Tacos and more pictures

One night, when we were watching movies in the girl's living room, I ordered out Tacos al Pastor and they were delivered by a man on a motorcycle. The tacos were very good, and spicy! It cost me my whole month's worth of ministry money to pay for it, but I think the girls liked them.

Speaking of tacos, Isidoro, the man who cleans and takes care of the church building where I work, brings Emily and I tacos every day. His family sells them and they are probably the highlight of my day! Mole and chicken, and I always put plenty of radishes, onions, picante sauce and lime juice on mine.

Knowing us, and our obsession with tacos...Emily and I went out and bought a bunch of things to make tacos with for lunch in our kitchen. My job was to cut up the green peppers. Unfortunately, I didn't know that peppers will burn your skin! Everything that I touched after touching the peppers BURNED. I really thought that I had severe burns on my hands...they turned all red and burned for about 4 hours.
I will never cut peppers again!

Almost every day, while walking to work, we would see a girl who we thought looked American, walking down the sidewalk near the church. One day, she stopped us and asked us if we live here. We talked for a little bit and told her why we're here. She is from Arkansas and moved here to be with her boyfriend, who works all the time. Emily and I were glad to meet her and considered it a great opportunity to share Christ. And yesterday, while I was walking to work alone, I saw her and she said that she wanted Emily and I to come over to her house sometime! I think she is lonely. It is exciting that someone in her situation is interested in us and wants to know us better. Please pray for Amber, and our relationship with her.

Emily's parents have come to Acapulco for a week to visit. I have been very lonely without her being at Casa Hogar and going to work all by myself. But when I see them, I am very spoiled, because her parents rented a car, so I am driven everywhere in air conditioning and they've taken me out to eat TWICE!

Last night, they took the three kids from Casa Hogar that they sponsor and Mac and I out to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was so fun to have a night out on the town and see all the lights of the city. They gave the kids presents, including gameboys, which were donated by friends ( Emily's mom asked a friend if they had an extra gameboy to donate, and before she knew it, the word
spread and friends had donated 11 gameboys to Casa Hogar!)





Emily's parents and grandmother with the kids and us at the Hard Rock Cafe.













This is me, really excited to eat my chicken and pineapple quesedilla!













Eder when he opened his gameboy!







Mac, Lupe, Olimar, Emily, me and Eder

ALL OF THE PICTURES FROM THIS POST AND THE LAST POST WERE TAKEN BY MAC FROM HIS CAMERA.

Long Awaited Photos

Another intern, Mac, who lives at Casa Hogar and works during the day as the P.E. teacher at New Horizon School, is from BOONE, N.C.! We know a lot of the same people from R.U.F at Appalachian University. Its a small world!

These are the New Horizon kids coming home from school. The school goes from preschool - 6th grade. So only the younger children from Casa Hogar go there. The rest of them go to public school.



One night, the 3 of us interns decided to make a good, American meal for dinner. Spaghetti, garlic bread, salad and sweet tea!

This is Emily and I after we ate A LOT!

Emily and I usually eat breakfast and lunch in here and eat dinner with the kids in their kitchen. But sometimes, of course, we treat ourselves to an American meal in our own kitchen.





These are pretty normal meals for the kids. By the time, its all on the plates, everyone is seated, and prayed, the food is already cold.




But its still good!







OUR CHIEFS!














Not really. Some women come everyday to cook and these kids just warm up the leftovers from lunch and serve it. It is very hot in the kitchen and the masquitos will eat you alive, but I enjoy helping them! In the picture is Osvaldo, Huber and Josefina. Josefina has become a good friend to me and we have gone running on the beach together!

Bugs and Independence Day

Hermano Alejandro ( the father-figure here) fumigated our rooms, and there are no longer living cockroaches! Actually, there are no longer living bugs. Bugs that I didn't even know were in our house were found dead on our floor. As one of the kids put it a ¨bug cemetary.¨ And because we couldn't mop so that the fumes would really do the job, our rooms got very dirty and.....dead buggy.

September 15 is the Mexican Independence day, so this weekend has been very patriotic. I went with some of the kids to an Independence party at the church and it was very interesting to be the only American at an all Mexican party! There was authentic food, songs and dances.

