STANSBERRY CHILDREN'S HOME AND DAYCARE

NEWSLETTER #46
April 2002

CASILLA 578,
SANTA CRUZ BOLIVIA
PH-FAX 591-3-56-0756
EMAIL: stansberry@scbbs-bo.com
WEB: www.stansberrychildren.org

MARRIAGE: Good news! Talk about changes, well the life of Solomon is about to make a big change for the good. On May the 4th, he and Eunice will be married. If we were independently rich, we would be there in Kenya celebrating with them. At any rate, we wish them God's richest blessings, but this is not the end of the good news. They have consented to come to Bolivia to take over for the Paetkau's, who will be leaving some time at the end of June. Once again, all the best to Solomon and Eunice!!

COMINGS AND GOINGS: It often seems that a great part of these newsletters are about people coming and leaving. There is a whole lot of that happening around here. It was only in the last newsletter that we mentioned the two premature babies arriving and now we need to say that they have been adopted. The good side to this story is that they both went to good Christian parents. We are happy, but it was still hard to let them go. Clarita went to live with a family from the States who are working in Santa Cruz and Noemi is with a Canadian family working here in Santa Cruz. Along with the little girls, Zulema, our big girl, has also left us and is living in the nurses' residence, beside the University where she is studying. As you can see there are some big holes in our lives and we will be filling those very soon with some needy children who haven't a home.

On the volunteer side of things, we recently said good-bye to Cora Harder, for the second time. Cora needed to go home to Canada a bit sooner than she had intended. Her Grandmother was quite ill and it seemed as though we didn't have time to say good-bye. We would like to say a big "Thank-you" to Cora for her many hours of hard work and her dedication and love for the children here. God bless you in your plans for the future.

We also had an excellent visit with Brian Fencer for the past couple of months. As always with Brian, he was a great help to us during that time. It was great also having Denver Steiner here for the past three months. Denver came down to make a new video of the Home and the Daycare, which should be out sometime in August. Denver also went way beyond the call of duty by helping out in anyway he could, thanks guys. (check out www.denversteiner.com)

ANSWER TO PRAYER: We are thankful for answered prayers and especially for the answer to our prayers for Mariluz, in her recent surgery in getting her tonsils out. She had been having troubles for years and needed to be on antibiotics nearly every month. The specialist's recommendation was to have them removed. This surgery was performed and everything went well. Mariluz is back in school and is getting healthier everyday. Thanks to some friends, including the specialist, we were able to have this done relatively inexpensively.

ANIMALS: Perhaps because we are in the 21st century or perhaps because the boys have proven to be somewhat lazy we have put the older girls in charge of the animals and it seems to be working. Vicky is our key cowgirl who does an excellent job. A new bull calf was recently born and it was decided almost unanimously that it should be christened 'Denver'. We're not sure if this was to Denver's delight or not but he took it like a man.

SHOPS: A new school year has begun and the girls, together with Doña Maria of course, are busy sewing the uniforms and other necessities for school. The boys did a garden and we are now harvesting the peppers. It is great to see their enthusiasm as they show visitors what they have grown. In the carpenter shop they have been working on new seesaws for the Home as well as some badly needed furniture for the laundry room.

EDUCATION: As was just mentioned, we are back in school with 21 children in the neighboring evangelical school, Deborah is in technical school and Sarah is quite excited about her new special needs school. She is always proudly announcing that she doesn't have any homework, to the rest of those that do.

DAYCARE: We are happy to announce that the infant section of phase two has been completed and is full of babies. This has been a great help for the workers to be able to keep the babies separate from the toddlers and preschoolers. After a break from December 15th till January 15th, we are back in full swing with almost 60 kids registered and others waiting to be registered. We are in the process of making an agreement with the University to have students from the psychology, social work, and nursing departments come and do their practicum with us. Some of this has already started and it is exciting to be able to work with the whole family and to be able to work through some of their problems together.

On May 12th we have a group of 12 volunteers coming from England to assist us in building the badly needed volunteer residence. They come to us from a program entitled "Latin Link" and will be sleeping on the floor at the daycare. This group is already in the highlands of Bolivia doing another project. One of them, Susie Hall, who had some difficulty with the altitude, has joined us early as a volunteer in the daycare. Our other volunteers are Lora Steiner who is working hard with the infants and goes home each day exhausted and wondering if she will ever have children of her own. Good work, Lora. Chantel Vermete, from Canada, has just left and we want to say a big thank-you for your help Chantal. May God richly bless you as you go back to Canada. Alisha Metcalf is working with the older children, doing a wonderful job teaching the children Bible stories and caring for them.

We would like to say thank-you to all who have made this project a reality. God is great and has blessed us well beyond what we had been expecting. Now that the program is functioning to near full capacity we ask that you continue to pray for us and the educators there. There is so much that could be done to help some of these families and we can only do so much. Pray for wisdom and patience. We also ask that you consider sponsoring a child in the daycare program if you feel that you can and would like to. There is a real need for this support at this time.

God bless each one of you in your lives wherever you find yourselves. Please feel free to write us, call us, or just drop in for a visit.

Chuck and Cindy Paetkau

Attached you will find the 2001 financials for both the Home and the Daycare. If you have any questions please contact the Home or Dallas at 330-682-8504. We have had a terrific year and thank God for each of you that helped make the Stansberry organization run smoothly.

We will have a new video coming out in August 2002. It will be approximately 12 minutes long and will include both the Daycare and Home. This would be a great tool for Sunday school projects or Summer Bible school groups. If you have interest please contact the OHIO office. Thanks again for all your support.
God Bless,

Dallas and Rhoda Steiner