Most of the recipients of this letter (UK residents) are apparently experiencing colder weather than usual this year. I just cannot imagine that! We are in the middle of a week of very hot, humid weather. But I guess YOU can’t imagine THAT either! Maybe you would like to consider visiting us?

Since last writing we have moved into our new house (actually we’ve been in it for several months now!) Having finished the house my parents gave us a pool! We’ve always been to pools whenever we can in our spare time - we are quite a “swimmy” family. Now we get to go every day! We are also enjoying being able to have so many people over to use our pool. A couple of times I have looked back over a period of a week or so and realised over 150 people have been here during those past few days. We have enjoyed getting to know children and staff from some different local children's homes by having them over for a day out and a swim. We also regularly have the boys from the YWAM reintegration home over as they live just across the street from us. So we are enjoying getting to know them better as it has always been the girls we have worked with before.

Lily has become a very strong and competent swimmer so it is entertaining watching the boys- (some of whom are now really young men in their 20’s and studying at university) trying to keep up with our little 3 year old in swimming and diving for stones at the bottom of the pool. Gaby and Jasmine are liking being a social house and all the opportunities they have for playing with other people and not getting on with their homework!

We have had an encouraging and enjoyable time with church over the last few months. We just generally feel more established and more of a family all the time. People are experiencing more of God and having more hope for the future. More recently however (in the last 2 months) we have also had some rather serious issues come up with several people; some being bad illnesses, but also an arrest and a particularly bad relationship issue. Please pray for us as we don’t really know if there is a reason this is all happening at once. Recently however, some of our church highlights have been:-

They are the family from Exeter who came to visit in November, fell in love with the church and took a job here in Santa Cruz just to be part of it all! They have been of real blessing and encouragement to us. If you want to know more about them or also have a “fresh” view of Santa Cruz and Fuente de Vida church you could look up their blog:

In fact 80 people had said they were going to come but partly because of the rain far fewer came. We had beds of all sorts all over the house and a couple of tents in the garden. The children’s group did some activities that use sports and games to help teach bible lessons. The youth had some money talks and some relationships talks. David gave biblical talks on money to the adults and we also had worship times and discussion times.

These included Rosisela, who we have known since she was a beautiful little baby when her big sister Marta lived with us in Casa Alfa. She is now 12 years old and just as lovely. On a sad note though her sister Marta has just gone back to the streets after about 8 months living at home- the longest time she had spent away from the streets since she left us 9 years ago.

We still enjoy seeing the girls and staff from El Alfarero and have been able to have them over a couple of times recently to come swimming and spend the day with us. We are hoping at some point to have them all over for a sleep-over. Unfortunately 2 girls recently left, Monica and Luz. This was sad as they had been there for so long. Monica had been there for over 4 years and Luz for 3. For any of the girls who leave the home and are unable to return we hope to be able to find them and invite them to join our church family.

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I just wanted to add a note on behalf of our friends who live nearby and  are just about to open a children’s home. They want to be able to provide care for babies with special health needs. This partly came about from their adoption of their son William who had a cleft pallet and who prior to being with them was not thriving in one of the normal children’s homes. Basically what they need now is help!! If there is anybody who would like to volunteer for a few months (or years!) we would love to put you into contact with them. They need people with medical training, but also anybody who loves children and loves God. You can also find out more about this project by reading their blog:

Thank you for getting to the end of another of our newsletters!
With our love, Sarah, David, Jasmine, Gaby and Lily xxxxx