We are busy in Mexico and India, getting ready for our Christmas outreaches! This week we got the food delivered, and we are shopping for blankets and clothes for the three areas we serve! There’s still time to sponsor a gift if you want to join us!

Christmas grocery prep

It’s been such a fantastic year, and I’m so overwhelmed with gratitude that this is what we get to do. We got our special Christmas grocery order delivered this week, and we’re packing them up to bring to everyone next week! We’ve figured out the most cost-effective essentials we give out each month in both countries. But for Christmas, we add what families will need to prepare a Christmas meal together! In Mexico, that means tamales! The most important part of tamales is the corn husks they are cooked in. Olga didn’t want to leave the quality of those to the delivery guys, so she went to the store directly to pick out the best ones for the families we serve.

Home repair/building ministry

We had a Christmas party/lunch for the guys who have been doing the home repair/ building with us. Olga made carne asada for them, plus their families and her sister made them a cake! We started using a different materials store recently, they are farther away, but they offered us good discounts when we explained what we do! One of our guys asked them if they would be willing to donate one thing to the group to do a fun raffle at the party, and they said they’d talk to the owner and see what they could do. We were hoping for maybe one thing, just something fun for the guys to play a raffle game with while we ate. On Thursday we went in, and they had four angle grinders, a hammer drill, several large spirit levels, hammers, measuring tapes, plastering trowels, and carpentry pencils for us! An amazingly generous offering, and we had a blast with round after round of drawing names to win. Everyone went home with several gifts!

Because of the rains, we moved this family in as quickly as we possibly could! So we still haven’t taken any finished pics with them yet. They were moving their bedding in while we were still priming the wood doors. We’re also still making the kitchen! But the trailer was in such bad condition it wasn’t healthy for them to stay in it one moment more than necessary. So here are some pics and I’m excited to share more when we get the kitchen in!

Arelis’ house

We built the house with the same 20’ x 30’ footprint we’ve done since we began over a decade ago. Another ministry that builds quick wood frame houses gave us their blueprints. It is designed to make maximum space with minimum materials. The 600 sqft home has small bedrooms on one side and can be three or two depending on needs, with the kitchen/living and bathroom on the other side. It’s really pretty brilliant how well it all works!

Below is the side with the bedrooms, before we put up the walls in between.

In the pic below, I’m standing at the front door looking in. The kitchen will be on the front wall to the right, and then the bathroom at the far end. You can see into the doorway to one of the bedrooms on the left.

This is the view out the back toward the coast. It’s an amazing view! What you can’t see is that there’s a very large drop off below the door! Because this area is all uphill, the lots have to be leveled to build. We made the doorway there to have two exits in the house, but it won’t be used unless it’s an emergency, until the land behind is built up somehow.

This is standing at the front door looking out, and you can see the trailer they were living in.

Here is the slide we used to get materials from the street above to the house. It’s a steep incline up and we couldn’t wheelbarrow concrete down so the slide was very helpful!

Here the walls are painted! It looks so good! We were going to originally just seal the wood ceiling with varnish because it looks so nice. But because they needed to move in so quickly and the varnish needs time for the fumes to air out, we decided to paint it. You can see the bathroom wall was built at the end of the house here below, and the three bedroom doors on the left. The kitchen will be to the right of the currently “door to nowhere” on the right.

Painting the ceiling

Stove delivery!

We got a stove donated! She was cooking on a small hotplate in the trailer, so she’s really excited to use a big stove! She’s been sick, and taking care of three kids while sick is so much easier when you’re in a dry home.

Areli’s house outside

Getting the outside finished before the rains was our top priority.

Here you can see the drop off outside that door a bit better! The door looks like it’s in the middle of the house, but that’s just how much we had to build up to level the foundation. We wanted to dig down, but the land was solid rock, and it was cheaper to build up.

Here’s little Monito (which is his nickname, his name is Javier) outside his new front door! No one calls him Javier, his dad’s nickname was Mono (monkey), and he likes to be called Monito (little monkey)

Our Escueilta

We often have more kids during the holidays, so we’ve been gathering extra craft supplies and games to keep everyone occupied.

Thank you so much for praying with us for those we serve together!

Thank you for your love, and your prayers for those we serve around the world! It’s absolutely amazing what happens when we come together and follow the Lord’s leading. I’m beyond grateful for you all!

If you’d like to see more than we can share here, email me for access.

Thank you for keeping us, this ministry, and our outreaches in prayer, and thank you for your support! We couldn’t do any of this without you.

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God bless you!
♥ Samantha