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Our History Continued
Because of the dedication of our teacher and the arrival of special education teachers, Dora and the implementation of the PACE program taught by Vivian Douglas, and the many short term missionaries who have spent hours working individually with the children, we are beginning to see great progress in a number of our students. Also a number of older children have begun a correspondence course which will allow them to progress at their won speed without having to be in class with he younger children during the day. This allows them to help on campus while at the same time learning work skills that will prove invaluable to them in the future.
All of the children are being exposed to different areas of music, art and dance and quite a few of them are seriously taking advantage of the wonderful opportunities they have to get involved in. We just happen to have some wonderfully talented full time staff as well as short-term missionaries who are more than willing to teach these youngsters all they know!
We have seen the mighty hand of God in many other areas also! The trailers housing the children were literally rotting out from under them. At the end of 1995 a Forward Edge team came to do the necessary repairs to patch them up enough to get through the "first year" until some houses could be built. Well, the patches now have patches on top of the patches, but finally, four years later, the first house is actually being lived in by Hugo and Gilma Caballeros along with their four daughters(and another on the way!) and thirteen little boys ranging from six to nine years old.
Two more houses have been completed and will be occupied within a week or so! Carlita and Brenda Garcia will be carrying for toddlers and preschoolers in their new beautiful home! Meanwhile Tom McCarthy and Debra Welch, a brother and sister team from Michigan, have taken on the older boys and will also be moving into their beautiful new home, at the top of the hill, very shortly! Hallelujah.
Also the work has gone forward on the second floor of the main building! Little by little, block by block, the second story has grown. And then a special donation was sent especially designated for the building! Things have begun to move much faster! The work is almost completed and we will have a large, four bedroom, two bath apartment now where Josue and Betty Zepeda(co-directors of Casa Bernabe) live with their five children and sixteen girls from six to fifteen years of age! That’s twenty-one years all together! There are also two large dormitories with baths for the groups that come to help, and four or five offices including Social Work and clinic, and a large reception area or meeting hall, where we have church every Sunday! In addition a new septic system has been recently added to handle all the new houses!
Meanwhile, back at Casa Bernabe II, formerly Casa de Samuel, and often known as the Hernandez household, things haven’t exactly been stagnant. In addition to the office and guest room that formerly made up the entire upstairs, the hole house now has a second floor! A large learning center, and four more bedrooms have been added on! Glory!
Many work teams, families, and individuals have come to help, either long term or short term, in all of the different areas -building, painting, cooking, cleaning, child care, teaching, etc. etc. Others have supported with prayer and finances. So many of God's people have contributed in one way or another. All of these miraculous additions have been made possible because of God’s faithfulness and the prayers, hard work, and selfless giving of so many different churches, groups and individuals, who love children and want to help be a part of the solution to their suffering! We are so very aware that we are just a part of a much larger family and that without the help of the rest of the Body of Christ we could never have come this far!
* * * * * * * * * * All of us at FUNPRONI and The Alliance for Children Everywhere are so grateful to God for loving these children and all of us as He does, for His faithful care and provision, even in the face of adversity! The staff, from Guatemala, the United States, and other parts of the world, are living and serving here in Casa Bernabé I and Casa Bernabé II (Casa de Samuel) with a great desire to lift up the name of Jesus Christ, and to love and care for these precious children whom God continues to bring to us. Every day we witness the loving, and at times miraculous provision of our God, and His gentle healing power in the lives of these children.
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