If there is one child that exemplifies all that we desire for our children, it is Carlos.  He is a living testimony of how the Lord can transform lives if we would just believe in them and give them a chance to shine.  In such a short time we have seen Carlos achieve goals that people thought were unobtainable, such as walking.  However, as Carlos gets older, our next concern for him is his continued education.  He is now at the age where he should be starting first grade.  Unfortunately, in Guatemala the school system isn’t set up to include children like Carlos.  Rather than include children with disabilities, they segregate them into other schools that only focus on children with special needs.  There is a movement to change this and in fact a law has already been established to encourage schools to include children with special needs, but progress is slow.  As we look at Carlos and the incredible intellectual potential he has, this situation broke our heart.  Would this be the end of Carlos’ education?

We discussed this very issue during the most recent visit of co-founder Jennifer.  After a few days of thinking and praying, the Lord placed on our heart the idea of walking down to the Christian school that the older children attend and asking them if they would be open to the possibility of allowing Carlos to study there next year.  Of course, we knew exactly how crazy of an idea this was.  Not only were we asking this school to step into new territory, but we were also asking them to take responsibility of Carlos, to manage and deal with the questions and concerns other parents were sure to bring up, to make drastic changes to their curriculum and program, and to possibly hire on another teacher…and all of this just to accommodate one child!  But “what is impossible with man, is possible for God”, and in faith we ran down to the school.

Without a moment to spare, Jennifer and I walked into the school offices as they were about to close down for the week.  The elementary principal was about ready to leave and actually wanted to meet with us the following week, but Jennifer was leaving on Sunday and I was heading to the States on Tuesday.  It was now or never!  Thankfully, the principal agreed to meet with us and we opened up our hearts and began to share about Carlos, his situation, and just how incredible he was.  We spoke of his determination and how he had overcome such big obstacles like walking.  We shared about his intelligence and how bright he is.  Anything and everything we could think of we shared trying to persuade this elementary school principal to be open to the possibility of Carlos studying there.

As we finished up, the principal, tears in her eyes, leaned forward and said, “this is God’s timing.”  She explained that for the past 3 months they had been praying and considering opening their school to children with disabilities.  In fact, they already had a teacher on staff that is trained in teaching children with special needs!  The only problem was that the school had a potential child but at the last minute they backed out and were currently without a child that could come.  But now, in God’s timing, we came talking about Carlos!  Talk about an exciting moment!  To see two organizations with the same vision and same goal to be brought together in God’s timing.  It couldn’t have been more perfect.

Unfortunately, it was far from a done deal.  The principal and teacher were completely for it, but, as in any school, they have to answer to a board of directors that ultimately has to decide one way or another.  We left that meeting cautiously optimistic.  The following week, I went to the States to share with churches and small groups about our ministry and I was sure to share about this incredible story.  But most importantly, I wanted people to be praying for the school and the board of directors.  This would be a huge decision for them, one that financially and socially might not make any logical sense, but with an army of people praying we were confident that the Lord would prove his faithfulness again.

Three weeks later, I was back and we were at the children’s home sharing pictures from my trip with the children when a phone call came in from the school…Carlos had been accepted!  Next year, Carlos will be officially enrolled in a first grade class!  We were all extremely excited and overjoyed with the incredible opportunity Carlos is going to have this coming January.  But this isn’t just good news for Carlos, this is great news for all children with special needs.  God is opening doors in Guatemala and is going to use children like Carlos to transform education.  Carlos will be at the forefront of this incredible change and it will benefit hundreds if not thousands of lives in the coming years.

Over and over again, we have seen the Lord do amazing things in the lives of our children.  These children are so much more than just “orphans” in the hands of God and are capable of achieving the impossible.  This is just the beginning!

Yesterday afternoon we had the privilege of opening the doors of our Children’s Home to Katy and Eddie. Katy, who is 7 years old, and her younger brother Eddie, who is 4, were removed from their home by protective service workers yesterday morning and we received the phone call roughly around 2:30 pm. They were at the home by 4:00 pm.

