Greetings to you all. Very sorry for the silence over the past couple of weeks. I'm sure you all know how busy life gets at times. I (Jenny) was busy in Canada with family things. And the HOH was busy with school, then a holiday from school, the arrival of the boat from Miami and many useful and needed items, and now back to school again! One special moment was that our boys who are away at University were able to come home for the weekend. What a wonderful time everyone had reconnecting and just being family.
Here's a group of them going on a picnic together.
A quick update on Oliana: she had a pretty good week last week. She started to get some strength back. She was able to move around and participate in a few activities, she was even able to attend our Sunday church service. But yesterday she took another down turn and is back in bed. She's unable to keep food down and is back on IVs. We continue to pray for strength and healing for her and comfort and strength for those giving her care. As you can imagine, the constant up and downs gets discouraging for everyone -- especially for Oliana. Thank you for your continued prayers for her.
Bringing hope in all it's wonderful forms to the children and youth who come through our doors is what the House of Hope is all about. Over the years, many people have partnered with us to help us do just that. These past few months though we've been so blessed by 2 young ladies who found 2 very unique ways to raise funds to help us in this endeavor. I wanted to share their stories with you...
Emma Rodriguez -- Miami, FL
You might remember hearing her name before. Emma has spent time at the HOH over the past 4 summers. She is currently a pre-med student at Dartmouth, a study she chose to go into after her involvement with one of our little boys who needs a lot of medical care. So, one has to wonder, just what is a 2nd year university student going to do to raise funds to help the HOH?
Why IronMan Texas, of course!
Yes, in the midst of all those bobbing heads out there in the water, you'll find one Emma Rodriguez.
After much training and disicipline, this amazing young lady swam for 2.5 miles,
biked for 112 miles
and then ran for 26.2 miles. And she did it all in 14.5 hours!
Why would someone subject themselves to such a feat? For Emma it was to raise funds to help the HOH. We are so proud of what she accomplished and so grateful for her kind heart and spirit that loves our kids so much and desires to help us bring them hope in any way that she can. And she's not finished -- she's already gearing up for her next IronMan in 2019.
Elizabeth Curtis -- White Cloud, MI
Elizabeth comes from a long line of HOH partners. Her church has supported the HOH since its beginning in 1956. Her grandmother spent many years rolling bandages and shipping them to us. Many thousands of children were blessed by her giving over the years.
In spite of facing some very difficult medical needs herself, Elizabeth decided to find her way to help the HOH. Hot Chocolate was her way. Elizabeth made hot chocolate and sold it to her school mates. The proceeds from her endeavors were given to us to help us bring hope to the children in our care. I was blessed to get to spend a bit of time with Elizabeth on my recent trip to the Michigan. She is an incredibly kind and caring young lady who thinks of others in need even though she herself is struggling with needs of her own. We appreciate very much the work Elizabeth put into this and her kind heart that gave to us so we can bring hope to the kids in our care.
While these are by no means the only 2 who have found unique ways to help us out over the years we just wanted to share some recent ones with you. Over the years others have come up with various ways to help us out:
- Several young people have done clothing and supply drives at their schools for special needs that we have.
- Others have taken up special offerings in VBS or Sunday School programs.
- One church has a "Slipper Sunday" where everyone gets to come in slippers and donates to help us buy shoes for our kids.
- Another church has a special "Children's Offering" every Sunday where their kids collect and bring change each Sunday to give towards food purchases for our kids.
Together, we bring hope. And if you question whether it's working, just take a look at this face,
it says it all...
Thank you for your part!
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