Feliz Dia de las Madres Dominicanas!

Sorry this has turned into a monthly blog and I will post an update of projects soon. Feliz dia de las Madres! My sister and I are planning to take our mom and other sister to dinner as a treat for all of their hard work and labor as wonderful mothers tonight. They are always working: cooking, cleaning, working in the community center, cuidando hijos and nietos and they rarely get a chance to leave, breathe, and enjoy a little down time. This is our attempt to give them a little bit of that and I am super excited.Pictures will be coming soon.

Other than that, I will post some pics from the last couple of months.... Enjoy!

 Part of my team of Deportes para la Vida trainers. My hermanitos!!

 A mezclave of some of my Chicas brillantes groups for our Soy Sana mini conference!

 Def a Deportes para la vida groupie! love this program

 my hermanito is going to college! we made him a cake....I promise you I did not put the alcoholic beverages there

 Soy Sano day with my Chicos superman group

 My org had a Satiago corre to raise funds for the work we do with youth...these are some of my boys!

 My chiquita chicas brillantes are making libros de sus suenos!!! They deserve to dream =)

MY girls made mother's day cards....Hopefully they give them to their moms' today!

My Chicos supermen! They make my wednesday every wednesday!! They also made mothers day cards and wrote a note saying why they are supermen to give to their moms!

  Extreme Needs team from our Youth group at the 2da Conferencia Nacional sobre NNA en Situaciones de Alto Riesgo

 Chicos Supermen de Accion Callejera! My babies!!

 Awesome camp!

 My girls made purses...they are so talented!

 Riding through Bani on the way to the beach with the love of my life and the love of her life

 my lifetime sister...def special check out the helmet

 obstacle course at chicos superman!

 All of the participantes at the 2da Conferencia Nacional sobre NNA en Situaciones de Alto Riesgo

 The Comite Comite of the 2da Conferencia Nacional sobre NNA en Situaciones de Alto Riesgo

it was an amazing experience and Hilary and I get to participate n the planning process again next year!

All of my loves but the 2 on the left...yea def have been essential to my sanity here!

Well that was another quick peek... Until next time

Happy Mother's Day

Hello Mommy,

To the love of my life,I hope you have a wonderful Mother's day! Thank you so much for shaping me into the woman I am today through your endless mercy, grace, and unwavering love. You are my earthly example of how earnestly God loves us.

There is a sad irony in today though. As most people know, I live in a hole literally which leads to flooding when it rains. Just last week a girl fell in crossing at one of the bridge points because it collapsed, she had to go to the hospital. Unfortunately, one of the younger boys from our sala de tarea was playing by the river when a torrential downpour hit yesterday and he got knocked into the river. (Our river is filled with all kinds of trash, sewage, and sharp objects.) They searched for him overnight and finally found him a little while ago. Death is an especially troubling concept for me when it comes to children and youth. I can only trust God because there are no answers to why. He was his mother's only son. Mother's Day in the D.R. is in 2 weeks. He had a amazing smile. This is the first death I've experienced in my community (I experienced it during training and during CBT) and I'm not exactly sure how to process this, he literally lived in my backyard. Please pray for his entire family, pray for the children in sala de tarea and his school, and pray for my org as we try to support the community in their healing.

Please validate someone today, remind them of why they are important, and remind everyone who matters how much you love them. This life is so fleeting.