So what's this all about?

Friday, November 16, 2012

Feria!

This last week was a busy one. In telling you all about the activities I don’t want to forget anything and will split this into two blogs. I will start with explaining what “Feria” means to my team and I here at The Center.

Feria is an afternoon full of enegery, fun, and blessings for the children of The Center. All year they are given points based on their attendance and behavior at The Center. When a feria comes around they use those points to “buy” (with fake money: premios) food, toys, clothes, and play games. The children are given cards which are marked off by our team once they have passed each station. We want them to use their premios evenly between the four stations of food, clothes, toys, and games instead of piling up on just one.

Our Week
Now that you know that I’ll describe our week! A morning gluing and cutting the cards for every kid, an afternoon making all the premios (fake money), an evening of organizing 20+ garbage bags of clothes, an evening wrapping Christmas presents, and filling envelopes and making gift tags for every kid from The Center. All of that with afternoon center, morning construction, and Spanish lessons. Yes, it’s safe to say we were all busy and overwhelmed all week.

Friday we took the loads of things up to The Center. The kids were waiting outside the gate over an hour early. When we later opened the gates the kids watched a short drama of Jesus and the little children. We then celebrated the birthdays in October, November, December of the kids. They were given presents as the whole bunch of us sang to them (something we do for the kids every three months).  We then lined them up for The Feria. Within minutes there were anxious, smiling faces running from station to station. If you think Black Friday in The States is crazy, you'd have some major competition with these little folks.






At the end of The Feria we asked them to hold up their goodie bags. Black bags full of toys, clothes, and food were held above every one's heads. This picture doesn't do justice of portraying what a success and blessing Friday was for the kids!

Saturday We once again hauled things up the hill but instead of going to the school we went to the construction site of our new center. We invited the families of all the kids to come there on Saturday for a couple reason. 1) The parents participated in their own feria of food and adult sized/baby sized clothing. 2) We wanted to introduce them to the new center and share with them our plans. What we didn't realize was how seeing all the families there at the center would help our vision click in our minds.

Our Vision:
 Taqui
ña is the name of the region we are reaching. It is actually a beer factory set up on the north side of the city, pretty far up a hill into the mountains but they use that name as the reference point. There is a community of people who live there and the children's school is located within walking distance.
In the coming year our team is doing some major changes to help reach out to Taquiña's teenagers, adults, and families. Starting a women's ministry, Bible studies, and other outreaches we are hoping not only to help these people with their physical needs but also their spiritual needs too!
Please Pray
That we would have far more than just a humanitarian effect on these people's lives!



1 comment:

  1. Hey Shelby! We're so enjoying your postings, hearing about all the beautiful children. Love the pictures! Seems God's joy is all around The Center. God's love is flowing through you in amazing ways. We just love to hear all about it! You get a summer birthday this year .. Nathan will miss celebrating with you. Have fun over the summer .. perhaps some site seeing trips? We'll pray for Our LORD's blessing over the families; love, protection, food, clothing, spiritual growth, and hope.
    Love and hugs! Aunt Cheri :)

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