Our Family in La Pintana

Look at these incredible, beautiful women of God!  These are the eight girls of Casa Esperanza, whom we view as our eight new daughters.  We have learned so much from them while here in Santiago, and at their home in La Pintana.  These incredible young women have beaten the odds and are graduating from high school and attending university rather than ending up on the street, like most of the girls their age in La Pintana.

They have taught us that it is God's love that heals, and that the greatest of these is love.  They have loved us unconditionally and embraced us as their family these past 6 weeks.  They have such an incredible hope and future with Jesus on their side.  They are guaranteed victory because of Him.  Casa Esperanza ninas, tu eres muy, muy esepecial!!  (I just told the girls at Casa, who are now my Facebook friends too, that they are very special!)

Saying goodbye to the girls at Hogar and Casa Esperanza today was hard, but yet joyful at the same time.  We have been so blessed to be around them and to be loved by them.  These girls have had horrible and unspeakable things happen to them from their fathers, brothers, uncles and others - and yet they have joy, and they give love quickly and easily, without finding fault.  This amazes us!

We started the day out by thanking God that it wasn't raining today.  It was supposed to be raining all night and into the day, which would mean a tough time navigating flooded streets in La Pintana.  But even though it was cloudy it didn't rain...until about 15 min. after we got home tonight!

We went to La Pintana first thing, and played with the girls at Hogar.  Hey Wilson side of the family - does this look like Addie or what?  Her name is Estrella, which means Star, and she is a bright star that's for sure.  She loved taking this picture with me.  Dylan was in one of his moods, and a few girls spent a good deal of time trying to get him to stop crying.  They even brought a puppy over for him to hold, thinking he would not be able to resist that.  These girls are so sweet!

Saying goodbye before we left to go to Casa Esperanza one last time was hard.  It took us at least 15 min. to give hugs and kisses, and then more hugs and kisses.  They kept saying, don't go, don't go.  They even jokingly grabbed Noah, Griff and Wil and started diverting them back into Hogar so we would not go.  We told them we would be back, hopefully within a year.

We walked down the street to Casa Eserpanza to have an "all house" lunch.  It is not that often that all eight girls are at Casa Esperanza at the same time, because they are all off at classes in different schools.  But today they were all there, and we got to share a special afternoon with them.  We had some leftovers from the lunch we made yesterday, plus some very special soup and pie.  It was so fun to get to spend one of our last days here with the girls like this.  They are so special!  Here is a picture with us and our sponsored girl, Damarise.  She was so excited to have her first sponsor, and we hugged each other and held hands for a long time today.  She is very special!

Tonight Wilson rescued me from ketchup.  As many of you know, I like most foods, but not ketchup.  Wil had finished dessert tonight and there were some big clumps of maujar on his plate (which is like caramel).  I thought that all the clumps on his plate were maujar, but in fact some were ketchup.  Since we ate by candle light I didn't notice the difference.  Anyway, I scooped up what I thought was maujar with my finger, and Wil said, "No!  Mom!  Be careful!  You are about to eat ketchup!"  Noah and Griff thought Wil should have let me eat it, but Wil said, "Oh no, Mom does not like it and I wanted to protect her."  Awwww!

This morning I was attacked by some Rottweiler muts on the street.  I had just finished running, and these two dogs were suddenly surrounding me.  They both moved in on me, barking and showing their teeth.  I thought to myself, "Surely there must be someone that looks better to eat than me!"  I started singing a praise song, and yelling at them, "NO!"  I was finally able to get to the gate of our apartment and back into the building safely.  God has protected us from a lot of things on this trip:  earthquakes, a shooting at one of the train stations (6 people dead), rough streets in La Pintana and even two very hungry, angry dogs.  Thank you Lord!

Thanks for reading our blog!  Love you all and miss you!

Here is one last picture of Casa Esperanza, as the girls waved goodbye once we got outside the fence and started walking to the bus stop.  Our heart is here with them!