All Things Bruce Eric

“Clementia, or Meme as we call her, has lived most of her life in a house made of cardboard on a piece of a riverbank. We can’t imagine that she wakes up most mornings and doesn’t still feel tired from the day before. She has endured enough personal pain and physical abuse that some would say she has earned the right to think only of herself, but that is the last thing that Meme does.

She is always sharing her resources with people in the Rio that need milk for their babies, food for their kids or help of any kind. She has not let her childhood of being an abandoned little girl or of being someone who was mistreated by her ‘new mother’ stop her from serving the Lord. Her life has truly been a daily offering to God. She only received a 6th grade education but she has more wisdom in the ways of God than many of us. She can be seen walking around the Rio with a Bible in one hand and little pesos in the other, sharing God’s love and concern for those around her.” (This content courtesy of Back 2 Back Ministries, written by Kathy Couch, Beth Guckenberger and Greg Huffer.)

Tonight, during our de-briefing, each of us what was most memorable the day. Of the 12 adults, at least half of us talked of Meme and what she was doing in the Rio as most memorable. To me, Meme is the very face of Christ, she is truly His hands and feet and to think that all she’s been through in her life and she is still being used to impact the people living in the Rio in amazing. We had the benefit of having Meme ride in our van to and from the Rio and she exudes joy and contentment. This area has been dramatically changed as result of Meme’s work there. B2B comes alongside Meme and supports what she does there by building a small church, using groups like our’s to bring in simple supplies like toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, diapers, vitamins and other things.

Here are some photos of Meme with her grandchildren, of her home and her neighborhood. This is an area where God’s love is being seen, his plan of redemption for each of us is being heard but there are still issues there. As we walked around to invite people to come to have lunch with us and get supplies, we were asked in to pray for one young man who had been injured two weeks before. His right hand was completely bandaged up but a good portion of his right arm was a very serious, deep open wound. His mother and brother were with him and asked us to pray for him. This young man apparently struggles with drug addiction and has been involved in gang activity. Please be praying for Meme, for her strength and safety, and for the people of the Rio.

Today, we spent a more relaxed day, though still very long, at the El Retiro Juvenil children’s home about 45 minutes south of Monterrey. It is a home of about 25 children, mostly boys, that is in a much more rural environment. The home sits on about 12 acres of land with lots of fruit trees and a ropes course that Juan (the B2Ber that is the lead person for that home) says they have big dreams for. Now, they mostly use it for groups like our’s to learn teamwork, and offer a short break from the work.

We spent an hour or so in the morning doing some general stuff around the property. Joshua and I set up two very old computers (white box brands, 400Mhz, 64 MB of memory and Windows ME on them) in what appeared to be a study lounge or classroom of some kind. This is the kind of computer I wouldn’t even think of trying to use and yet this is the best they have. Others built additional elements to be used in the ropes course, others cleaned up fruit that had dropped from the trees, others used wheel-barrows to move piles of medium-sized rocks and still others cleaned up around some of the buildings. Because they had so many fruit trees, they encouraged us to pick up fruit to eat and take back to the B2B facilities with us and many of our kids obeyed them very well and filled their shirts with oranges and tangerines :).

After a short lunch and some play time with the kids that weren’t in school, we spent a couple of hours in two teams going through the ropes course. Our team, name by Juan the “Best Team,” went out first with Antonio as our guide. Then Juan took the other team, the “Perfect Team,” out to some different obstacles. Juan’s dream is that eventually this ropes course will be used by corporations, churches and other organizations as a team-building facility. Juan just passed his exam to be qualified to do adventure guiding, including mountaineering, rappelling, rafting and other things like that. The monthly needs for this children’s home is about $5,000 and they think they could easily make that much renting out the facility and train others to be guides and facilitators. Juan clearly thinks big for these children.

The first exercise we did was very interesting because we all just jumped onto the rope (cable actually) and began trying to do what we needed to do. Over time, Antonio told us we needed to stop thinking as individuals and think as a team, we needed to let those at the front of the ropes, let those in the back what we needed. We needed to consider our surroundings. We need to take into account each person’s strengths and use those to the benefit of the group. We then did other obstacles that were all close to the ground but included some aspect of climbing across, around or over ropes and/or cables. After each, we spent some time discussing the parallels of what we had done both from a team perspective and working together, but also from a spiritual perspective. The entire exercise was a great learning opportunity for all of us, especially our kids.

