It's Time

We're still alive.
Growing, stretching, transforming. God is good.

Ever feel on the brink of exciting heart and soul change? It's a swelling, popping, straining to be free feeling. The anticipation is exhilarating.
But I have to jump.
And jumping, well, I'm not the best at that.
And it's a wee bit scary, to be honest.
But I'm learning.
To JUMP and thank God for whatever comes.
So here's to exciting discoveries and living in gratitude and seeing God, knowing joy.

Here is a sure way to entertain the babies. Soon I'm going to have to stop saying "the babies" and start saying "the toddlers." Ack.

Happy 14th Birthday, Lucia! 

Food shopping! We were trying to stock up for Thanksgiving. Three full carts and LOTS of stares.

Happy 11th Birthday, Saul! 

 Trampoline with Josh. Adults have to play too. 

Beach trip October 4-6. That's Gabriel and Rosa. Gabriel was here with us for 3 weeks after an incident with an abusive stepfather. His mom kicked the stepfather out so the courts deemed her stable enough to have him back. Pray that he will remember what he learned about Jesus in his short time here. 

 Beautiful view along the Pacific Coast. 

We've found at least 3 snakes around here lately. Entirely too many. 

Here is Mynor. He's still refusing to be potty trained but gets very upset when his diaper is not clean. 

Go figure. 

 And here is little Karina, who sadly, is no longer at the home with us. We were not expecting her to be taken at her audience, but an aunt wanted to have her. We were all sad that she left and often the kids say "I wonder what Karina is doing!" We pray that her aunt will be good to her and most of all, that she will know Jesus someday.

 The weather here now is perfect campfire weather.

 Josh loves to make fires and the kids love to play outside with Mr. Josh. 

In other news, elections are finally over here. Otto Perez Molina was elected. He is an ex-general that apparently has some ties to the last dictatorship and the civil war that lasted a very long time. His election is a little disturbing because he sounds like a perfect candidate for another dictator. We don't know what his views on children and adoption are, but we are praying that the adoption laws would change and these kids could have their own families! 

Josh and I are anticipating a visit home next week! We fly home Tuesday, November 15 and will be there for a month. We're very excited to see our families and friends and be with our church again! BUT...here's the catch, we don't have our passports. Our paperwork to set up temporary residency has just been chaotic. Our current lawyer is hoping to submit paperwork on Thursday or Friday. She only needs our original passports to submit the papers and then we can have them back! We have to pay a fine before we leave the country because our paperwork has been delayed, but we don't know what the fine is. Go figure that too. So yea, we're praying lots about this. Please feel free to join us. 

The sun is starting to shine through the windows. It's time to get moving and start the day. Have a blessed and happy day, everyone! And to some of you....SEE YOU SOON!  

Un-Inspiration.

Thanks for reading. Or starting to read this post.
Tonight, I feel very un-inspired to write. But I will. Its 9:30 and Maria has just finished her last test for this school year. (School runs from January-October here.)

Excuse me. Cheese and crackers are calling my name. Don't judge.

I'm not the only one. Josh is enjoying his Coke and Swiss cheese. (Sent ALLL the way from Pennsylvania.) Thank you, familia.

And he's having great fun sharpening knives.

The bread is rising in the oven. I shall stick it in to bake just soon. I'm not sure what possessed me to bake bread at such a late hour. (Mom, be proud.)

Dave and Deborah are getting steak and other yummies ready for tomorrow. We're having company!

Jen (3 month volunteer from PA) is hanging out in the kitchen too. The kitchen is the place to be tonight. She is an awesome help around the house and she even took one of my cooking days!! (Awesomeness!)

The kids were busy painting tonight. This is Saul's gift to us.  If I tried hard enough, I could probably rotate the picture but I'm just done for the day.

Today, Honda broke her leg. We're all really sad and praying for a good recovery for her.

And today, we ate the last of the Sour Patch gummies. I felt almost sad, but thats quite ridiculous.

My un-inspiring train of thought has come to an end. I'll try to post again soon. We're going on a family vacation to the beach this coming week! Only one of the kids has been to the ocean and most of them have a really hard time with the concept of such huge amounts of water. And one said "What are waves?" So this will be fun and exciting for all of us!

The end.

P.S. Once again, its almost 24 hours later and I'm just now posting this.

Hello once again from Santiago Atitlan! 

