Archive for save semillas
Friday Morning Hike in the Mountains
Posted by: | CommentsFriday morning we left for a two hour hike, up the mountain near our home, with 14 kids, five dogs and six adults. This was the first hike on this trail which is steep going up and not much easier going down. Our youngest hikers were three years old and the oldest was me (but you won’t get my age). What a gorgeous morning. We have had some rain, so everything was green. There were lots of little buggies out, which made the kids very happy. On the entire two hour walk, no matter how steep it was, not one child whined about being tired, thirsty or wanted to go home. In fact they wanted to keep climbing. The kids have lots of space to run at the children’s home but our Friday afternoon hikes take them out from behind our big wall and into the countryside. It is isolated and rarely do we see anyone on the hikes. And the best part, it is free.
The kids filled my pockets with treasures, as you will see in the photos. Our gardener, Juan José, identified all the seeds and plants the kids brought back. The children are going to plant some of the seeds to watch their treasurers grow.
Our hikes give the children an opportunity to “talk while we walk”. Most of the kids have a zillion questions about the world around them. This time gives us the opportunity to spend quality time with our oldest kids and is invaluable to them. We can never replace a family for these children but we can try and get as close as possible to being their family until they are able to have their own. Enough love, attention, food and education is costly but the investment is well worth it.
It is always nice that we can find things to do for free, since running our children’s home is expensive. We continue to need your support in every way. If you would like to make a financial donation to our children’s home please click HERE.
Have a wonderful week, from all of us at Semillas de Amor!
Found Us on Google Maps
Posted by: | CommentsI was looking on Google maps this morning to see if I could find the children’s village and to see what more might be surrounding our area. Thinking the Google map might help us a bit on a Friday walks into the countryside. I found the children’s village but the photo must be at least four years old. You can see the driveway, shaped like the letter “P”. The buildings, behind us are green houses full of roses. Not much has changed out our way except the construction of the children’s village. Anyway, it is fun to see “us” and hope that in the near future there will be an update with our new home on it.
Happy Independence Day Guatemala!
Posted by: | CommentsMonday we celebrated Guatemala’s Independence Day. The celebration was extra special since it was our very first celebration since moving into the children’s home in February. And what a day we had. There was music, dance, presentations, typica food, cake and we ended the day with the kids carrying the torch from the park in Parramos all the way back to the children’s home. The joy on the faces of the children was priceless as we honored their country. It has been a very rough 20+ months for us at Semillas. Financial hardships, harassment by the Guatemalan government, facing an uncertain future. However, the independence day celebration brought us all together. Those of us, “still left standing”, are the ones committed to the kids and the work.
Without the support of all of you out there we would have closed our children’s home months ago. To keep us going, to keep the kids thriving, if you so desire, you can make a tax deductible donation HERE
The video is dedicated to all of you, “out there” who believe in our work and care about our kids and their futures. Thank you from all of us.
Dia de la independencia Guatemala, Semillas de Amor from Nancy Bailey on Vimeo.