Happy (day after) Thanksgiving!

We celebrated a wonderful Thanksgiving day at Casa Shalom. With a team from Maranatha Church in Palm Beach Gardens and our friend Bob and Georgette Kornegay, we cooked a traditional Thanksgiving feast, including 7 turkeys, 100 lbs of mashed potatoes, 100 ears of corn, 2 gallons of gravy, watermelon and 12 cake! A big thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make this meal happen. Be watching for photos of the Thanksgiving feast in the coming weeks!
In the meantime, enjoy the photos and video of a great puppet show the children's pastors from Maranatha, Than and Megan Graffam, put on for Casa Shalom's little ones.




Evelyn and her puppet friend



















The toddlers got the chance to learn how to use the puppets.

Christmas 2009

Last week, we had our first Christmas party of the season at Casa Shalom. A team from the Spotsylvania Church of God in Virginia brought sheets and blankets and toys for all the kids of Casa Shalom. The kids had a blast opening their presents and enjoyed a lunch of fried chicken after the gifts. Enjoy the photos and video of the start of Christmas 2009 at Casa Shalom!

Abby is curious to see what her bag contained!

Eduardo thanks Pastor Donald Jones for his gift

The teen boys with Pastor Jones

Maria receives her gift

Little Colim loved her presents

The girls and pastor Jones

The Rayos house

Antonio was all smiles

The Luceros house

Fried chicken lunch!

Even the babies enjoyed the fried chicken

A little musical number by the babies

Volunteer Flor, Edwin, Clara Alicia and Ada do their best tough guy impression!

New baby

There is a brand new baby girl at Casa Shalom! Staff members Walter and Jenny are celebrating the arrival of their daughter, who was born last week. The little girl hasn't been named yet, and at birth weighed 8 lbs and 5 ounces, which is a very big baby here in Guatemala! The baby joins older brother Waltercito, who is three-years-old. Please keep Walter, Jenny, Waltercito and the new baby in your prayers.

Soccer camp

For the past 3 days, there has been a lot of hard work and a lot of play at Casa Shalom! 2 professional soccer trainers from the Guatemalan national league and a professional soccer player from Honduras donated their time to run a 3-day soccer camp for Casa Shalom's kids. The kids studied the fundamentals of soccer, practiced new techniques and finished the camp with a skirmish! What a unique and amazing experience this has been for Casa Shalom's kids.

The kids get warmed up

Stretch!

Windmills

The basics of passing and receiving

The pro player and one of the trainers demonstrate dribbling technique

Rosendo and Martin practice passing

Marvin and Santos practice chest bumps

Gato and Edwin show off!

Dribbling practice

Hector is quite talented!

Sweating!
Working hard