When they arrived they were covered in dirt, but behind the layers of filth you could see two beautiful children, scared and confused. After a quick hot shower (Katy said she had never had a hot shower before), and some new clothes, they began to let their guard down a bit and interact more with the other children.

Later in the evening, Diana, Ruth, and I spoke with Katy a bit to get to know her, and right off the back it was evident that she is a bright girl. When we asked her what she liked to do, she replied “Read, write, and spell words”. She didn’t even mention playing! She is also very talkative and opened up to us very quickly. Eddie is a bit more shy, but that might be due to everything that has happened in the last 24 hours. He might open up a bit more once he gets familiar with the children and his new home. We are looking forward to getting to know them more in the coming weeks.

As I was writing the news on Facebook, I realized the bittersweetness of the situation. We are so happy and excited to have Katy and Eddie with us in our Home and we know that we will be able to provide them with love and opportunities that they might not have received otherwise. However, it’s saddening to think about what a traumatic event this must be for them. The reality is that their coming to our home means that they have had to go through difficult experiences in the past.

Please pray for Katy and Eddie as they transition to a new life and a new home. Pray that the Lord will grant them His peace that surpasses all understanding and that they will quickly realize how much we are going to love them and care for them. At the same time, please pray for us. Katy and Eddie are the oldest children we have taken into to our home since we since we began operating the children’s home, and both of them are at an age where sooner or later (if not already) they will realize they aren’t going back home. Pray that we will have patience and wisdom to deal with any negative attitudes they may have. Most importantly pray that Katy and Eddie will see Christ through us and understand how much we love them already.

This past month has not been my month for driving. It started a few weeks ago when I carelessly rear-ended a truck with my personal car. It was totally my fault since I looked down at my shirt for a brief second. Diana and my niece were with me a the time but thankfully we were all OK. Unfortunately, the car was not. Since I rear-ended a big truck, our car took all the damage, making it worse than it would have been, had it been with another car. To make matters worse, the truck had a towing hitch on the back and I ran directly into that, with the hitch making contact with the frame of the engine compartment. It basically destroyed everything in the first 12 inches of the engine area (headlights, grill, radiators, fans, tubing, etc.).

Despite the accident, we felt very blessed at the time for a number of reasons. First, the airbags in the car didn’t go off. It might have been due to the impact being higher than the bumper where the airbag sensors are, but we are just glad they didn’t go off. Second, there was no damage caused to the truck. Repairing my car is one thing, but having to repair another is something different. And since we don’t have car insurance, that expense would have been on us as well. Third, the car was still running even despite the damage caused. We didn’t have to call a tow truck or anything. It didn’t run for very long, but it ran long enough for us to get it to the repair shop! The accident was bad, but could have been a lot worse and we’re thankfully for the Lord’s protection through it all.

However, the “fun” doesn’t stop there because today, I had another accident! This time it was with the ministry van and as I was stopped at a red light, I got rear ended by a car. Thankfully, once again, I was fine…even though I have a bit of a neck ache. Unfortunately, the van received a bit of damage and now the back door no longer opens. The good news is that the lady driving the car has car insurance so its just a matter of me taking the van into the shop to get it repaired and it should be good as new. And the best part is that it won’t cost us a penny.

The woman driving the car was very nice and apologetic and I was able to completely understand her position since I was in a similar experience just a few weeks ago. I even showed her pictures of my car. I think she was grateful for my understanding and kindness and it was great to be able to extend mercy, grace, and a forgiving attitude to her in her time of need.

So this month has not been my month for driving, but the Lord has prevailed through it all, and thankfully, in both cases, no one was hurt.

It’s done!  It’s finished!  We’re approved!   After almost two years of trying to open up our own accredited preschool program within our children’s home I’m happy to announce that yesterday we finally got approved! Hope Preschool is officially open for business!

From the beginning we knew that one of the foundations of our children’s home was going to be a quality education.   As we think of the long term growth and development of our children we know their education will be fundamental for their future.  Thankfully, God is good and he provided a wonderful Christian school (elementary through high school) just down the street from our home for our older children.  But as we began to look for a preschool for the younger ones, we weren’t extremely impressed with what we saw.   Couple that with the fact that Jennifer (co founder of Hope For Tomorrow) has her doctorate in Early Childhood Development and is an associate professor at the University of Kentucky, and it was obvious that we should just start our own preschool.   Little did we know the amount of time and the seemingly endless complications that would be involved.

