Tico Tuesday, December 27th

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! What wonderful gifts God has given us!
They say a picture says a thousand words....
Love,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, December 21

Tico Wednesday Greetings from Sierra Vista, AZ, USA! I can't believe I totally forgot to write yesterday! Anyway, I want to tell you briefly about my weekend at the Bible Home. Friday night was the 6^th grade graduation and Christmas/Year End party. We had a blast watching fireworks, eating together, taking pictures, roasting marshmallows in the fireplace and catching goodies from the piñata. Jajaja, that was really funny. There was nowhere from which to hang it though, so Mami Mayela's son just stood on the table, ripped it open and flung all the candy, goodies, peanuts, flour, money and other contents of the piñata all over the dining/living room. It was hilarious, but what a MESS we had to clean up Saturday morning! Later that morning, all the children's parents arrived and we had a closing ceremony and celebrated the year and and 17 children who's family treatment plans have been completed, glory to God!! Also, 8 boys will be inaugurating Roblealto's house for adolescents in January. Praise the Lord for all the good things He's doing!

May you all have a blessed and merry Christmas, full of the joy and love we have in Christ.

Love,

Carrie

PS I confess this picture is not mine. I'm having technical difficulties. We did set off Roman candles though and I'd never seen one up close before.

Tico Tuesday, December 13

This past Friday I was honored to be invited to my first ever slumber party with kids from the Bible Home! The mom of the Eden House invited me about a month ago and I can't tell you how privileged and special I felt! I don't have any pictures of the actual activity because I was too busy being with the kids, but the picture is evidence of what we made. For a while now, I've been wanting to make cinnamon-applesauce Christmas tree ornaments with some kids and this was a great opportunity! We made the ornaments after our yummy homemade pizza (I was a really good sport and ate most of the mushrooms on my piece). The kids had fun picking out what shapes they wanted to use and then pressing the cutter into the dough. Then, we cleared the living room of all furniture and brought in our mattresses and snuggled down to watch "Facing the Giants." I'd never seen it before. It was sweet though. What was even sweeter was having A snuggle with me and her little sister D fall asleep leaning on me. I was so happy I could have died. I wished we could have stayed that way all night. Have I ever told you how much I LOVE Roblealto? It was really fun and special to be with the kids and get to spend some time with just those 10. This coming Friday I'll be at the Nido again (where I had Thanksgiving) for their Christmas party and last night at the Bible Home for the year. They'll all go home for about a month of vacation. You can be praying for that! More on the blog!

Love,

Carrie

Roblealto staff are superheroes that run a marathon every day. The instructors, teachers at the school at the Bible Home and the substitute/foster moms have the most direct contact with the children, but even still, the members of the interdisciplinary teams, house helpers at the Bible Home, and even all the administrative staff have so much work to do and it is NOT easy! They get national holidays off, and 3 other flex days during the year, but other than that, this upcoming Christmas break is IT for the year. Needless to say, it is a desperately needed vacation! Good for them, and sort of good for the families we serve-it provides them with a time to be together. But, also, it can be really hard for the families. They might get vacation too- but no work means no money, and money is hard for them to come by anyway. So, we do our best to help. Over the past few weeks we've been raising money for food baskets for about 110 (approximately, maybe more like 130) of the families we serve. (We serve a total of about 700 children, many of them have 1-4 siblings in our programs as well, so though not every family gets a basket, a good portion of them do). This food will help them make it through vacation without going hungry, and I'm not exaggerating. Moms have told us they've never had that much food in their house before. What a beautiful way to bless these families and show them that we care for them and that God loves them and will always provide for them! You can also be praying for these families because during vacation, all the typical family brokenness, stress and issues are still there and they always need prayer. But, I think they need prayer especially because these things are often magnified/intensified during holidays and make things a little more difficult and bittersweet than desired. So, please remember them in your prayers! Thanks!

Tico Tuesday, December 6th

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! The resolution for my traffic court hearing came through this morning and it is in my favor! Thanks and praise be to God and thank you everyone for your prayers!

And now, to Tico Tuesday:

Sunday night was the most fun I've had since setting up the México stand for AWANA Missions Sunday in October. What made it so much fun? Hanging out with my AWANA coleaders! We went bowling at the new lanes near my house and had a total blast. We bowled, coached and cheered each other on, moved to the rhythm of the background music and were just plain silly together. This was followed by a food fight at McDonalds. Ok, maybe not a full-fledged food fight like you see in a movie. More paper products flew than french fries. But seriously, what a hilarious, amazing bunch of people! Even though AWANA is now officially over for the year (SAD!!!), I hope we continue to hang out. These people are so pure and positive, it is really refreshing and encouraging. Oh, and I came in 2nd place in our lane. :-) As they say here, ¡que se repita! Let's do it again!!

Love and blessings,

Carrie