Some days you just want to get away from it all. Add a hot day, a picnic lunch and a passle of restless, happy, eager kids and away we go!

Well, here we are in June and the new building is coming right along and I am still struggling controlling arrangement of the text and pictures in these entries. I will continue to experiment. Meanwhile enjoy the progress. The gentleman talking with Sister Edith is our US benefactor visiting with his son leaning against the post with the engineer and architect in background.

That’s me standing in what will be the new Hogar’s garage for vehicles. At least for the one vehicle we hope to acquire once the new building is in operation. The expectation is that inauguration of the new Hogar Señor San José will be in August or September. The progress is remarkable with the workmen employed seven days a week. Every month that I come to take pictures I am impressed at what has been accomplished. I still haven’t learned how to manipulate the images and text on this new format. I can’t seem to move that water tower up into place beside me. Oh, well.

Two-year-old Marisol was abandoned by her 15-year-old mother after she tried to sell her. The court awarded Sister Edith custody. The two young ladies below have lived most of their lives at the Hogar San José, also abandoned by their parents. The Hogar San José provides a safe and secure home for 15 children. This Galera that is being constructed to sell food and is being built entirely with donations will provide Sister Edith the self-suffiency needed to support the children, even after the Fundación Señor San José moves to its new home being constructed across town near the high school. The new home will have a capacity for 29 children and will be a model for the country. A looming problem in the immediate future will be the finances required to support them. 

Each month the new Hogar Señor San José takes tangible form and before our eyes is being transformed into an awesome entity that promises to surpass our wildest expectations. The solidity and permanence of this new home for the at-risk children of our community shouts out to be a model for the country at its strategic center, at its very heart. As it should be, for the children are the heart of our community and the promise of its future. Thank you Sister Edith for your vision and dedication to a cause too often neglected.

The alcalde of Pacayal said it wouldn’t rain. But it did. Our benefactor from the Virginia Hospital Center Medical Brigade invited Sister Edith and the children to the inauguration of a new water project for the Pacayal Aldea high in the mountains above Comayagua, one of many projects (including ours) that his group finances and manages. Potable water reduces health problems like infant mortality among so many others that exist in the mountain hamlets far from urban centers. Dirt and mud and rain and many happy folks were the order of the day. Please excuse my computer ignorance but my web site upgraded its format without my knowledge and I am relearning how to use its changed features.

Sunday we walked over to the new building construction site after church. It’s several blocks from the kids’ present home but they like to run and play and jump around as we make our way on these field trips. I had a child holding each hand as we straggled along the city’s back streets on an unseasonably cool, windy day. Once there the children climbed piles of dirt and explored what will be their new home; fifteen kids running in every direction. The progress is remarkable. I feel so privileged to be able to watch this project develop and to enjoy the mutual joy on everyone’s faces.

This huge mango tree that lives behind my apartment is more than meets the eye. It is immense and loaded with mango fruit. This mango tree is unique in that it is in fact a small grove of twelve trees growing in a very crowded space. Mango trees are evergreen trees native to Southeast Asia and India. They can grow up to 100 feet tall depending on variety. The mango in my back yard is over 100 feet tall. I don’t know it’s variety but it’s in season and produces a smallish green fruit that kids passing in the street try to knock off the trees with rocks and even other fallen mangos. Yesterday four kids came by in the afternoon and one shucked off his shoes and climbed up into the higher branches to shake the fruit down.

 Great day in the morning! When I walked onto the  construction site I was amazed at the progress made on the new home for the children of the Fundación Señor San José while I was in the States. The building is expected to be completed in six months. What a wonderful thing this is that is coming to fruition. I am so proud of Sister Edith and the patient, devoted tenacity that led her to reach the goal of her life. I am proud that I have been a small part of the effort.