I won’t bore you with all the details, but our application process included writing an 80 page overview of our preschool, having a room (yes one room!) of our home rezoned to be an public space, a God-inspired car accident with our sectors education supervisor, countless meetings with various city officials, a complete rewriting of the application, and of course lots and lots of waiting.   That said, even though it took a great deal more time than we expected, the Lord was in it all.   Looking back, many of the key pieces of our application and approval process came together because of what I can only call divine intervention.  The right people being involved at the right time.  God is good!

Now that we are approved not only does it allow us to officially “graduate” our children from preschool and makes our Children’s Home even more respected, but it means that we also have the ability to take in students from outside the children’s home.   Our vision is that in the near future, Hope Preschool will not only be a blessing to our children but also to the community.  And eventually we believe that this preschool could even become a means of income for our children’s home, helping to relieve the financial pressure we have month to month.   We’re not quite there yet, but our accreditation is the first step in reaching this goal.   Please continue to pray for this vision and for the future of Hope Preschool.

As I wrote before, over the past two years we have tried and tried to get medical help for our children but to no avail.  However, through a series of God inspired events and connections, that all changed last month.  In the course of just one day, we were able to establish a relationship withThe Shalom Foundation and from there other connections grew.  Within a week we had strategized a plan to get our children medical attention taking advantage of surgical and medical teams that were visiting Guatemala.  I could spend a few paragraphs narrating an account of every email, meeting, and phone call, but suffice to say, the Lord was in this and He brought it all together in a perfectly knitted tapestry in His timing, starting with Carlos.

Carlos receiving therapy

Carlos is an incredibly bright 7 year child, but he has Cerebral Palsy.  Like many children that have CP, the tendons in his legs tighten as he gets older.  Specifically, the tendons in his Achilles heel, hamstring, and groin area are tighter than normal.  Having the tendon in his Achilles heel tight means his feet don’t form 90 degree angles with his legs making him walk on his toes.  His hamstrings are tight which doesn’t allow him to stretch his leg completely, making him walk with his knees bent.  Finally, the tendons in his groin area are pulling his legs together (called scissoring), causing this legs to overlap one another.  Eventually, the tightening in this area can pull his legs out of his hip socket.

Despite having CP, Carlos has made great progress in the past like learning how to walk and go to the bathroom by himself.  Through physical therapy and a lot of determination, Carlos has made the best out of his situation.  But as we think long term and work toward Carlos’ independence, we know that his best option will be surgically correcting his problem and last week we were able to take the first steps in this direction.

Carlos with Dr. Stanley in San Raymundo

After an hour drive north, Carlos and I arrived at a small village called San Raymundo.  Here a medical team organized through Refuge International was seeing patients and doing surgery.  Among the doctors was an orthopedic surgeon that had agreed to see Carlos and give us his evaluation.  After a short wait, Dr. Stanley took us into a room and began his evaluation on Carlos.  The first thing he noticed was that Carlos was remarkably flexible despite having CP.  It was obvious that the physical therapy that we do with Carlos twice a day is helping him tremendously and Dr. Stanley congratulated us on it.  However it was also obvious that Carlos needs surgery.  While there are other options like botox treatment, Carlos has reached a stage where it would no longer be beneficial, and surgery is the only option.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t a pediatric orthopedic surgeon on the team so we weren’t able to get anything done, but the evaluation from the doctor was extremely helpful and pointed us in the right direction.

Juan Jose and Carlos before surgery

Two days after taking Carlos to his evaluation, we had our dental surgery appointment for Juan Jose and Carlos.  Coming into this appointment both of these boys had serious dental problems that have always been a concern for us.  After a dental check up last year, we discovered that Juan Jose had more than 20 cavities and Carlos around 14!  On top of this, due to the severity and amount of work that needed to be done, both boys would need to put under general anesthesia.  When we first began to look into, some dentists were estimating the entire process would cost around $4000!  Of course, you can’t put a price on personal health, and we tried to raise the funds, but the complete money never came it.  However, God is good, and His plan far surpasses what we can imagine, and as we took Juan Jose and Carlos into the dentist office, we knew we would walk out without having to pay a penny!

