Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Friday, December 14, 2012

Christmas and other news...

Well, the house is now cheerfully decorated for Christmas.  Quite a feat, considering our kids are all still in the midst of writing exams.  Unfortunately, their school have messed up their schedules so much that none of our kids have Christmas vacation at the same time.  Each school (our students are in 12 different schools) has decided to let the kids out at a different time, one of the schools is holding onto the students right up through the 24th!  So, we've had to cancel the annual Christmas program this year, there's just no way they can practice and pull it off with all their different schedules.  This also means that I won't get to participate in any of the holiday activities around here this year as I leave on the 22nd for 2 weeks with my family in Tx.  It sounds like our special Christmas gifts from numerous supporters are actually going to get here before Christmas this year!  This will be a first since quite a few years, so I will hopefully get a chance to get all the kids Christmas sacks organized before I leave.  It's going to be a busy week!!

We had fun this past month celebrating Nani's 6th birthday.  With the arrival of our baby Rose Nirva (who by the way is doing great), we were reminded of how tiny and sickly Nani was when she came to us 6 years ago.  No one thought she'd live, and now here she is bringing joy to all everyday.  

Being near the end of the year, I've been working on getting finance reports finished up, and working on a new budget for the coming year.  I figured it's probably just as good a time as any to let you know how things are financially for us.  Because of two things, tightening up on our spending, and our friends in Miami who have been regularly sending us food, we were able to come in well under our budget this past year.  That is the good news.   The bad is that we received even fewer donations than we saved by cutting down on the spending.  So in the end, we still have a debt with our local hospital (who takes care of our staff payroll for us each month--then we pay them back).

I know many of you gave gifts for us to be able to pay off that debt, but in the meantime, several months pay were added to it, and the monthly amount we received to cover other necessary items at the HOH were not very high.  So... the bottom line is we still owe money, and we are lacking in the monthly donations that are coming in for the ministry.  

I have been reminded by several of our supporters, that it is my responsibility to share our needs with you all, so this is what I am doing.  Perhaps some of you are able to help us out financially, perhaps you can pray with us for this need to be met, perhaps you have a way to share the need with others who can help.  However you can help us out, we'd appreciate it very much.

Our new budget for the 2012-2013 fiscal year stands at just over $200,000.00 US for the year.  I know that looks like a huge amount, but I've worked it out in a bite size chunk for you that maybe doesn't seem so huge.  It costs us $200 US per child per month to keep them here at the HOH.  This includes everything... food, school, clothes, medical care, and a home to live in -- everything.  So, maybe you can do that... pay for one child to be here... maybe you can't, but you could get a group of friends/family together to pay for one.  Or, perhaps you could just cover part of a child's needs:  Food needs are $65/month for a child, paying the staff to take care of them is $59, school is $13, the rest is for general supplies and overall expenses.  However you can work it out... can you help us meet this need?  We generally have between 85 - 90 children/youth/young adults in our home at any given time.  

Thanks for doing what you can.  We are blessed to have you as partners in this ministry.  We hope you have a blessed Christmas season, wherever you are!