What's going on?

(click on the photo to see more pics)

It's almost been a month since we've arrived in Chihuahua.  What have we been doing?

As we work on the house and get it ready for the girls to move in, we're slowly unpacking.  It's going well.  Memo, a friend of LOCO, has been a great help with repairs and getting the place functional.  He's been generous and helpful with his time and talents and has offered his services at a reasonable rate.  Thanks to Memo and his son, Diego, we have water throughout the house (w/ pressure), working toilets, sinks, showers, etc., lights and fans work, the air conditioning works ok (we don't use it much anyway), we have facing on the kitchen cabinets, and the list goes on.

Thanks to Edith (a staff member of LOCO and our Spanish teacher) we have a washer for clothes, the place has been fumigated (no more roaches or ants!), and we have signed a fair lease contract with our landlords.  We are grateful for Edith - a native to Chihuahua who is passionate about helping others, especially the orphans in the area.

We'll have 5 young women (ranging in ages from 18-21 yrs) moving in on July 31st.  These girls are orphans who have 'aged out' of the orphan care system.  We (LOCO Ministries) will be helping them procure funds for their college education and will be providing a home for them to learn and grow emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually.  The program is called Revive (same spelling in Spanish as in English) and will eventually include young men too.  We expect to be learning and growing along with and from these young folks as well.  We're excited to get things started.

Otherwise, we've been trying to learn Spanish.  It's been challenging but we're determined.  We have class 6 hours a day, Monday - Thursday.  It feels like we never have enough time to study and that we couldn't possibly study enough.  We will get it though.  Especially when the girls move in...we'll be forced to speak Spanish :)

We'll post pictures of the inside of our place soon.