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This past Sunday afternoon, Pan de Vida hosted it's 1st official game on our "Football/Soccer Field." The directors have always felt it is important for the children to be involved in sports and extracurricular activities, however, due to transportation logistics and scheduling conflicts, each season presented it's own set of problems. One of which was that the time and location of games/practices meant late nights for the kids and volunteers. Plus they often had to miss church to participate.
With the donation and hard work of teams and volunteers, and coordination of our Directors, we were able to work toward the vision of having our own home field. Now we are enjoying the fruits of the labour and can now host games at Pan de Vida. The grass has been suffering due to lack of rain for 7 months and extreme heat, but it continues to be watered. Once the rain comes, we know it will revive.
The great news is that our Pan de Vida girls team, The Buffalos, won!!! They beat The Ponys 26-12. Despite the heat, the girls rallied together to play hard and in a sportsmanlike attitude to pull the victory off. The additional benefit was that the whole Orphanage was there to cheer them on so there was a lot of excitement in the air. Here are some photos of the event and I have even included some of our marvelous cheerleaders!
The Pan de Vida Youth Group finished their series on Missions by doing an overnight Mission trip to Amealco. It is home to the indigenous Otomi people where many still speak their own dialect, and wear handmade traditional clothing. The team stayed at "Casa Otomi", which is a Christian Community Center planted by missionaries and is partnered with Children of Hope.
The team did lots of preparation for the trip and organized a few outreaches. Upon arriving, they pitched in to paint the playground equipment, all the doors and trim on the building. In the afternoon they walked around the community, which is very spread out, and went door to door inviting other youth to come watch an evangelistic movie and fellowship with a hot dog and marshmallow roast. That evening, an hour past the time to start, not a person had showed up. The team then rallied in prayer that the people would come. Soon, about 30 people showed up. This in itself was a testimony to the power of prayer. After the movie, Paco gave a message on salvation and God having a purpose for our lives.
The following day, the youth planned a soccer game. The leaders had wanted the teams to mix the players together so that it would not be a competition of Pan de Vida youth vs. Otomi but the Otomi boys were not too receptive of the idea. They weren't there for the sportsmanship, they wanted competition. So they started as opposing teams and after a while, the Otomi team became more welcoming to the Pan de Vida players and then swapped up some. After the game, the team served refreshments. Kike gave a Biblical message and the youth then did 2 skits. One was a dryme, which is a skit acted out to the words of a song and the other was a cardboard testimony.
This mission opportunity was not only a way to minister to the people in the Otomi Village, it was also a way for the youth at Pan de Vida to grow in Christ and in unity with each other. They learned to serve others and also how to have a Christian attitude when others are not open to God and His love for them. It has really stirred in them a desire to do more in serving God because they witnessed that building the relationships and earning the trust of others in order to minister does take time.
April 30th was Día del Niña/Children's Day which is a Mexican holiday celebrating kids. Pan de Vida again was blessed by some local organizations to make this not only a special day for everyone but a weekend event. It started Friday night with an open air movie at the city library to view "Despicable Me" while munching on popcorn and candy.
Then on Saturday, the kids went to the General Electric campus. They had a play area set up with inflatable jumping areas, fair like games where they could win prizes, twister, darts, jumbo jenga, guitar hero and video games. Over the past 2 months, GE has been doing a pen pal correspondence with the kids, so this allowed them to be partnered with that sponsor to share the special day. Of course there was lots of food. They had hamburgers, chips, pop, cotton candy, pop-ice and more. A rare treat for our kids.
The final event was hosted by "Somos Queretaro" at a local park. They provided a lunch of pizza and pop that was followed by an afternoon of games. They played, red light/green light, soccer, had water balloon toss and other activities. Then the group entertained everyone with a comical theatrical performance. God has truly blessed all our lives through the generosity of these organizations to make the children feel special on a day that is in honor of them.
