Casa Hogar La Familia November Report

From November 4 to 10, 2009, Ted Sanders of Greenville, SC, Ruth Irvine of Willowbrook, IL, Marshall Sansbury of Fort Worth, TX and Bill Lee of Greenville visited the new casa hogar in Palmarito, Puebla, Mexico.

La Familia is currently home to 28 children, two directors and five volunteers. We need at least one additional volunteer since Karly is leaving for college in January. The good news is that Murial (NY) is back and is semi permanent and is working with Alucy and Fremin from Colima and America, an 18-year-old single mother.

One of the challenges we face at La Familia is that many of the children come to the home never having attended school, so these children are behind their peers. In the town of Quecholac, where the children attend school, the directors are enrolling these students in an "Open School" that concentrates on bringing the children up to the grade level of their age group.


 

The directors, volunteers and children moved into their new home in August, but there is still a lot of work to do to outfit the home and make it suitable for more than just eating and sleeping. Our two top priorities are light fixtures for the living room ($800) and living room furniture ($3,000). A lower priority, but still needed is another refrigerator ($1,200).

To repay our loans and to complete construction on the first phase on the Palmarito campus, we need to raise the following:





Interior and exterior doors: $3,600
Plumbing and electrical work: 2,000
Additional tile: 5,000
Repay loan to Colima Church: 18,300
Repay loan to Colima orphanage: 3,960
Run water line from nearby well:2,000

TOTAL CAPITAL NEEDED: $34,860

Worship Services led by Juan Francisco Hernandez Garcia, Pastor & Director

 
 


 























Juan Pablo (4) newest child at La Familia

 












Arturo (14)(Oldest boy at La Familia) (Below Right)










 

Dylan (6)gets a pony ride


 






Missioner, Ruth Irvine, sews curtains in new casa hogar


JANUARY 2010 - A mission team from Church of the Redeemer, Greenville, SC wil travel to Palmarito, arriving January 14 and departing January 21, 2010. Thus far, ten missioners are firm.

AIRFARES - Roundtrip airfare from Charlotte to Mexico City with a stop in Houston ran $405 for January. Future teams may wish to keep this airfare in mind as you raise funds for mission trips in 2010.

DONATIONS - We need all the help we can get in fundraising. As you can see above, we still owe $34,860 to fully fund the first phase at Palmarito. St. Andrews Episcopal in Downers Grove, IL has committed $3,500 to assist with construction costs, so this makes a nice dint in our attempt to finish paying our bills.

If you have any funds left in your giving account in 2009, please make your check payable to Embrace the Dream Foundation, Inc., PO Box 5558, Greenville, SC 29606. All donors will receive a "tax letter" from Embrace the Dream, a 501 (c)(3)non profit organization. If not, please remember La Familia in 2010.

CREDIT CARD DONATIONS - On our Website: www.embracethedream.com, you may click on Donate Now and make donations by credit card.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of the good friends of La Familia. God Bless.

November 4 - 10, 2009 Mission Trip to La Familia

Murial painted on girls new dorm room at La Familia in Palmarito.

Several of us are putting together a small mission team to travel to Palmarito in the State of Puebla in Mexico to help the directors and staff complete the final details that will complete the move into the new orphanage.

Based on current airfares, we estimate the cost of the trip to be approximately $800.

Please contact Bill Lee at Blee3paris@aol.com or give me a call at 864-303-8366 (Mobile) or 864-288-0534 (H) if you are interested in joining us in November.

Visit our new Web site: http://www.embracethedream.com

Bill Lee
Embrace the Dream Foundation, Inc.

Nine Missioners Signed Up for July 9 - 16, 2009

After send out an appeal to everyone in our database, the Lord has blessed us thus far with a commitment from nine missioners to travel with us to get the new Casa Hogar La Familia in Palmarito ready for the children to move into their new home.

Praise the Lord for this blessing. What appeared at first to be a disaster is now only a bump in the road we had to navagate around.

While the airfares have increased to $435 roundtrip, we still have time to make air reservations for anyone who would like to travel with us to Mexico in July.

For more information, please telephone Bill Lee: 864-303-8366 (Mobile) or email Blee3paris@aol.com.

Call for Missioners: July 9 - 16, 2009

The US New Media has dealt a solid blow to our mission trips to Mexico scheduled for this summer.

1. Swine Flu was blown completely out of proportion to sell newspapers, but in doing so the media did a good enough job of spreading fear of death for anyone traveling to Mexico that 100% of our mission teams were motivated to cancel for this summer.

FACT: My contacts in Mexico report that there's not been one case of Swine Flu in the State of Puebla where we travel to work at La Familia.

FACT: I have consulted with physicians in both the US and Canada and they have told me that they are not even testing for Swine Flu any more unless a person is really badly sick.

FACT: A physician from Greenville has volunteered to join our team in July.

FACT: 36,000 Americans die annually from the flu in the US.

2. The news media is also reporting widely that the drug cartels have taken over Mexico to the point that the Mexican Government is close to collapse.

FACT: While the border regions between the US and Mexico are definitely dangerous, the towns we travel to are as safe as towns in the US. I am in Mexico 6 to 8 times a year and have never once experienced any fear nor have any members of our teams.

Emergency Mission Team
July 9 - 16, 2009

The construction of the new casa hogar in Palmarito is on schedule for completion in late June and will ready for occupancy in early July. We desperately need to put together a team to travel to Palmarito on July 9 to assist with the move. We will spend evenings in a nice hotel in Tacamachalco, a 20-minute drive from Palmarito.

The decision has been made to add a second floor to the main building. There are two reasons for this decision:

First, it is more cost effective than building a second building which we don't have the funds for right now.