The final stop on the ropes course was the high-wire section where each of us got fitted with a harness and connected to a belay with a carribeaner. The kids were fearless. Darby is a young girl that shimmied up the tree and plowed right through all three portions of the course. Joshua followed several others of our kids and did great, even stopping to pose for a few pictures by his dad :).

The older of us went after all the kids had gone and it was much more intense up there than when you were standing on the ground yelling to the person as to what you thought they should do next. When we were all completed with the ropes course, Juan spent some time talking about why they take groups through the course. Certainly part of it is a break from the hard, physical labor but even more so he talked about living in “the red zone” that place where God is using you beyond what you think is possible for your life. He praised all the parents for accomplishing the high-wire portion of the course and said he watched the faces of our children as they saw us living dangerously and beyond what even they thought we could do. He encouraged us to continue living in the red zone when we return to our daily lives back in Austin. I hadn’t even thought of doing this for our kids and what it would do to inspire and motivate them.

We closed out the day with dinner at the children’s home wonderfully made by the director’s wife and several of the older girls that live there. Following that we played and loved on the kids some more before building a bonfire and eating marshmallows and s’mores. One of the consistent rules on this trip was for our kids not to solely play with each other but to always try to find a little boy or girl from the home we’re at to  play with as well. Stephen and Joshua are very close friends back in Austin and spend a lot of time with each other so Cliff and Hope and I have really kept an eye on letting them have fun together but to not lose out on the opportunity to love on the other kids here.

I kept Joshua close to me tonight and asked him to look for opportunities to interact with the kids and he did a great job. Three times he tried to give one of the kids his marshmallow stick or a marshmallow but wasn’t able — but he kept trying. Finally, by the end of the night he had lots of kids to say “adios, mi amigo” to. I’m very proud of just how great all the kids have done on this trip, taking their eyes off themselves and looking for opportunities to serve the kids at the homes. We had a very late night and didn’t arrive back to the B2B facilities until after 10pm, partially due to my little run-in with local policia :).

Tomorrow we’re going to spend the day at the Rio, an even poorer portion of town along the river. We’ll bring more of our supplies with us including diapers, lice shampoo, toothbrushes and other things to give to the residents there. Good night and thank you for your prayers and support.  BEA

Juan told me to do all the talking, let them know I only spoke English and that he’d jump in after a few minutes. Juan was the B2B project manager for the children’s home we went to today.

But Juan never jumped in!

So I was going a little over the speed limit. They asked for my driver’s license, where we were going, where we had been and after about five somewhat tense minutes, they let us go. I was watching all the police cars in my rear view mirror and said to those in my van “Oh my, they’re frisking Cliff Fritschle!”

This resulted in near immediate gasps in our van and then laughter when I said, “just kidding.” When it was all over, Cliff asked to take a photo of the machine gun guy — he said no.

More on this story in person, if you’re interested. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I was glad we had Juan sitting in the front seat with me. It was a very long day, we’re all exhausted, just returned to the B2B campus, the kids are asleep and I’m not far behind. We had a great day as a team. BEA

Our group had a great day today and worked even harder than yesterday. Today, since I don’t have a watch and the room we’re sleeping in has no windows, I awoke at 4am certain that it was at least 6:30. Argh. The morning routine was pretty much every other morning. Breakfast, personal quiet time, team devotional and then we depart at 10am for wherever we’re going that day. Joshua took part in reading one of the parts of our morning team devotional with Norma.

Today, we  worked in a community of about 300 homes called Careytera, just east of Monterrey over the eastern range of the Sierra Madre mountains. The terrain is very flat and there are very few trees so it could have been incredibly hot. Fortunately, we had a nice breeze most of the day and it never really got too hot. As I said in one of my previous posts, this is not a children’s home but is the type of community from which children would come when placed in the children’s homes. There is a pastor named Angel (photo below with his wife) that is working very closely with the residents of this small community and they are seeing enormous growth as a body of believers.

As one of the B2B’ers said, the pastor, Angel, believes this is very fertile soil from which God will do amazing things for his people there.

Immediately upon driving into the community, I was struck by the utter sparseness of everything. Each home sits on a tiny little parcel of land on which the homeowner builds a one or two room home of cinder block and concrete, the traditional building method for this part of the world. And yet, everyone we saw was so friendly and waved and said hello to us. They are a people that have learned what Philippians 4: 11-12 means about living with contentment. They don’t have perfect lives by any means but they showed us today a real joy in our interactions with them. Each of them is so proud of their homes. Some in our group commented tonight that though the homes are simple, the families have a pride of ownership and keep them very clean and orderly.

