This month has been a time of growth in many parts of our lives. We've had growth in the amount of helpers within our program with the Ewert family joining us. We've had growth in the program itself regarding the amount of kids. We've seen growth in the individual kids in educational, spiritual, and maturity levels. Last but not least Sammy has grown and started so many new things
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Here are some pictures of the Ewert family. Mitch, Debbie, and their boys Elisha, Gabriel, and Judah have been a huge help in both the daily program, but also in the setup before the program begins. They have settled into the house they are living in here in our town and have now been here close to two months.
We had our second Dia Especial late last month. We went to a local turf field which was a great opportunity because some kids had never played on a turf field before. The younger kids just had fun doing somersaults and running around enjoying the 'grama sintética' (synthetic grass). We also played some fun minute to win it games up on our roof. We made homemade pizzas and gave out our 'Christian Character' and 'Sportsmanship' awards as well.
Like I mentioned above we have seen some huge growth in some of individual kids in the program. Here's a story I shared with some others recently:
"There have been a few specific kids where we have seen their honesty, truthfulness, and playing with a Christ like attitude increase in amazing ways the past couple of months. Just this week, we were playing a dodgeball type game during which the goal is to knock over cones of the other team and if you cross the middle line then you lose a cone. We were near the end of the game where one team only had one cone left and a boy named Marcotulio, came over to me and said ‘my hand touched the other side of the line so the game should be over.’ I was amazed and really felt encouraged that he would be that honest knowing that they would lose the game because of that decision. He is a super athletic and competitive 13 year old boy which made it even more amazing. We’ve seen multiple kids starting to make those kinds of decisions during games and competitions where they show honesty and are playing the game in a way that honors Christ."
Many kids are still trying to understand the concept of honesty and playing without cheating, but we have seen some kids, like Marcotulio, truly start to understand what it means to play and compete in a way that honors Christ and shows good sportsmanship.
All the kids love taking turns to search for verses in the Bible and read out loud. We also have been working on reciting the books of the Bible and as a group their largest amount to say at one time is 54 of the 66. We just recently started the process of learning them in order.
Using dramas to learn stories from the Bible
With the younger group: the story of the angels telling the shepherds that Jesus was born in Bethlehem
With the older group: the story of Samson
Sammy is crawling around with ease now and this past week has started to really take steps on his own. He's been improving each day with walking. He still only has 2 teeth, but we see 3 more that could pop through any day. He is also understanding more and more words we say, whether it's 'brush your teeth', 'pull the truck in the garage,' and all sorts of individual words like keys, dog, cat, ball, drink, bread, and most fruits :) We had our first zoo trip as a family last week and got some great photos.
We ask that you continue to pray for growth in many ways for our family as well.
-Spiritual growth
-Growth in marriage
-Growth in parenting
-Growth in leading this ministry
We will be back in the Dillsburg area over Thanksgiving this year and will talk about that more in the next update, but wanted to give everybody a head's up.
Thanks so much for your prayers, encouragement, and support.
Andi, Shauna, & Sammy
If you have any questions or want to know more about our ministry and what we are doing in Guatemala send us an email at abrubaker@pushtherock.org or krishauna@hopeforhome.org.
If you feel God is calling you to support us financially you can go to pushtherock.org/donate and find Andi Brubaker on the drop down menu. Dios le bendiga.
