Newsletter_October

With the recent events of terrorist attracts and the worlds efforts to stop this evil, we are thankful that we have the opportunity to bring safety and joy to the lives of three special children in our care. I have recently returned from Mexico and would like to pass on these comments from Gloria, our director and president.

Message from Gloria

I have such enormous feelings of thanksgiving for the opportunity God has given me to be involved with this project in Mexico and being able to work with the children here. Each day I experience such happiness and joy from being with Lauren and Carolina. I know that each of our children would have such a different life if we weren't here to rescue them. Carolina is now more than three months of age and has been with us for three wonderful months. She is such a sweet child, very easy to care for and always smiling and cooing. She is very beautiful with big brown eyes that are very expressive. She has just found her hands and is occupied daily admiring them. Lauren is as active as can be. She has been in her terrible two's for quite some time even though she won't be two until the end of this month. She can be extremely cute one minute and throwing a fit the next. She is constantly in search of entertainment and is very attached to me, which leaves me little time to relax. She is inquisitive and curious about everything around her, which leads to her getting into things she shouldn't. We try to let her experience as much as she is able but are cautious so that she doesn't get hurt. She is quite a "tom boy" and really enjoys it when Stan comes to Mexico as he lets her do more climbing and playing in the dirt, than I do. He taught her how to do somersaults and "rough houses" with her, which she doesn't get with me. When she isn't climbing or running, she loves playing ball and is now learning how to dribble it and is getting much better at catch. Daily she is speaking more and more, this past week she has mastered 'Pizza', 'milk', and 'no more'. We love watching her grow, and she fills the house with so much energy and fun.

Christina

On September 26, 2001, we received another wonderful surprise - a baby girl was brought to us. We do not know her exact age but are guessing that she was about four months old at that time. She was quite malnourished and has been neglected. She had a bronchial and intestinal infection and didn't have the strength to cry, she only whimpered. We immediately took her to the doctor and are working on nursing her to good health and giving her an abundance of love. Despite her illness, she is a beautiful little girl and is progressing daily. We are naming her Maria Christina. We don't know much about her but we learned that on the morning before we received her, she was being offered to anyone on the streets of Tapachula. Luckily, the government officials received her and passed her on to us. A beautiful experience happened just days after she arrived, I went into her room and spoke with her, I told her how beautiful she is, that this is her home, that she is safe, and that we love her. A smile grew on her face that I hadn't seen before and I am positive that she understood me. The rest of the day when I went into see her that same smile returned every time. We are very hopeful for her recovery.

Lauren's health

Due to Lauren's fall at birth, we are still concerned with her brain development. We are continuing to try to get paperwork for Lauren to travel to the United States. We have had a neurologist examine her but would really like her evaluated by a pediatric neurologist, which is unavailable in this area. The neurologist here believes she is six months behind in her vocal skills. He believes that some of the information isn't being processed by her brain, but she need a MRI scan to really evaluate her, which is also unavailable here.

Playground construction

We have been building a playground for the children and the swing set is Lauren's passion. She is always asking to go out and swing. I believe she could spend the entire day on the swing if we would let her. She really enjoyed when Stan was here because he would push her higher that we do. The playground is progressing well and, in addition to the swing, we have money bars, cement play area with bench, and are in the progress of building a gazebo. We hope to add a slippery slide and a teeter-totter. We also have an area where we will be able to build a basketball court at some point in the future.
We did have a big rainstorm in September, which caused the river to overflow and come down through the coffee plantation above us and up against our perimeter wall causing it to collapse again. It has been down twice before and we thought the improvements above us had been made that would prevent this from happening again. It now appears that we are going to have to solve the problem ourselves and build the wall in such a way as to provide security and still allow water to flow through it. It is a cement block wall but we will need to rebuild the damaged section with some wrought iron sections and keep it clear of plant growth to enable the water to flow freely through it. I am grateful that the small retaining wall we built above the house diverted the water successfully and it flowed around the house. The last time we had this situation, the water flowed right through the house and we had mud throughout the first floor of the house. Thanks for your love, concern and help to these wonderful children. - Gloria.

How you can help

With the recent addition of Carolina and Christina, we invite volunteers to help work with and care for the children. We believe that this is only the beginning and many more children will be coming to us. We have had many volunteers come stay with us and utilize their many diverse talents of landscaping, painting, artistry, carpentry, and pure joy for loving and playing with little children. You don't have to know any Spanish as the children are learning both English and Spanish and we would welcome additional help with their care. Also the construction of the playground and the repairs to the perimeter wall are requiring increasing amounts of funding, as does the care for the additional new babies. Due to the climate and heavy rains, the gazebo and much of the playground requires building with cement and metal, which must be purchased.
We welcome your help in making the future brighter for Lauren, Carolina, Christina, and their future brothers (I can only hope that we will help some boys, too!) and sisters. If you would like information on volunteering or to help financially, our address is Radiant Futures, 7001 Fairfield Greens Court NE, Albuquerque, NM 87111. Our e-mail address is radiantfutures@juno.com.

Thanks for your help, Stanford L. Call, Vice-President


Carolina at 3 months	Playground with swings, monkeybars & gazebo (under construction)

Christina at 4 months	Lauren & Gloria are excited about Christina's arrival