Time is flying. Do I say that every time I post? Ha. Its been a busy and stressful and fun month! 

We celebrated lots of birthdays since the last time I posted--Dave, Rosa, Maria, Jacob, and today-our volunteer Jen from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We love birthdays and the yummy cakes that come along with birthday parties! 

The first day of August, Dave and Deborah's expected baby arrived! Felicity Grace was born here in the local hospital without any complications. She is doing well and growing and Deborah is feeling good also. She's quite tiny after hauling around the bigger baby boys. 

The middle of August we flew to a hospital in the city with Jacob, who was diagnosed with RSV and interstitial pneumonia and whole milk allergies. Thank you for your prayers; we know that God touched Jacob then and healed him and we continue to pray that he will be healed completely. We spent two days in a hospital room trying to keep a very active one year old from ripping out his IV site and falling out of bed, etc. I never imagined I would sleep on a hospital floor or let a small child play on the floor but sometimes..... We just prayed "Lord, kill them all (the germs, that is)." :) 

And as you can see, Jacob is now back to his happy self.

The rest of the babies are surviving and thriving. They are patiently waiting for baths here. I think babies in diapers are the cutest thing. :) 

Davey got into my pudding the other day. If you come visit us, remember to never let anything sitting out. Someone or something will be sure to find it. :) 

We were so blessed to have Josh's parents and brother come to visit us for ten days from August 25-September 4. It was absolutely fabulous to have family here and to reconnect with them and show them our world. 

We had a new boy brought to the home this month. Apparently, he ran away from a neighboring town. The story isn't totally clear so he is staying with us temporarily until a court hearing later this month. We expect he will go back to his family and suspect the whole situation was an argument that turned sour. Pray that while he is here the love of Jesus will be poured out through us to him.

I do have several prayer requests to mention also: 

1) Elections for Guatemala's new president will be this coming Sunday. Please pray that God's will for the children of Guatemala will be accomplished through the new leader. We desire that adoptions will open again, but pray most of all that God will be known in this country. 

2) Please pray that Josh and I will be filled with passion and love for God's work here in Santiago Atitlan. Moving here didn't give us some magical Kingdom mindset; in fact, its highlighted our selfishness (mine at least). We do have responsibilities and duties here, but we want to move beyond duty to desire to pour Jesus into the hearts of these children whether it means washing mounds of dishes or cleaning up yet another mess or teaching multiplication tables or correcting school again and again or giving instructions again and again. Its so easy to get frustrated and annoyed; I won't pretend to be perfect and say I never get upset. We want these kids to know that we will always love them regardless of their failures; that they are always safe with us; that we will hear their hearts. We want to be images of Jesus that send them to their Heavenly Father--the One who will never leave his children. Pray that our hearts will be filled with Jesus. 

Thank God with us for: 

1) Jacob's healing and quick recovery! 

2) The safe arrival of Felicity Grace! 

3) His continued provision even when expenses go up (hospital bills, drunk man throwing rock at windshield, van not working, etc)! 

Thank you once again for your prayers and support on our behalf! Thank you for your cards and emails and Facebook messages and Skype calls and gifts sent with Josh's family! Many blessings to you all. 

Love, 

Josh & Donna

Slideshow

News from Santiago/Tzanchaj

Has it really been 3 weeks since we last updated? I think time is flying. Today (Friday) it's flying anyway.


In most recent news...
Josue turned 1 year old on Monday. He enjoyed his cake immensely, as you can see, and we all had a good time playing games in honor of him. He is precious and we love him dearly. He hasn't started walking quite yet; he uses a walker quite well but isn't brave enough to let go.

The town festival is happening this week. Or maybe it happened last week. A fair comes to town during the festival so we took the kids on Friday and ate pizza (it's the only time our town has pizza!) and the kids played games and bought fun fair stuff. It was a long day being out in town with 7 babies in a culture where people just push you if you don't move fast enough, but I'm happy to report we all survived. We are almost as cool an attraction as the Ferris wheel when we all go to town. Crowds of people stood around and stared at us for what felt like forever. Some people even ask the kids if we ever eat any kids that live there. Its almost laughable, and yet its sad to see a culture so steeped in traditional Mayan religion and the fear that surrounds them. This first picture is all of us right after we first sat down--in about 10 minutes we were completely surrounded by people.