Carlos and Juan Jose with the dental team from Ariden

At 7:30 am we entered the office and by 11:10 am they were done.  Overall, Juan Jose received 13 metal crowns, 5 pulpotomies, and 7 extractions while Carlos received 7 crowns, 3 fillings, 2 sealants, and 4 extractions.  Both of our children did very well and were so brave.  We couldn’t be prouder of them.  (Below you can read the Facebook updates that I did during the entire event).

Looking forward, next week we have another appointment for Carlos to see a group of physical and occupational therapists from Belmont University.   Hopefully they will have some leads on where we can get him surgery.  We are also trying to find an ENT that will be able to remove Miguel’s tonsils since they are extremely large (but thankfully not infected).

Please continue to pray for our little ones as we do our best to provide for them all their health needs.  This month has been such a blessing as we have stepped back and watched the Lord work.  We are forever grateful to Him to orchestrated everything and to the many people that played a part in all of this.  Here are a few of their names:

• The Shalom Foundation
• Link For Health
• Dr. Mike Kadera
• Ariden Dental Clinics
• Dr. Edwin Perez
• Refuge International
• Dr. Stanley
• Belmont University

Thank you for your part in all of this.

Here’s a chronological list of all the updates we did on Facebook during Juan Jose and Carlos’ dental surgery.  For more information, be sure to read the entire story here.

From Facebook:

Today’s the day!! Carlos and Juan Jose have their dental surgery. I’m picking them up right now. Stay tuned for regular updates on the process.

‎6:40 – loaded in the van and heading to Ariden, the place they will be receiving their dental care. Be praying!

To give a bit more info on what’s happening today, both Juan Jose and Carlos have major dental problems. They probably have around 15-20 cavities each! Today, they will be put under general anesthesia and dental surgeons will be doing some extractions, fillings, and a lot of metal crowns. Please be praying!

‎7:30 – We’re here! Just waiting for the medical team to arrive. Carlos has volunteered to go first. He’s so brave!!

‎7:50 – Carlos went in about 10 minutes and he is now under anesthesia. Diana and I were in there with him as the anesthesiologist put him under. Everything is going great.

‎8:50 – Carlos has been in the OR for about an hour now. One of the assistants came out and said he was doing well! I’m not quite sure how long this will take, but I know there is a lot of work to be done. Thanks for all the prayers!!

‎9:00 – Carlos is out!!!!! Everything went perfectly. The dentist did 7 crowns, 3 fillings, and 2 sealants. He’s in recovery now and is still a bit out of it due to the anesthesia, but he’s doing pretty well!!

‎9:10 – Juan Jose just went in and he’s under anesthesia now! He’ll probably take a little bit longer because he is in a lot worse condition than Carlos. Keep praying!!

I forgot to mention that they also extracted a few of Carlo’s teeth…4 in all.

Here’s a “before” picture of Juan Jose.

Here’s a “before” picture of Carlos.

While we wait I want to send a special thanks to Diana who is here with us. She did an incredible job of keeping Juan Jose “entertained” as he waited his turn, and is now really helping Carlos feel better now that he is out. Thank you honey!!!

Here’s a smiling Carlos after his operation! It’s hard to tell but you can see the crowns on the sides. Barney is keeping him company!

‎10:10 – Juan Jose is done! They are waking him up now, but everything went well. He had a lot more work done: 13 crowns, 5 pulpotomies, and 7 extractions. That’s a lot of work!!

Here’s a quick photo of Juan Jose. He’s still a bit out of it but recovering quickly.

Here’s Juan Jose and Carlos with the team of doctors that worked on them. We are so thankful to Ariden and the amazing work they did.

Our two brave boys.

‎11:10 – and we’re done!!! We are leaving the clinic now and are heading home. Our boys we’re so brave and did a fantastic job. Now, lots of cold popsicles!!! Thank you all for your prayers.

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!