As far as our work for today goes, some of us made sandwiches, others parsed out the vitamins, others prepared to pour concrete and others got crafts and other things out for the kids to play with. I was so proud of Joshua, Steven, Noah, Dannah, Ethan and all the other kids that worked today. They worked VERY hard and never once complained. Noah commented that it made him very thankful for all that he had.

I joined our B2Ber and Cliff, Steve and David in pouring a concrete header around the perimeter of a cinder block wall where in the next couple of weeks a floor for the second floor of the house will be poured. We had several of the kids helping out as well throughout the day.

Here are a few photos of some of the beautiful, joyful faces we saw today at Catereyta. I hope you enjoy them.

After a very full day of working, we drove back into Monterrey and had dinner at El Pollo Loco, a local chicken establishment. Very good. Good night all, tomorrow is another full day, this time working with a different children’s home with about 22 children just outside of Monterrey. Thank you for your prayers and for partnering with us on this trip. It is because of your commitment that we are able to be the hands and feet of Christ to the children here.  BEA

Ok, so maybe you wondered what happened to part 1? Well, I’m going in reverse order today since tonight’s debriefing is so fresh in my mind. At the end of each day, we take about 30 minutes with one of the staff members to reflect on the day we experienced. What did we see, what were you surprised by, were you blessed by something or someone, did God reveal Himself to you in a particular way that day?

Tonight’s de-brief was particularly interesting so I jotted down a few highlights from what some from our group shared. I’ll simply list them below for your enjoyment. No pictures, just some words.

It seems as though this group hit it’s stride today. It was our second full day of working together, friendships are being formed, I’m beginning to see some people in ways that I hadn’t previously. The group dynamics are fascinating and it’s very interesting to see how the kids are interacting and how they choose to share their thoughts in front of everyone.

Here are some notes from tonight’s session:

• Nancy: during the time when many from our team walked through the neighborhood to invite folks out to play games, to receive the children’s vitamins and have a meal, Nancy was invited in to the home of an older man. Nancy is about our only completely fluent Spanish speaker and warms everyone’s heart that she comes into contact with. It turned out this man was illiterate and didn’t know what something was in his pantry so she was able to tell him what it was.
• Hope: “I will never forget how hard my kids worked today.”
• Cliff: Cliff took a ride with the pastor we were working with today to pick up some supplies. He jumped in the truck and blurted out something about being so excited to be here working with him and what a blessing the trip has been. After a brief moment of silence, the pastor said “Me no speak English,” to which Cliff said “Me no speak Spanish!” They both enjoyed a hearty laugh and realized it didn’t really matter that they didn’t understand each other in words.
• Norma: Norma shared what a blessing it was to have Nancy on the trip with us and what a warm and gentle spirit Nancy has to which many others in the group agreed and added to the praise.
• Ellen: Ellen spent part of the day coloring pictures with some of the kids. At the end of the day, several of them gave them to her as gifts.
• Gabbie: Gabbie and her mom brought with them some blankets they had been given in the hopes they would be able to find someone to use them. The neighborhood we worked in today had several newborn babies in it and Gabbie felt blessed to be able to give them warm blankets for when it gets cold.

This was a great day. Be sure to read my next post up from this on what all we did today.  BEA

I haven’t worked that hard in a long, long time. Today, we all had the opportunity to really get our hands dirty, something at least I don’t normally do in my office job. Todd Guckenberger told us first thing this morning that people basically fall into one of two categories in terms of how they serve others. The first group likes to dig ditches. They are completely happy to be behind the scenes, laboring and working hard, whether it’s painting a fence, scrubbing floors, or in my case today, actually digging (not a ditch but an area about 24 feet by 8 feet where a concrete patio will be poured by us on Thursday). The second are those who love to be out in front, loving on kids, getting in close contact with those they are serving. Neither is wrong but he encouraged us to do what we were most comfortable doing and also not avoid the other.

Today, we went to Case Hogar Douglass, walking distance from B2B campus. It took us about ten minutes walking there through a neighborhood mixed with families living in complete poverty next to high-end weekend homes for the more wealthy. B2B is many miles south of Monterrey and when they built on this property more than ten years ago they really were outside of the city. That has changed as the city has expanded.

