Helping the Good Shepherd! from the field....

Our first two weeks here at the children's home have been great! With much anticipation and excitement we arrived here from Costa Rica on April 9. When we drove up to the main gate of the home in the afternoon, we saw a welcome sign that was made by some of the children. It said Welcome McKenzie Family and had little sheep drawn all over it and decorated. We soon noticed as we entered onto the property that there several balloons attached to the rows of orange trees alligned the roadway.

We later arrived at our house and were greeted by many of the kids waiting to see us and after unloading our 10 pieces of luggage and some groceries we headed on over to the casitas to greet the rest of the kids.

Sophie capturing the attention of many of the kids.

It was a day that we will not forget and we later reflected on how God has provided for us to be here.

The next several days we spent attempting to get somewhat settled in our house and spending time with many of the kids. We soon starting getting help from many of the older and younger kids who wanted to help us do some of the many jobs at our house, like staining the kitchen cupboards, painting in our kids rooms, cleaning and doing other tasks to get settled.

Alex and Reiniari helping stain and varnish kitchen drawers at our house.

Easter Sunday was full of excitement at the home, in the afternoon there was an Easter egg hunt for all the 200 kids. Julie helped hide some of the 800 or so plastic eggs. It was really crazy to see all the kids grouped together to get the final GO to run and find as many eggs as possible. Our kids Garrett, Molly, and Sophie joined in on all the fun, later in the evening we set up some blow up jumper structures that had been donated to the home by some supporters.

The most frequently asked question of us recently by so many kids is "when are some kids going to live in your house and can I be one of them". We await to see what children will soon be living with us in our house which will be a home for them to continue to grow and be nurtured in the love of the Lord our Good Shepherd.

Julie taking Sophie to Sunday School class on Easter Sunday.

Please pray for us as we will soon have the first three kids to move into our house in the next few weeks. It will be hard on many of the children who will not be able to come and live with us.

Since we have been here we have reflected more on how different it is to live in a third world country, no air conditioning, power stays out more than it is on, getting acostumed to the very primative rocky ruff roads and not having many things on hand like we take for granted in the states are just a few to mention.

Julie and I realize that these things are just mere small incoveniences that we gladly over look knowing that we are so blessed to be able to live here knowing we are in God's will working along with Him loving and caring for this large flock of 200+ precious children. Thank you Lord for you calling us and preparing us along the way. We see that this ministry is truly overwhelming to us but to Him he is never overwhelmed!