We’re home! We all arrived safely home on Friday evening. I was most happy to brush my teeth with tap water instead of bottled water and to actually be able to sit on a toilet seat! Yes, most of the bathrooms had no toilet seats!

I promised to post pics from our last day in the projects. Here they are as promised:

This is Megan, one of our Heart’s team. She’s been sponsoring Yesenia for 8 years. They finally got to meet on Thursday.

This is Yesenia, Megan, and Yesenia’s mom. Yesenia’s mom was so grateful to Megan for her sponsorship and the opportunities Megan is giving Yesenia through Compassion. Megan got to spend about 5 hours with them on Thursday.

This is the moment that my daughter Erica got to meet her sponsored child, 3-year-old Yesennia. What a sweetheart she is! Yesennia’s mother is on the left and our translator is in the pink shirt on the right.


Erica got to give Yesennia a children’s book in Spanish. She was actually able to read the book to Yesennia (finally a use for those 8 years of Spanish she took in grade school, junior high, and high school!)

I had the opportunity to meet Jill and Jeremy Tracey’s sponsored child, Ever. Ever and his father rode a bus for 4 hours to come and meet us (they had to leave at 5am!). I was able to give them special gifts and spend a great amount of time getting to know them.

I can truly say that I’ll never be the same again after this week. It has been a very stretching, heartbreaking, and yet strengthening week. Stretching spiritually, heartbreaking emotionally, and strengthening in passion and purpose to spread the word of the incredible work of Compassion International and to live out God’s mandate to take care of the poor (do you know He addresses that more than 500 times in the Bible?).

I have so many pictures I want to share with you so I’ll probably be posting pics once a week for a while and sharing more stories. You might also want to check out Megan’s blog for her perspective and my daughter Anne’s blog as well.

Thanks for traveling with me this past week! Thank you to those of you who decided to sponsor a child this week! And thank you for your partnership in prayer. We could feel your support and encouragement!