Our assignment for today was to dig for the patio, to paint the ceilings in some of the kids’ rooms and play with the kids. Todd explained to us that Sunday is visitation day for many of the children. If they have a parent or other family in the area, this was the day that they could come to see them. Thinking back on the image we all had put in our minds a few nights ago by Cathie Couch of being taken to the home, I imagined that this was like that experience for the children all over again and very traumatic. Our job was to avoid the children whose families came to see them and give them privacy, and to play with the kids that had no one come to see them. Todd said we can’t understand it, that it’s intense and weird and we can only cling to the hope that we have that God knows and loves each one of these children and that He’s caring for them. We are His hands and feet to do that this week and we are part of thousands of people that come here every year to be His hands and feet. In caring for God’s creation, we are given the opportunity to touch God’s face.

First, Todd gave us a brief tour of the facilities, showed us the rooms where the girls live, the boys’ dormitory and the on-campus school. Family Christian Bookstores in a big support of this facility and several of their executives came down several years ago to pay for and help build several of the buildings.

Once we were put to work, I pretty much knew what I wasn’t going to do — paint. We’re in the process of selling our house (weird to think of our house when we’re here) and I’ve done a fair bit of painting as of late. Alice K. said to me, “Bruce, there’s a jack-hammer over there with your name on it!” so I joined Cliff, Steve and Laurie, and Todd to prepare the ground for the patio.

We all started off very energetically but as the day wore on, the heat set in (it was in the 80s today), our energy levels dropped and our complete lack of daily physical activity like this was obvious. I kept reminding everyone that we were here for a week and to take it easy. I think Laurie worked the hardest of every one of us. She wouldn’t stop. Todd is a mad-man and none of us could keep up with him — he’s like the Energizer Bunny — he just keeps going and going and going.

Joshua and Stephen started off the day with us but quickly realized that it was really hard work and they had more to offer the kids in terms of playing soccer, jumping rope and practicing their Spanish speaking skills. They were right and they ministered to those kids in ways they don’t even realize, at least now.

I’ve posted some of the photos here that capture the essence of what we’re doing -  a mix of hard labor, joyful play by kids who couldn’t be more different in terms of where they come from but in the end are kids who love to play, hand-holding, and much-needed affection and attention.

Hope and Dannah, Alice K. and Alice S. and probably others I’m forgetting took on the process of painting the ceilings in the dormatories. Alice even allowed little Dannah to get to the top of the ladder! Stephen took a break from soccer to get in the painting business for a short time.

A great part of leading a trip like this is to see how God uses everyone one of us to meet the needs of the children. While not everyone in our group can use the jack-hammer, so too not everyone can do crafts for several hours with the kids (I would be the person that would be very challenged to do that) but we are blessed with the diversity of our group. Two women, both with grown kids, are on this trip with us and are passionately serving God with us. Nancy, a woman who tonight said “I don’t even like crafts” sat for hours with all the kids doing crafts and loving on them. She’s our most fluent Spanish speaker so she was able to very clearly communicate verbally with the kids. She and Ellen are such a blessing to our group and it’s fun to see how they are being used.

We also built picnic tables for use on at the children’s home or for sale at the home’s local garden center, which they operate to sustain their daily expenses. Noah and a little boy were very helpful in assembling the tables from underneath.

This post does not do justice to what we did today, what each of us experienced and how we were moved at what these children face every day. Tomorrow, we go to an even poorer part of Monterrey (Cadereyta) to work concrete and interact with the children there. While it is not a children’s home, B2B found that if they were able to stabilize the community and the local church, then it would be less likely that parents would have to leave their children. It is located about an hour from B2B and is in more desert-like terrain with very few trees. It is supposed to be even hotter than it was today so we’ll bring lots of water with us. We’ll also hand out the vitamins that were either donated to us (thank you Dale and Susan Miller and HCBC’s Acuna team) or were purchased with additional funds that you provided, as well as diapers and other supplies we brought with us.

Thank you for the opportunity to be on this trip and for your continued prayers. BEA

My day began at 5am and Steve and Cliff joined me not too long after that. Because B2B wants everyone here to un-plug as much as possible, to turn off the sounds and distractions of normal life, I may not be able to access the WiFi network every day. I’ve been crafting these posts in the evening after our daily de-brief and then just uploading them each morning.

