Welcome 2011!!

Hello friends and family~

It was SO great to see many of you while I was in the States over Christmas and New Year's...for those of you I didn't see, let's try again in April :-)

Again, I returned to Nicaragua and hit the ground running...I flew in last Saturday (January 8) and we started school on Monday. We survived the first week, and it actually went pretty well so we are thankful for the small things. It was great to see the kids again and they were pretty excited to see me. Most of them were just excited to hear about the snow that I saw, many of them have never seen snow but they love to hear about it!

I was VERY happy to get back up to El Crucero last weekend too. I assumed that I shared with all of you my love story with my litte Frankie but I learned that I have not, so here's the short version. Frankie is about 2 1/2 years old and I'll never forget the first time I saw him in October when I first met him. He melted my heart right away. One look and I was in love!! He walked up to me, lifted his little arms, I put him in mine and the rest is history. I am just so attached to him and I know he feels the same way about me...he WOULD NOT let me put him down on Saturday. I'm not sure who cried harder when I walked out the door. Anyways...needless to say, Frankie got pretty spoiled over Christmas, he now has a basket of clothes, a basket of toys, and his own shoes at my house. I LOVE my slumber parties with him, and I think he like them too :-)

I feel like I've adjusted pretty well to the Nica life again, it feels different this time. I'm not too sure why, it just does. I've really been missing my family a lot this time...I think I just got used to them all over Christmas. Seems so quiet here without them...

THANK YOU for all or your support...you're all amazing!

Things you can be praying for~

~Another tragedy with an NCA Nejapa student. She was killed today from a stray bullet in a gang related shooting....SO SAD!!! These kids just lost another peer in August, so there are many raw emotions at our Nejapa campus. Lift up this campus and the students as well as Gabriela's friends and family.

~The orphanage that I spend lots of weekend time at is having LOTS of issues...sexual assault activities among the children who learned from their own homes. Staffing has been a HUGE issue and now they need even more supervision for the kids as they are feeling that they are not as safe as they may have been before. Pray that God would send the right person to work with these children who so desperately need love and attention, but most of all safety. Unfortunately, these kids come from some very traumatic homes prior to the orphanage and learn at a very young age the negative behaviors they see in their homes.

~My dear Australian friends (Jed and Liz) got robbed last week. THEY TOOK EVERYTHING!!! Pray that God would provide their needs and replacement for all the things they lost....God has been so good already!

~There are a LOT of teachers leaving NCA this year, pray that God would work in the hearts of future teachers and volunteers so the school's need can be fufilled next school year. Any of you reading this that are teachers...have I got the job for you :-)

I love hearing from all of you frequently, thanks for your notes and e-mails, they are so encouraging to me! Again, I LOVE visitors, I would love to show you this country! Consider this your invite and come on down for a visit. It's really warm here right now and sunny all the time...isn't that enough to make you want to get away from winter?!?!?!?!?

Thanks guys, you all rock :-)

Blessings~

Angie