Abuelita's Oven

May 2023

This is Abuelita saying "hello!" from Matamoros, Tamaulipas ,Pan De Vida.  I want to catch you up on a busy end of 2022 and first half of 2023. At the end of the year, we were blessed to have our rooftops repaired at the shelter so they stop cracking. We were blessed by Kings Porch Church in Austin, who worked on the rooftop as their missions project and were able to complete them!  

We started 2023 with projects and a bigger vision to sort out all the things that were broken with the buildings such as leaks, termite damage, the plumbing, the cisterns, and the pipelines outside, The children's wooden beds were full of termites and were falling apart.  The other wood inside the building was just all deteriorated.  I have a confession to make to you.  I didn’t even know how deteriorated it was until my grandson JP said to me one day,  "Grandma,  Pan de Vida looks like a ghetto house. The building in the back looks like homeless people live there."  I said "what!!!"  He asked me how long had it been since I had been in the back building to look at it. I realized it had been four years since I had walked into the building.  I said "Wow Lord!!! What happened? NOTHING!!!!" That’s what happened.  I walked to the building to look at everything and I cried! I went to my office  and I got before the Lord in repentance. I had a good conversation with him asking for forgiveness for my neglecting the buildings. I asked God to give me the opportunity to right my wrongs and guess what, I'm on it NOW!!!!!!!! and He’s Got My Back!!!!!  Thank you Lord!

In February, we finished the roofs and started with the renovation project of the back building where most of the children live. I will be posting pictures of the progress and what continues in construction of the building.  Most of all, we need prayer and support in both labor and money. There’s a lot more work than meets the eye.  There is a lot of digging to replace pipes, there is building as we replace the bunk beds.  We hope to replace these with something other than wood.  Let us know if you ideas and expertise! We will be needing paint and brushes and rollers to create a rack.  The town is working on the pipeline to the property.  We are blessed to be getting wonderful sweet water, Hallelujah! It is not even a trickle, it is enough for Pan de Vida!  I have a new water pump for our cisterns to get the water to the house, so we can have running water inside and the toilets can flush.  If you have been to PDV, you know how wonderful this will be!  An important project is that we need to paint the water cistern with pool paint, so it doesn’t get moldy. 

Can you believe all this?  Wow I can cause I know who I serve Jesus Christ.  More updates to come!

You all be blessed,
Sister Esther