As it was Sunday, we had a slightly different schedule today than we would if it were a weekday. We officially started our day at 8:30 with breakfast, 9am personal quiet times and 9:30 group time to go through a Bible study B2B has put together based on other groups that have been here discussing what each of us has to offer. I facilitated that discussion and it set the tone for the day. Romans 12:1 was one of the verses we discussed, which says “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-school and walking around life - and place it before God as an offering” (The Message). We read through both the NIV version and this version and discussed our expectations of what each of us had to offer.

At 10am, Beth Guckenberger held “church” for us in the Palapa (thatched roof patio) on the campus. But it was not at all traditional — we sat in four groups (there are also five young college women here from the University of Florida) and played a game where each group had to sing at least ten words from a song having to do with a color. It was fun to watch the kids step out and courageously sing with a microphone in front of a group. David, a friend of mine from work (and now my boss) was on the trip with us and his little girl Paige offered up several of the songs for their group.

Beth then took a little time to tell us a little about how she and Todd came to be the directors of B2B’s Mexico activities including many on how they are seeing God move among the people here to care for Mexico’s portion of the 134 million or so orphans worldwide. But in the traditional sense of an orphan (a child who does not have a mother or father), in Mexico the kids in the children’s homes are often there because their mom or dad can’t afford to keep them, or for other reasons. Beth referenced a book called “Hurt People Hurt People” that talks about how each one of us is a sinful, hurting person and we’re all walking around hurting other sinful people. She then went on to tell a story of how each of us have a great deal to offer, that God has created us with a specific purpose in mind for our lives. She gave us a phrase that I had heard her discuss when we were down here investigating B2B last summer, which is this: “I was created for more than I allow in my life.” You could look at that as rather depressing but she talked about how we all say we’re too busy to do this or that, we’re too young or too old, that right now isn’t the right time for that particular plan. She challenged us all to lives our lives as God has planned them for us.

Today, we spent the day working at Casa Hogar Douglass, a children’s home just a few blocks from B2B with about 85 children. More on that in a separate post. I thank you all for you support of Joshua and me and for your continued prayers. We know that we have a long week ahead of us.  BEA

We left this morning at 7:30am from the lot of HCBC, three vans, 25 people driving about 500 miles south to Monterrey, Mexico, to spend time with our friends from Back 2 Back Ministries serving the needs of the fatherless of this country.

Our trip down was uneventful. We had handheld radios that allowed to keep in touch while we were driving. We made it to Laredo by around 11:30, had lunch and fueled up all three vans. We crossed the border with no issues at all but had significant delays getting our visas and the visas required for our vans since we were driving more than 25km into Mexico. We also discovered the costs for our visas was considerably more than any of us had planned for (or should I say, that I had prepared anyone for :() so we had some creative exchanging of money taking place.

As we drove further south into Mexico, the Sierra Madre mountain range became larger and larger and was incredibly beautiful. The drive through the city of Monterrey at 4pm was pretty tame, though Alice didn’t enjoy it. We made a few wrong turns but arrived to Los Cristales with no problems.

After a brief tour of the campus and a very delicious dinner, Tim and Cathie Couch held a briefing session with all of us to talk about the week, lay out some ground rules and describe the week. She described the vision of B2B as “Hope for Today and Care for Tomorrow,” meaning without today’s physical requirements being provided for, it is nearly impossible for anyone to think about giving any sense of a hope for tomorrow.  We learned that education is only required through the 9th grade and that a large majority of the children in this country never graduate, never go on to college and the cycle of poverty continues.

We sat with our chairs in a circle and Cathie asked us to close our eyes and imagine a point in time in our lives when each of us was still a child. Perhaps we were sitting in our room in our mom and dad’s house. Or maybe we were in our backyard with our dog. All of a sudden, mom says it’s time for a trip. So you get in the car with her and make a long drive. You come to a place where there are lots of children and mom leaves to meet with the man that met you when you first came in. You start looking around and see the kids are playing games so you join in. Before long, mom comes and says she’ll be right back. After awhile, you begin to worry where your mom is - she has not come back! A little later a new person comes, a woman, and tells you it’s time for bed - you cry out “What? This isn’t my home. Where’s my mom?”

You take your shoes off and suddenly one of the other kids takes them and you cry out “Those are MY shoes!” A little boy walks by with a red jacket on, just like the one you got from your grandma for your birthday. “Hey wait a second, you think, that’s my jacket!” You quickly realize there is no “mine” in a children’s home.

