Greetings From Chile 2008!!!!

Hello everyone!

My name is Kristie Turner. And I have been appointed to bring you the news from Chile! Many of you don’t know me. However I am one of the Canadian team members. I will be trying to update you every couple days or so with a message and some awesome pictures from our photographer. Our internet connection is intermittent so please bear with us as we try to bring you news.

Well I will start by telling you all that we all made it safely to Chile as did our luggage. We all made it through customs in Canada, USA and Chile with no problems really to speak of. We thank God for this as we all know that with this many people and all that luggage there could have been many problems. So after we all met in Dallas, Texas, we boarded our plane at 9:00 pm and settled in for our 9 hour and 15 minute flight. Most of us tried to sleep for this all night flight. Yes, the flight was long but we did all make it safely to Santiago, Chile. Then there was a one hour bus ride to the Hogar. We also had to hire another van to get our luggage to the Hogar. We arrived at the Hogar early in the morning on Sunday and unloaded the luggage from the bus and van. Shortly after that we got into our casa’s and were able to organize ourselves into rooms.

The cooks had prepared a wonderful lunch for us so we ate though we were very tired. However, all of us wanted to see the girls. The director of the home informed us that the girls would be aloud out of their casa’s to visit us when we were finished eating. The rest of the afternoon was spent meeting the girls and playing with them. They are beautiful children. Although there is a language barrier there, it does not seem to matter when a girl is running up you yelling “Hola Tia”! They just want to be loved, like every other little girl I know.

Today (Monday) most of the girls are off to school. We get up around 6:00 am. (Well most of us anyway!) We have breakfast at 7:00 am that the cooks (other team members) have been so lovingly preparing sense 5:30 am. After breakfast we have a time of worship, praise and prayer. Bill put us all into teams today. We have teams working on the steel structure, some on the buildings, some painting, some cooking and other people who sit up here on the computer all day writing an email message. Today is the first day of work and everyone is eager, however we have been told to reserve our energy because we will need it for the first “fiesta” we will be having with the girls on Friday.

The Andes mountain ranges are stunning and we would really like to go see them close up. Nevertheless, we must remain in the walls surrounding the home as it is the only that protects us and the girls from what surrounds them. However there is no other place we would all rather be right now than serving God by serving these girls.

I know everyone here misses their families and you miss them too. But now you have a chance to pray for them and the work they are doing here. We have a couple special prayer requests from here in the Hogar. First, Jim Farthing has been suffering from migraine headaches and we ask you to pray for him even though he is doing better now. Second, the Hogar’s head cook, Nelly, had her mother pass away yesterday and we ask that you pray for her also. Also, please pray for all of us as we try to complete the work we were called to do. Last but not least, please pray for the girls of the Hogar as we share with them tonight and over the next couple of weeks, the word and love of God.

Kristie