Happy New Year 2010!!!

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, and the new has come!" 2 Cor. 5:17
What a wonderful verse to begin not only a new year, but a new decade. I encourage you all to focus on the future and how to use your gifts to serve God this year rather than looking back at the past decade and mulling over what went wrong! Anything is possible with Christ and we as Christians have the capability to serve in mighty ways!
Celebrating New Year's here at Casa Bernabe was a treat indeed! The entire day yesterday, our team and some others from the SBU team made a huge dinner for the whole orphanage. Starting right after breakfast, we began the process of preparing enough comida [food] for about 250 people! We were preparing a tossed garden salad with homemade dressing made my Vilma [the head of the kitchen], a pasta and chicken dish with a homemade alfredo sauce, and dessert. The dessert consisted of marble cake with canned cherry filling on top with a crumbled topping. The kitchen staff also helped us make homemade pan [bread]. Finally after quite a few hours of cooking, chopping, and preparing we were done with this exciting meal and were able to serve it to each house and eat dinner with whatever house we chose. It was such a blessing to see the excitement in the eyes of these kids when they knew they were getting something new and different and something they had never had before.
After dinner we had a program prepared with a magic show that had the gospel message, games, snacks, and praise and worship. It was so great for our team of musicians to lead worship in Spanish...it was really cool to see everyone worshiping in another language.
After our program we were able to spend time out in the soccer field with the entire orphanage as they gave us a huge fire works show...or as they call it, "sky fire." It was so much fun to pray, sing, and spend time with the kids as we said, "Feliz Ano Nuevo" and gave many hugs! The difference in culture was very evident here as there were five year olds running around with sparklers and full out fire works, setting them off around crowds of people! It was a bit scary, but a beautiful time indeed!
There is still plenty of work to be done here at Casa Bernabe. We have about five more days to get our fill of work in! Tomorrow we get a day off and will spend a day in Antigua shopping and learning more about the Guatemalan culture!
Please continue to pray, we appreciate those of you reading this and praying for us daily! May God bless each of you and your families as you enter into a blessed new year!