Secondly, the second floor will enable us to accept an additional 15 orphaned and abandoned children almost immediately after things settle down following the move.

*** We need additional capital funds for this unanticipated expense. If anyone has any money left in their giving account, please send a check to Embrace the Dream Foundation, Inc. and designate the funds for the La Familia Project. All donations are tax deductable.

PLEASE PRAYERFULLY CONSIDER JOINING US ON A MISSION TRIP DEPARTING ON JULY 9 AND RETURNING ON JULY 16.

Call Bill Lee at 864-303-8366 or send me an email.

In Christ,

Bill Lee

Swine Flu Avoids La Familia Thus Far

The Swine Flu the US press is covering so broadly has thus far avoided Casa Hogar La Familia in Tehuacan. Please pray that the Lord will continue to protect the children there.

Keep in mind also, that as of Thursday of this week, April 30, the World Health Organization has confirmed only 97 cases in the entire country of Mexico where approximately 106 million people live.

I spoke with Robert Sawyer today and he reported that there have only been four cases reported in Colima and all four have been released from the hospital.

I will keep everyone posted each time I speak with someone who is in communication with La Familia.

Several mission teams have canceled their planned mission trips to La Familia. Just two days ago, a large team of 30 missioners postponed their trip to La Familia until 2010.

While the odds are quite low that anyone would be infected, I can totally understand why teams are erring on the side of caution.

With so few mission teams, La Familia is going to be sorely lacking in both workers to help put the finishing touches on the new hogar in Palmarito as well as love offerings for the directors and staff. Please pray that this health scare will end soon and that the children and the home itself will not be too adversly affected as a result of so few mission teams.

On the top right, is a map of the State of Puebla showing several cities and towns that are key to our ministry there:

Zacapoatzla (Top Right) - City where medical mission team stayed when working at the Tatoscac Clinic.

Cd. Serdan - Town where original Casa Hogar La Familia Orphanage was located for over 25 years.

Palmarito - Town where the new La Familia children's home is being constructed.

Tacamachalco - Town where hotel is located where mission teams will stay when visiting La Familia in Palmarito.

Tehuacan (Lower Right) - Location of temporary housing for the children of La Familia.










City of Puebla Bus Station

Second Largest Bus Station in World

(Largest is in Mexico City)

History of Casa Hogar La Familia

The purpose of this blog is to keep the donors, mission team members and friends of Casa Hogar La Familia up to date on what is happening at this home for orphaned and abandoned children.

Casa Hogar La Familia was founded by a Mennonite pastor in the early 1980s in Cd. Serdan, a small city in the State of Puebla about four hours east of Mexico City by bus. When the Mennonites pulled up stakes and left the area, they persuaded the Methodist Church of Mexico to take over the home, so the Mexican Methodists provided directors to oversee the home until 2007 when Amigos de La Familia, the group that had historically provided 100% of the financial support of the home, signed a lease with the Methodists to rent the facilities and provide its own directors.

In 2007, Amigos de La Familia reached an agreement with Robert Sawyer of Grupo de Amor Y Proteccion del Ninos in Colima to provide directors. Robert Sawyer chose Juan Francisco and Silvia Hernandez, directors who were trained at the orphanages Robert operates in Colima.

On June 30, 2008 our lease with the Methodists expired and we were asked to relocate the orphanage. The directors found temporary housing in Tehuacan, a city of approximately 250,000 about four hours southeast of the City of Puebla, but still in the State of Puebla. In the meantime, Grupo de Amor was gifted land in Palmarito, a much smaller city about one hour east of the City of Puebla, where a new casa hogar is currently under construction. Funds have been raised for the first phase of this new home, which will provide housing for the 30 children presently under the care of La Familia.

In July of 2009, we are scheduled to move into the new home in Palmarito. Once this home is fully built out, we will have capacity for 96 children. For this larger ministry to become a reality, however, we must raise another $200,000 which is challenging in the current state of the US economy.

Embrace the Dream Foundation along with Pennsylvania-based Caring Action for Children and several churches in Texas, Tennessee and Virginia provide both the operating funds and capital funds for La Familia.

Embrace the Dream Foundation Mission Statement

The Embrace the Dream Foundation, Inc. (EDF) is a nonprofit, Christian mission organization that provides love and care for orphaned and abandoned children in Mexico. EDF supports ten orphanages in Mexico. The primary home EDF supports is Casa Hogar La Familia in Central Mexico, which is currently located in temporary quarters in Tehuacan, about four hours east of Mexico City in the State of Puebla. At the present time, La Familia provides support for 28 children ranging in age from four months to 18 years.

Bill Lee, president, founded EDF after spending eight years leading mission teams to Mexico. In 2009, EDF has set a goal to raise $100,000 to complete construction on a new orphanage that will be built in Palmarito, a small town in the State of Puebla. This new facility will include a two-story main home with younger children on the ground floor and teenage girls on the second floor, a home for teenage boys and a home for infants. When completed, the estimated capacity of the new orphanage will be approximately 96 children.

Prostitution is the source of approximately 40% of the children EDF currently supports, so one of the greatest needs we currently face is a place to care for one of the products of prostitution ― abandoned infants.

EDF not only provides lodging for the children, but in addition strives to ensure that each child has a better future. The children begin learning English at an early age and are taught from childhood that to support a family, they must finish high school and go on to either technical school or college. Academic and Christian education are integral parts of each child’s daily regimen.

For more information about The Embrace the Dream Foundation, Inc., you may email Bill Lee at Blee3paris@aol.com. EDF’s address is PO Box 5558, Greenville, SC 29606.