I was very excited and grateful for all of the help that I received from different members of the ward and members of the community. I was amazed at all the generosity. I was amazed out all the items that were brand new in box or still containing tags. What a wonderful world we live in that so many people are so eager to help. Thank you so much. You really helped make this Christmas special for us and helped me teach my children such a wonderful lesson. Here is the letter I received back from Nina after visiting the orphanage.
Dear Friends and Family,
Happy New Year, I hope your New Year and Christmas Holiday’s were as happy as ours were.
As you know we had been working hard at collecting donations for the children of Mexico, and to our surprise you overwhelmed us with your generosity and we send you a heartfelt thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We only wish you could have been there to witness the gratitude in the children’s eyes as they unloaded our 2 trucks with goodies. Again, thank you for being so kind, we don’t know how to quite pay you back, so in this case we leave it in Gods hands and pray he bestows you with blessings beyond your expectations.
We actually took the merchandise to 2 orphanages’ in town, One held 25 girls from the ages of 4 to 12 years, this home holds little girls that are given up by their families, they are given housing, education and rehabbed into society with a lot of love and care. One of the girls that had graduated from this particular home was sponsored by a family here in the U.S. and had been given a scholarship to attend a U.S. university, this young lady is in her 2nd year of undergraduate school, and is working on her degree in Psychology. Her plans are to go back and work with the organization as a psychologist to help these children. These girls were not present as they are not really orphans; they live there but only see their extended families on holidays. The director Juan says they don’t like leaving, because some of them are so poor, that when they go back to visit their families there are sometimes 6 children to a bed. Anyway, they were due back on January 5th and Juan was anxiously counting the days. I have created a website with pictures of their home, and we hope to go visit them in the spring when they are there and we get a chance to meet them all.
The second orphanage was a little different, these children that live there are in a similar situation, however, the kids that were there during Christmas was because they were born to drug addicted parents, abandoned or taken away by the police because of abuse or neglect. They were home and we did get to talk to them. They worked hard in the freezing cold to unload our trucks and were so grateful. There was one kid there that we didn’t get to get a picture of, the director said he was a little shy because he is blind, his sister was walking around with him and was guiding him through the yard, he also said that she had taught him to ride a bike and somehow he had learned the lay of the land enough to ride round and round all day long. This was a wonderful story and somewhat humbling too, I wondered if I were blind would I have the courage to learn to ride a bike like him, or worse yet, if my brother was blind would I have the patience to teach him how. The girl in the lavender was an orphan whom was dropped off at 6 months of age, and now at 23 years, she now works there helping with the kids. There were 45 children living in that home, and they had a baby as young as 4 months old, so thank you so much for the baby items you donated, you have no idea how handy these things will come in.
We also had the opportunity to help out 2 other families, which my parents know of, One family had 4 kids,1 Newborn boy, 3 year old girl, and a 4 and 5 year old boys, they were also the recipients of some of the donations. We were so happy to help them since there is no organization to give to them. The other family has 3 children, the one boy is 12 years old and has brain damage due to the epilepsy seizures he has had since he was born, he has 2 sisters that are 12 and 14, and they adore him, they were also recipients of your donated merchandise, and they were unquestionably grateful. Sorry no pictures of them as of yet. (Working on it)
Thank you again for making this the best Christmas our family has ever experienced, the children received the goods but WE received the best gift of all by presenting them your generous donations, we hope you feel the same way. I promised to keep in touch with the directors, and also to collect for them some more items during the spring and summer months, when they need it the most. I took some pictures and I hope you enjoy them.
Our cup runneth over with your generosity and I thank God for meeting you and for giving us this opportunity which you so freely and truly gave from your hearts.
God bless you
Nina and Igor and Family
1 comment:
What a neat experience! I'm so glad you were able to be part of it!
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