Yesterday Miguel celebrated his 13th birthday!  Unlike the US, Spanish (and therefore Guatemala) doesn’t have a concept for “teenager” because the numbers from 13-18 don’t have the word “teen” in them.  Nonetheless, we wanted to make sure he knew it was a special day.  Miguel has matured so much in the two years that we have gotten to know him.  He’s not as angry or immature anymore.  He truly has stepped up into his role of the “man of the house”.  It’s evident that the Lord has big plans for Miguel and we’re excited to see what this year has in store for him.

Here are some pictures we took during his birthday party.

It’s been an exciting few hours!  As many of you know we’ve been trying very hard for the past year to get surgical and dental care for some of our children.  Miguel has severely swollen tonsils, Juan Jose and Carlos have major tooth decay in most of their teeth, and Carlos needs surgery due to his cerebral palsy.

This morning I contacted a few friends at the Shalom Foundation (www.theshalomfoundation.org) and almost immediately got responses back regarding medical and dental teams that are coming.   Already, the Shalom Foundation has put me in contact with a dentist that is coming in February and hopefully we will be able to get their teeth extracted (They will need to be under general anesthesia due to the amount of work that needs to be done.)

But the excitement doesn’t stop there!  In addition to this, Laura Hernon, founder of Link For Health (www.linkforhealth.org) has profiled our children on their website to raise support for them and already she has said they are making progress in supporting Carlos and Miguel!  Incredible!  What a blessed morning it’s been!  She has also profiled our Children’s Home on our website that you can see here: http://www.linkforhealth.org/2011/01/hope-for-tomorrow

This is all very exciting news and it’s wonderful to see how people and organizations can join together to help each other.

I’ll keep you posted on updates as they come along.

As we went into the month of December, all of us at Hope For Tomorrow were a little bit concerned due to our financial status.  December and January are always big months for us financially because on top of our usual expenses, we have additional ones that push us way past our normal budget.  So at the beginning of December we began to pray specifically that the Lord would provide (as he always has) an additional $7,800 to get us through the month.  After we had prayed about it we posted the need on our website, Facebook, and Twitter, not really knowing how people would respond.  Thankfully, the response was very positive and we are all happy to announce that we met our goal of $7,800 for December!  God is good!

When we wrote about this financial need we ended the post with this paragraph:

Despite the urgency of this need, our faith remains unshaken and our hope continues to be placed in the Lord.  For 3 years and 10 months He has provided our every need. We have no doubt that He will provide again this month through gracious supporters like you.  We look forward to updating you next month with the good news of the Lord’s faithfulness.

Once again, the Lord has provided and we of course want to thank you for helping us and the incredible dedication and support we have from all of you.

God bless!