The latest project the home has started is growing a garden! Dave is renting the piece of land next to the house for a garden since the price of vegetables is climbing and we eat lots of fruits and veggies! We will have to clear the trees and brush before we start planting. I'm looking forward to having a garden and we hope it does well! I don't have any pictures of the lots and its still looks like trees and brush right now anyway.

Today (Saturday) we had a pool party and hot dog roast with two families from town. The one family is here translating the Bible into Tzutijil, the local dialect. The translation project will take approximately ten years. The second family is here working at the local hospital. The husband and wife are both family practice doctors and do lots of great work at the hospital!

And now it's Sunday! Its hard to believe tomorrow is August 1 already! We've been here over three months now. Some days I think I can't stretch anymore or I will pop; and other days, I only hope and pray that I actually am growing in this part of our lives. Josh and I were discussing the other day how we could totally waste these two years here. And really, we all could waste our lives day by day if we don't make a habit of everyday looking to Jesus and seeking to make Him the reason for everything we do. I can totally bypass teaching moments, moments to point these children to the Father if I'm looking at life as a big to-do list. And honestly, it's pretty easy to see the dishes, the laundry, the dirty diapers, the cooking and cleaning and forget to live with the eyes of our hearts open to see God. We're learning this; not perfectly, but increasingly.
God is also teaching me about servanthood. This is hard for me. But when I fight against this daily dying, I can't help but think of Jesus, who left EVERYTHING and washed the disciples' feet and died on a cross.....for me. And you. I have no lofty answers to the hardness of servanthood, only the heart feeling that I cannot resist serving because of The One who served me and gave me true and abundant life.

Thank you to all of you who faithfully pray for us and send letters and packages and emails. We hope and pray that in some way, our lives will give glory to our Heavenly Father. Many blessings to all of you today. Happy Sunday!

and P.S. Thank God that all the picture uploaded successfully the VERY FIRST TIME! This is HUGE. Okay, that's all!

Hello to all.
These past weeks have been quite busy! I think this is pretty typical, though. For all of you.
We have experienced an exciting answer to prayer: Isaac is crawling!

He also turned 1 year old on Thursday, the 30th.

And got a haircut on Saturday. Poor child, its been a busy week.

Jacob got a haircut too. That little thing in the front of his head wasn't my idea. Just so you know.

NOTE: From here on, this post may be considered boring by those who prefer pictures. I've been working on this blog for about 5 days now and I'm having issues getting pictures uploaded. My apologies. Hopefully, I can update with pictures soon! 

On Sunday, Josh & I went with some of the kids into town. We took two babies along which made for quite the adventure, but it was good exercise and we had a good time! This involves riding on the back of a truck...it gets interesting.

On Monday, we celebrated the 4th of July like most of you all probably did too! The kids wore red, white, and blue and we had a grand party! We had LOTS of delicious food and played fun games and set off fireworks. (I don't know if there is a proper term for this but these fireworks aren't the pretty ones that go up in the sky and are colorful. These are just loud. And blow newspaper all over the place.) It was a good day!

ANOTHER NOTE: For any of you interested in doing a fun family mission project or something like that....
Orphan Resources International, based in Ephrata, PA, will ship any donations marked "Hands of Compassion/the Reichards" to us free of charge! All you need to do is get your donations to ORI. Canned goods/nonperishables are gladly accepted! For example: pizza sauce, salsa, green beans, canned fruits like peaches and pears, pie fillings, pickles, and just about anything else that people can or eat out of cans! Any questions, feel free to ask!

Another Saturday is winding down. We've been here almost 3 months now. Sometimes it feels like forever. Other times it's hard to believe its been 3 months (almost) already. Thank you so much for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers and supporting us in this part of our journey!

The following quote is challenging me to develop a culture of gratitude. It takes practice and hard work to make gratitude the habit of my heart. Being grateful allows me to see God everyday in the everyday life. "He is invited to do great things who receives small things greatly." -Cassiodorus

Blessings,
Josh & Donna

Birthdays, Cows, Puppies, and other Random Events

 Dear friends and family,
It's time for another update.
Last week we celebrated Isai's birthday on Wednesday and my birthday on Thursday. For Isai's birthday, we had a half day off school and played games and went swimming in the afternoon. He choose cupcakes for his cake and we had a fun time celebrating! Josh and I took Isai out for ice cream on Thursday as our gift to him.

