Bakery, Babies and Beds.....

Wow...I can't believe it's already Wednesday night!  Our trips to Guatemala always go by way too fast!  Today we spent more time with the children at Fundacion Salvacion.  Our kids are having a really great time playing with the children and making many new friends!  Yesterday, Rob, Antonio and I met with Sandra, the director of the orphanage, to talk about different things at the orphanage:  their plans for the future, the bakery they would like to open, the huge need for a female volunteer dorm and so on.  After the meeting Rob, Antonio, and I put together a plan that would give Sandra a volunteer dorm immediately and eventually a computer room/library room and additional dorm space.

Anyways, we met with Sandra again this morning and showed her the plan and it was well received.  With a few adjustments, it looks like tomorrow we will be a busy moving around the 3 dorms affected by the change.  There is a great need to renovate the "new" female volunteer dorm (which currently houses some of the women and older girls), I have posted some pictures of the current state of the rooms.  The long term plan is for the dorm to have sleeping quarters (3 rooms) which can hold up to 12 volunteers, a bathroom and shower, small kitchen and eating area and a living room.  Sandra mentioned that the volunteers that come provide much needed help for the orphanage and relieve them of some of the burden and cost in caring for the children.

This afternoon we also met with Carlos.  He is on the orphanage board of directors.  He is also a local business owner and comes in and teaches the children how to bake and the skills needed to run a bakery.  We discussed the possible location of the bakery.  Sandra prefers that the bakery be located at the orphanage for ease and simplicity's sake.  Carlos said the location would serve that part of the community well as there is currently not a bakery anywhere near by and there is a lot of foot and vehicle traffic that goes by.  We talked about improvements that would need to be made to the current location, supplies and everything that would be needed to complete the project.  It is very exciting to see this project become a reality for the orphanage.  It is their desire to become self suficient and this will bring the one step closer to that goal.

This morning I (Amy) had the opportunity to visit Casa Materna with Linda and LynnAnn (the missionaries we are staying with).  This is a maternity house where women come who are consider to have a high risk pregnancy or live too far a way to get to the hospital in time for delivery.  It is run by a US organizaion called PCI (I believe).  They charge very little for the women to stay there. Anyways, Linda and LynnAnn visit the home once a week and provide a time of worship, bible study and childbirth education for the women.   I pray for Anita the women I prayed with at the home this morning.  She is 18 years old and already has a son.  I pray that here delivery goes smoothly for her and that there are no complications with the remainder of her pregnancy.

I wanted to leave you with a final thought from a discussion I had earlier today that really made me think about birth statistics in Guatemala.  So with the plethera of information on the internet I decided to check out what the statistics are. It's 4 times more likely that your baby will die during childbirth in Guatemala compared to the US.  Thankfully this number is actually decreasing throughout the years but more definitely needs to be done to improve the current situation.  We have it so good in the US; we are truly blessed.  I am truly thankful for my 4 healthy children and many healthy nieces and nephews and thankful that we never had to experience the loss of a child during delivery.  I pray for the women who have.