During the program, someone told a joke about how a chicken died on the U.S.- Mexican boarder, and a Gringo (what they call Americans) and a Mexican decided to have a competition to see who would claim the chicken. Whoever kicked the other person harder would take it. So the Gringo said ¨You go first.¨So the Mexican kicked the Gringo. Then he siad ¨Ok, its my turn to kick you now.¨ And the Mexican said ¨If this is over the chicken....then you can have it!¨

Of course, all the kids that I was sitting with gave me a hard time and oppologized for the joke.

My Address

Casa Hogar del Niño de Acapulco

P.O. Box D-33

Succ. Centro de Convenciónes

Acapulco, Gro. 39850 MEXICO

Write if you want to. I think it take 7-10 work days to get here.

Casa Hogar

Casa Hogar is very nice. Right now, they are in the middle of a lot of construction to build a new dorm for the girls. It is a big place because there are so many children.

Where Emily and I live is where the summer mission teams stay. We have our own rooms with a little living room in between. There is a couch and TV in the living room, and that is where we spend time together. We have to go outside to get to our kitchen. We stocked up on brownies, instant oatmeal, and waffles!!

We have suddenly had a problem with cockroaches. We discovered that they can crawl under our door! So you can imagine that there is quit a lot of screaming when we walk into our house and there are roaches on our floor and walls! I'm always glad that no one can see us.

I think a gecko lives in my window because it wakes me up almost every morning making funny noises.

One Week Report

I have been here for a week! My schedule has been like this:

Emily and I leave Casa Hogar around 9am. We walk down the hill, about a 10 minute walk, and it is already very hot outside, to catch a bus. Public transportation here is a really interesting experience in itself. It is very fast pace and you have to get on and off very quickly or you'll get left.

It is God's little gift to us if we are on the corner when an air conditioned bus passes. They are five cents more expensive than regular buses, but they have cushioned seats! Normal buses are HOT and have HARD seats. When we are in an air conditioned bus, we laugh at the people in regular buses, and we cry when we see people in air conditioned buses when we are in a normal bus.

We ride the bus for about 40 minutes to Jesus de Nazareth church, and work there til 1pm, organizing pictures and profiles for the children at Casa Hogar. My job this week has been to make Christmas cards for the kids to send to their sponsors in the States. There are 62 kids in the orphanage and 284 sponsors....so you can imagine that I have a lot of Christmas cards to make!

After another long ride back to Casa Hogar, it is Siesta. Workers will just lay down in the shade and will sleep from about 2-4pm because it is too hot to do anything. I love it! I wish we had Siesta in the States!

In the afternoon, I help the little kids with their homework. It is very easy and I've begun to love helping them, because I get to practice my Spanish and be with the little ones.

Dinner isn't til 7:30. I love the food, but the portions are not very big, and its usually cold by the time its served. Rice and beans are a given, and there is some sort of main dish with meat and potatoes....or sometimes just potatoes. The orphanage is struggling finacially right now. The 12-14 year old boys make the food, and lately, I've enjoyed helping them in the kitchen, serving the plates and pouring GALLONS of milk into 62 cups!

After dinner, it gets kind of awkward for me, because everyone does their own thing. I'm tempted to go back to my room, but I know that I will never get to know people that way. So I tell myself to stay outside and talk to people. I have had a lot of fun getting to know people.

First Update

Hello everyone!

I made it! Dad and I got here on Friday afternoon. I have to say that I was probably the most scared that I´ve ever been in my life. Thank goodness that my dad was there to comfort me and tell me that God is taking care of me and He wants me here. I was very sad and scared when he left the next morning to go home, but he wrote me a really encouraging letter that I have taped to my wall.

The children are very cute. I have especially gotten to know the little boys. There are so many children at this orphanage and it is hard for me to learn all their names! All of the children have had very aweful pasts and very sad stories. I am able to read about them when I go to the church office and organize their files.

At church on Sunday morning, I really missed Trinity! Everyone welcomed me and my name was in the bullitan that read: "Welcome Sarah Riddles, who came from North Carolina to help at Casa Hogar. May God bless her richly."

My sweetmate, Emily, has been taking very good care of me by showing me around and how to do things. Today, we went to Wal-Mart to buy fruit so that we won´t get scurvy. I am very thankful for her!

Please continue to pray for me. Pray that the older girls will open up to me and for better relationships. And also for my Spanish (which is struggling very much!).

Thank you for your prayers!