He's Got Some Big Plans

Hello again!

  I  know I keep saying I will keep up with my blog but due to my hectic schedule I completely forget about it. Well God is calling me once again to share with you, on what He is up to in my life. The biggest news is that He's called me to renew my visa so I will be serving for another year. If you asked me in March if I wanted another year, I would have honestly told you "no". This is a difficult life and I just wanted normalcy for a change. Through prayer, God told me He was not done with me yet. Now I am starting to see why.  This blog also  started as a way to connect to my family wherever I was in the world but now God is asking me to think BIGGER. Without further delay, let's catch you up. 

    First off, our family at Hogar Nino Dios has grown by 3 new children!! We have a set of siblings Omar and Juan, and another little boy Seif. They are a little more rambunctious than our other children, so learning with them has been a handful. For me, it has been a little harder to communicate with them because they only understand Arabic. Well God had a solution for that and I am finally taking Arabic lessons. I laugh when I don't know an Arabic word and my brain automatically fills it in with Spanish.  This also gives me a way to connect with the locals. Many of them speak English but they are so encouraging when you try to speak to them in their language. I will have plenty of patient teachers to help me. 

    Another thing God has asked of me is in relation to the medical side of Hogar. We recently lost a physiotherapist and to fill in the gap I learned somethings from her that I could do with the children. I also was taught a few things by our hydrotherapist, Mariam. She is a complete Godsend and with her help we created a take home therapy program for some of the children. It was translated into both Arabic, for the parents, and then later with  help, Italian, for the groups of volunteers that come. This will give lay people little things that they can do extra to help the children progress. I am also creating a medical interdisciplinary board that will meet to discuss goals and the conditions of each of the children. The core of it will be the hydro therapist, new physiotherapist, Sister Qalb (who is trained as a nurse), myself and our doctor. I then hope to expand later with condensed briefs for the teachers, nuns, and even other volunteers, so that we can maximize every child's abilities.  For a while I did not want to step on other's toes but I see how the lack of accountability and communication affects our children. I also see what beautiful things they can achieve when we work together. 

    Now the final thing that is the main driving force behind this post and hopefully more frequent subsequent posts..... AMERICAN MEDICAL VOLUNTEERS! You know the bible verse "Ask and you shall receive" well one day I decided to ask Select to Give Foundation (the American charitable organization that not only introduced me to the Hogar, but also sponsored my mother's trip here) if we could truly implement a volunteer branch to the foundation with a focus on those with medical background. We need all the help we can get in general but if I could supply this home with American trained medical professionals, well, maybe I can make a lasting impact on the Hogar. Edita, the president and founder, replied that day and said they had a recent donation for 10,000 and saw this as a sign to use it as seed money for the volunteer project! We got together over Zoom and are discussing the finer details. We hope to have it ready by the new year. None of these projects are going to be easy. They are all part of His beautifully orchestrated plan to help those in the most need. 

So there you have it, a catch up on my life and on the things I'm hoping to accomplish this year in Hogar. Later I will also share different ways that you can 1) become a volunteer or donate to the volunteer project and 2) donate to me personally to help with my work here, or my personal favorite 3) get more cute updates about the children. Thank you all for all your love and support! 

Agape, 

Elizabeth