Hola Family and Friends,
After
four days in Nicaragua things are going great. It has been very busy....leaving early and getting in late.
We have purchased materials for two houses and one has been under
construction for two days. It should be
finished Tuesday or Wednesday. The
second house will begin construction on Monday.
It is a little bigger than what we normally build, so it will take a
little longer. The houses we build are 18
X 18 foot cinder block room with a tin roof and cement floor. These are the 28th and 29th
houses we have built. Our group this
trip consist of three old men from Barboursville Rotary, myself, Len Rogers and
Rick Keaton. Since two of us have bad
backs, we have to hire most of the labor.
We pay two block layers $300 together, who run the job, and pay labors
$8 a day. We know all of them and they
all need the money to feed their families.
We
took five Sunday school teachers from the New Jerusalem Church shopping Thursday
to buy the presents for the children’s Christmas party which will be
Sunday. There are 66 children on the
list for this year’s party. This will be
the eighth year we have had this Christmas party, and the gifts they receive
will be the only gifts some of them will get this Christmas. The first year we bought toys, but after that
they ask if they could buy clothes instead.
The group from my Church, Fifth Avenue
Baptist, left Friday morning. On
Thursday evening Remar Orphanage had a party to send off the team and for all
of the children to receive their Christmas presents. Fun was had by all.
Dennis, our boy in Medical College, had dinner with us on Wednesday
night. His last final was Tuesday and he
has now finished his forth year. His
sister Dini finished her first year in Nursing school and brother Donnie
graduated from high school and is taking the test next month to start Dental
school in March. We sponsor all of
them. Luckly, they get free tutition,
but books and other things cost us around $100 a month per person.
Today we
are going to the Vera Cruz High School graduation. One boy named Daniel, who we sponsor, will
graduate. There are also a couple kids
graduating that live in houses we have built.
It is very rewarding to see these kids graduate since a very low
percentage of them do. Daniel came to me
the other day and said he wanted to go to college to become a Mechanical
Engineer and ask if we could continue to sponsor him. Mechanical Engineering school does not have
free tutition. He has been offered a 50%
scholarship but needs the other 50%. We
are checking on the cost. It is wonderful
to see any of these kids wanting to further their education, but raising more
money gets harder and harder.
Time
to go….I will write more later. I want
to thank everyone who has helped with our Mission here in Nicaragua. As always, all contributions are greatly
appreciated. Our 501c Non-profit
organization is the Nicaragua Education Shelter and Health Fund, Inc.
(NESH). P.O. Box 731, Barboursville,
WV 25504.
God Bless You All.Jack
jackmease@measecpa.com
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