I’m attaching my Christmas letter because it turns out the 150 Christmas cards I spent hours writing are in the bottom of the ocean with the Agape Flights Plane that delivers our mail each week. It took me a while to figure out what happened and then to confirm it, but know you were not forgotten. I will try again when we get our plane up and running on a regular basis. Perhaps we will have Easter/Passover cards instead…lol!
Greetings from the Reyes Family
It’s hard to believe that one year ago we were at St. Luke’s Hospital in Boise Idaho fighting for the life of our unborn baby. Look at him now! He is a crawling, happy, healthy, beautiful baby boy. We have been so blessed. Our family arrived home to the Dominican Republic in May and moved into our new location in Santiago relieving our kids from the daily commute and also the constant illness they seemed to struggle with living so closely connected to the barrio. Vidal and I do the commuting these days and enjoy the chance to spend uninterrupted time together each day.
Helina and Isaac just had birthdays and are now eight and six and in second grade and kindergarten. Helina is taking ballet classes, Isaac is with Vidal in baseball and both will be learning to play the guitar after they receive them for Christmas….(smile).
It’s amazing that we have been here four years now, but we have been so fortunate see great gains during our time here. The school is growing each day and I am very proud of the team that works so hard and sacrifices so much in order to make it all happen. They inspire me.
We’ve had a lot happen this year in our ministry. Our time away taught us so much about how to better meet the needs of the communities we serve and it has been neat to watch the leaders stand with a new confidence and begin to take ownership for the work of the school and its service to the community.
Although our previous work continues, our current labors of love include continued relationships with the men and youth of the barrio, working alongside couples to build our marriages and the building up women to take care of their youth as we work to break the cycle of abuse and pray for restoration. I hosted a very powerful mentor retreat recently and we are now working with the many of the most at-risk girls in the barrio.
Each year I resolve to become a better communicator, but the work of life seems to take over. I have a new helper that is posting blogs to our website and I too am trying to get something up there. So if you want to take a look or see our new youtube videos, check it out at www.tears.org .
May God Richly Bless you this holiday season,
The Reyes Family
We would love to hear from you: drtearsforjoy@aol.com or joy@tears.org
*To support our work with a tax deductible donation you can find us online at www.tears.org and designate TEARS for Joy. You can also send donations to 3614 NE 50th Ave. Portland, OR 97213 designating TEARS for Joy in the memo section of your check. (We have improved our tax receipt process and tax receipts for your records will now be mailed straight away.)
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 9:11 am and is filed under Reyes Family Blog (T.E.A.R.S. for Joy), T.E.A.R.S. School, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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