My God He Was, My God He Is, My God He's Always Gonna Be

One of our favorite things to do when we have a couple hours off,
take the 4wheeler to the beach, only 3miles from Welcome Home!

Hola Family and Friends! We apologize for the long delay of a new post, we will do a little catch up about past 3 weeks. A week after we last wrote an incredible team of Dentists and Dental Hygienists came and put on a dental clinic from 8am-5pm everyday. The line was constant outside the doors here at Welcome Home Outreach, over 250 people got free dental care, what a blessing! The Dentist pulled teeth, filled cavities and scrapped lots and lots of plaque. As you can imagine a lot of the people's teeth here are in pretty poor shape, from the bad water, lack of calcium, lack of fluoride and lack of access to dental care (no money, no insurance, etc). One woman's teeth were so bad that if they continued to scrape any more of the heavy build up of plaque on her teeth, her teeth would fall out. The plaque was the only thing keeping them in. One of the litte girls who attends our preschool had to have 4 of her front baby teeth pulled because there were all abscessed and were causing infection in her mouth, which was making her sick. Just another one of the MANY blessings and things we take for granted living in the states, access to toothbrushes, fluoride and dental care.   

The preschool graduates dressed in their finest :) 

Each year the oldest group of kids who attend the preschool "graduate" and the teachers put on a really nice ceremony for them and their parents to celebrate their completion here at Welcome Home Outreach and the new beginning of them starting kindergarten in the fall! The kids each received a backpack with school supplies, graduation certificate and we had a BBQ with their families afterwards. The kids sang songs for their parents, several in Spanish and then they sang one in English (B-I-N-G-O that they have learned from English classes here) Such a joyful afternoon!

Special decorations to welcome to the graduates for their special camp out  over night at Welcome Home Outreach

The graduates got the special privilege of staying over night here at Welcome Home on their last day. The teachers did such a great job planning games, activities, junk food dinner, games in the dark and roasting marshmallows at the fire pit, the kids were so happy! It was the best feeling going to sleep that night listening to the kids laughing and playing outside my window (the teachers let them stay up until 11pm!).

Kev and the infamous Colores  (he is full time contractor for Welcome Home, Kev has learned so much from him!)

Building has still been going great! Kev and the construction crew have started and finished 7 homes so far this summer, with the financial and physical help of all the amazing youth groups, church groups and teams that have come down this summer. Kev and I were just talking about what a good reminder it has been to be thankful for our education and the opportunity to have jobs that don't entail washing dishes all day long or doing hard labor in the sun day after day. We are so blessed!

All the kiddos got a field trip to the beach last Friday, they were in  heaven!

On a side note, I've (Ashley) have been struggling with this weird throat/vocal cords sickness for quite some time now. To make a long story short, I had a sore throat, lost my voice and then went to doctor where they didnt do much examining and instead just gave me a steroid shot and steroid pills to take for a week. Things got better and havent gotten worse, however that was 3.5 weeks ago and Im still only able to talk in bits and pieces and frequently have this feeling of a lump in my throat. I'm guessing I had laryngitis, but who knows? I am trusting in the Lord for full healing and recovery. It could be so much worse and I'll count my blessings that as of now (or what i know of) its nothing more serious! Prayers would be appreciated :)

God is good, all the time, all the time God is so GOOD! We have been challenged, blessed and encouraged by our time here serving at Welcome Home Outreach. So many incredible people who have touched our lives and the most beautiful children everywhere we look! Kev and I were talking about how we are thankful the preschool is no longer an orphanage as it once use to be....otherwise we'd be coming home to the states with a couple extra passengers :) Hard to believe we only have a week left here in Mexico, the summer flew by!

We have so much to be thankful for! We will leave you with this verse from the Psalms, we pray our hearts and yours will always speak these words in both good times and bad.

"The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song." Psalm 28:7