Hay Angeles en este lugar...

 It always amazes me the little reminders God places in my path at just the right moment. Today, after Mass I wanted to stop in to the adoration chapel just for a moment. While I've now gotten into the routine of spending at least a few minutes in the chapel following choir rehearsal during the week, I've begun to notice that it is those times when I get out of my routine that Christ really speaks. This morning was not part of my routine, and I had no particular reason to not go straight to my car and head out.

As I am walking toward the chapel door I can hear notes of the Divine Mercy Chaplet being sung in Spanish. Although this is one of my favorite prayers/songs in English I never did learn it in Spanish. Margine (one of the Nicaraguan missionaries at The Finca) and I would occasionally try to pray this together usually listening to the sung version in English. It was beautiful to now be on the other end where I didn't quite know the words, but it ultimately didn't matter. Christ was bringing our voices together in prayer.

This was all very nice and a cozy reminder of The Finca, but it wasn't much more than that. The Chaplet finished and I was about to leave. Then the ladies who were leading the chaplet began to sing again. This time a song with words that were much more familiar. "Hay Angeles en este lugar ..." the lyrics floated just like the angels about whom they were singing.

I cannot hear those words without thinking about my Amigas Especiales in Casa 1 without nearly tearing up.

We spent hours on end learning those lyrics for the Christmas pageant. At the time I was nearly tearing up for other reasons. Their angelic faces did not always match their attitudes. Now,I would not take those hours back for anything.

I realized as the song finished that in just a few hours a FOCUS mission group will be arriving at The Finca. They'll spend the next week assisting with all sorts of projects and most importantly bringing the joy of Christ to our kids. I believe God moved me to spend that little bit of time outside my routine today to use my prayers for the success of this mission. I ask for your prayers over the FOCUS mission team and over each of our children.

To learn more about The Farm of the Child please click on the link. To learn more about serving as a missionary click here. I ask that you would also consider financially supporting one of our children who live at The Finca or attend our school. You can do so by following this link.

Snow my goodness!

There's nothing like a blizzard to bring people together. 

In my case, it meant our house of five turned into a house of 12+ for the duration of Snowmagedon 2016. 

I hadn't been in the same house as that many people since living in Honduras at The Farm. The joys and noise were about the same as well as the stress and mess.

However, I'll take Honduras' torrential tropical downpours any day over the below freezing blizzard conditions.

At first the timing of this storm seemed very unfortunate. 

It hit just early enough on Friday that thousands of people had to cancel their plans to attend the March for Life in Washington, D.C. 

Then there were those who still came for The March knowing they would be snowed in for the weekend. 

Our house guests fell into the latter category. 

Three of my four housemates are F.O.C.U.S. missionaries at the University of Maryland. 

Between them and their male counterparts, their 7 visiting friends/ fellow missionaries, the male missionaries friends and my housemate's boyfriend there were so many faces.









I lost count of how many people were in and out of our Hostel... ahem... home.

This definitely came in handy though once the snow stopped falling and the sun came up.

Many hands and shovels made for light work and some really good food.