have been so blessed and God has continued to supply all of our needs to be able to provide education, nutrition and spiritual guidance for all of our students.
This year we started a guitar/music class. Norman Velasquez is our teacher and doing an excelent job! They had their first performance during our mothers day celebration and I have never seen such excited and proud faces on the students and also the mothers! We are so excited about being able to provide this new class for them so they can continue to explore their talents!
This year we are also teaching Lacrosse as part of the PE class. The organization, Lacrosse the Nations, out of Denver, Colorado had a burden to teach the children in La Chureca how to play and with much excitement chose our school to be the place! The students and teachers had enjoyed learning this new sport. Our school is the only place in Nicaragua that is playing Lacrosse. We hope that this will allow our students to reach out to other schools and teach Lacrosse to them. Imagine that the children of the Managua Trash Dump being the ones to teach the rest of Nicaragua this new sport?
We are a staff of 27 this year: General Director, Academic Director, Librarian/Music teacher, Supply Manager, 9 teachers (two have morning and afternoon classes), 5 teachers aides, 2 cooks, 2 security gaurds, 4 tutorial teachers and a Janitor.
So far this year we have had approximately 30 teams visit this year. Some have done work projects, others to play with our students and learn about the school, and also some to do "Book Buddies" with our preschoolers. It is always a blessing to share with everyone what God is doing in the school and to receive their prayers and words of encouragement! Thank you!!
If you would like to keep more updated on the school and see pictures we have created a facebook group for this: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/group.php?gid=121741364504588&ref=search or search in facebook "Colegio Cristiano La Esperanza/Hope Christian School". Feel free to post your own pictures and videos!
We currently have 30 students in the scholarship program. The students have over all been doing pretty well. We have some hard times walking alongside some of our students that are really struggling. But God has been great in getting us through it.
We've been learning the 10 commandments and have 2 more Saturday mornings to finish them off. It's been really good talking with them in our small groups about these commandments and how they apply to their life and what examples they have seen and consequences in peoples lifes that haven't followed them. We've had the opportunity to serve in variuos places and have fun relationship bulding outings together!
Please continue to pray for each of these students as they fight to break the cycle of poverty. We have 5 students that will be graduating from high school this year! 4 of them are first time high school graduates in their family.
We have craeted a facebook group for this ministry. If you would like to keep more updatedd with the students and what we have been doing please join!!
The URL is: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/group.php?gid=499174370726&ref=search
Or you can search in facebook "La Barca Scholarship Program".
Our boys rescue home has been growing over the past couple of months! We have 3 new boys which makes a total of 9 family members! The boys have made an excellent transition into the home. They are experiencing a lot of new things for the first time. Please continue to pray for them during this drastic transition from a borken home to a Godly home with structure. We have had a few groups visit the home and also some take the boys on field trips! They love the field trips!
We just finished a $35,000 roof, electrical, drain project for the house. It has been a 6 month or so process but we are so thankful for it! The house still needs some maintanance and work on it. We have a team that is coming this summer to work specificaly on the back patio of the house. That will be a huge blessing. Hopefuly in August we will be installing a preasurized water tank that will give water throughout the whole house!
The girls have been doing great, we've had our up's and downs through this year, but God has been great! We've been celebrating birthdays and have had many teams visit and do field trips. We have three volunteers stay with us so far and 9 more throughout the year.
Thank you to all of you who have blessed us with your visits, your time, wisdom and prayers!! Please continue to pray for the girls!
If you would like to join our facebook group to keep more closely updates please do!!
The URL is: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/group.php?gid=91859704332&ref=search
Or you can just type in the search bar on facebook "Casa Havilah".
Ruby Ranch is Open Hearts new ministry project! It is located 45 minutes outside of Managua and is 400acres of many valleys, and hills! Our dream is for this place to become a recreational center for young boys and girls to experience team building activities and outdoor adventures. We also hope to have a little bit of farming.
The name was inspired by our beloved friend and prophetess Ruby Temple. She had a vision of this place before she passed away and in honor of her name we are calling this place "Ruby Ranch".
We put $80,000 on the property and are still fundraising and waiting for God to supply the second half soon!
Please join us in prayer for this place. That God would lead and direct us in exactly what He wants. Thank you!!