Soon, you realize mom isn’t coming back. Perhaps she can’t afford to care for you. Perhaps her new husband doesn’t want you around. Whatever the reason, this is the story many of the children have experienced at the children’s home in Monterrey. These are the children with the broken hearts that we are serving.  We learned that many of the children in the homes we’ll visit actually do have a mom and/or dad but that for some reason they have given them up to be cared for by someone else.

Cathie and Tim left good jobs in Oklahoma to move here almost two years ago. They now run a “Hope Home”, where children that are leaving the 9th grade come to live as a stable family unit. They now have six boys, four of which are expected to graduate from High School this year, several that have plans to go on to additional education. They are making a difference and breaking the cycle for future generations.

As you’re reading this, I would ask you to please pray for us and pray that each of these children would ultimately come to know their heavenly father.  Tomorrow, we’re going to the Douglass House, just down the street to do a little work and play with the children. Sunday is typically visitation day so for many of these children, they will see their mom who had left them some time ago and the wounds of that experience will be opened again. Cathie urged us to watch as the moms or dads leave and don’t ever turn around to look back at their children. There will be others that look for their mom to come but she doesn’t.

BEA

Tonight we had the pleasure of having dinner with my mom and dad one final time before Joshua and I leave for Monterrey. They will be heading back north on Monday after spending four weeks here in Georgetown following my dad’s knee replacement surgery. We’ve enjoyed having them here and this morning I went to their rental home to work on their computer and I was able to sit with them while they had breakfast. It felt like we lived in the same community and I just happened to be nearby so I stopped by. Anita and I feel bad that we’ve been so busy while they’ve been here and we’ve not been able to spend as much time with them as we would have liked. And yet, it seems as though that’s what happens are you kids get older. When they came, Joshua was just finishing up basketball. Last week both Christina and Joshua started soccer and now have games every weekend. Fortunately, my parents were able to see both kids in their respective sports before they leave.Good-bye mom and dad. I love you and thank you for all you’ve done for us.BEA  

It’s a little less than a week before we depart for Monterrey, Mexico to serve the fatherless of that country. I’m pleased to say that the support Joshua and I, as well as many others in our group of 25, has been overwhelming. We are seeing God move in the hearts of those we’ve sent letters to and we thank each of you who have sent us kind notes letting us know you’ll pray for us as well as those of you who felt moved to support us financially. We are confident that all our needs will be provided for and even exceeded. Some of you have asked what are some other ways you can support us. The folks at Back 2 Back have given us a specific list of items they are needing so I’ll provide that list here. One of the needs was for inexpensive summer flip-flops (the kind that you might find at the typical big box store) but our group has signed up to meet that need.However, here ARE some things we can use, taken directly from the e-mail from Mexico:

• “We recently purchased a volleyball net with leftover teen $ and we are in need of some volleyballs. Could you maybe bring a handful of them?
• We don’t have any regular size shampoos and the girls in the teen home are almost out. Could you also see about bringing some regular size shampoos.
• We are also in need of NEW items for Birthday gifts for OLDER kids (12-19 yrs.).  Boys:  hats, NEW shirts, playing cards, etc… Girls: jewelry, hair things (brush, hair ties, headbands) journals, pens, purses, NEW clothes! ,etc.. “

For those of you reading this from Austin, if you’d like to donate any of these types of items, please drop me an e-mail at fieldsofgrace@hcbc.com and we’ll arrange to get them from you.We learned that some of the items we bring with us will be used to meet the physical needs of people living in squatter’s villages around Monterrey. I wasn’t exactly sure what those were so I looked it up on trusty old Wikipedia (I love the Web) and learned this: “according to author Robert Neuwirth, there may be as many as one billion squatters globally, or about one of every seven people.”Think about that for a second. I know all of us are in different financial situations but the statistics show that if you have a roof over your head, are confident of getting three meals a day, have a car in the driveway and clothes to wear, you’re richer than at least 95 percent of the world population, more likely even more than that. This is part of the lesson I’m hoping all of us take home from this trip and the lesson I certainly want all our kids to see firsthand while we’re down there.Some of the items we’ll be bringing with us for these people include: Diapers (primary need), pre-natal vitamins, vitamins, baby formula, Depends adult diapers, and lice shampoo. (here’s a photo of a typical “home” in a squatter’s village. Imagine what this home looks like after a heavy rain. Most of their worldly possessions are likely swept away.)Thank you all for your support of us as we go on this trip. BEA