The home purchased two bulls last week also. Dave and Josh plan to fatten them up and sell them for a profit. Their names are Bobby and Jimmy. My favorite is Jimmy, although the kids said he's a stubborn one. The kids built cool little huts for them and had a fabulous (mostly) time doing that! It was a good exercise in teamwork for them.

The puppies are starting to grow up and be fun to play with! We took the babies outside for a visit last week; some of the babies loved the puppies and others did not like them at all. And some of the babies just ate dirt; it's their (almost) favorite thing to do.

Rosa loves to help out in the kitchen; she helped me make bread the other day. You can pray for her that we would have lots and lots of patience and wisdom with her. Her attention span is almost nonexistent so it can be very frustrating attempting to read books to her or teach her numbers and letters.

I'm helping the 3rd graders with their science and social studies everyday. They haven't been doing well at all on their tests so we're trying some more intense tutoring in an attempt to better their grades and teach them good study habits. It has certainly been good for my Spanish skills. We would absolutely love for a full-time, Spanish-speaking teacher to come and take over all the school stuff. You can pray with us for God's answer to that request. (no picture of school at the moment)

Yesterday, Deborah, her sister Esther, Tabitha (our volunteer for 2 months), and myself went to Antigua, close to Guatemala City, for a women's breakfast/luncheon type thing done by a church in Jacksonville, FL that has special retreats for missionary women. We had such a fun day! It was challenging and uplifting and encouraging to be with other women; and we four had a great time on the 3.5 hour drive there and back. (no pictures of this either)

And then, a super big highlight....!!! We finally got to pick up a box from our parents that got stuck in the city for some odd reason! We didn't have to pay taxes or anything; so we aren't sure why they stopped it but anyway...we got the box! It was so much fun opening it; not just fun for us, everyone loves to see what comes in boxes! Middleswarth chips have never tasted so delicious!!! And even though there isn't a picture of this, in the pantry fridge...a whole box of chocolate puddings is waiting for us. yummm. :)

Prayer Requests
1. Recently, Dave and Deborah found out that the people who had the home before Deborah's family had never filed their tax papers correctly with the association of children's home. Now, we are facing fines piled up from 2001, which is long before Dave's took over the home. We also have to pay an accountant to straighten out the mess since its so much paperwork. Please pray that God would drastically lower or completely remove the fines and that these funds would be provided.

2. Deborah's grandmother (in Wisconsin) is currently at home on hospice care and she still has not come to salvation in Jesus Christ. She is softening to the prayers of the family, but still refuses to acknowledge her need for Jesus. Please pray for her salvation; also, pray for Deborah's parents as they take care of her and speak to her about Jesus.

3. Please pray for the upcoming elections here in Guatemala. As I've mentioned before, the current government has passed a law closing adoptions to the States. In this culture, adoption is just not typical or the thing to do, so many of the children will just stay in homes and orphanages until they are 18. There is a very very very small chance, almost 0% that they will ever be adopted by Guatemalans. So, if the next government administration decides to change that rule, they can without any delay. (it's not at all like in the States where changing a law takes years and years) The new President can simply start all over his way or build on the previous administration or do whatever he wants. So pray for a President that will open adoptions again.

4. The current government has a very un-brilliant idea to build a massive compound to house ALL the orphans in the country. It would be like a prison and I don't even want to think about the abuse that would occur in a place like that. I didn't realize until a few weeks ago that this compound is already under construction. We don't know how far along it is or how the funding works, etc; and the new government this fall could stop the whole thing completely if its not something on their agenda. Regardless, please pray against this attempt.

5. Dave & Deborah are hoping to start a home for older girls within the next year or so. There is a house available near our house that would house about 15 girls. We are currently praying for a couple or whomever God provides to come and begin this work. This is a huge need here in Guatemala with many girls (some as young as 8 or 9) being forced into prostitution; the child abuse rate in general is 90%. That is devastating. Please pray that God's will would be accomplished regarding this dream.

God continues to be so faithful and good to us. He continues to shape us and mold us and teach us in sometimes painful ways to see Him in all things, to focus on Him at all times, to become more and more like His dear Son. Perfectly, no. Increasingly, yes. (To quote our pastor)
Blessings to each one of you as you do what God has called you to do today.

Josh&Donna

p.s. I love this font, but is it too difficult to read? Feedback gladly accepted. :)