A lot has been going on in the lives of the Lopez Ordoñez kids since the last time we sent out an update.

They are continuing to visit with their mom and grow a relationship with her again.  Their mom was able to come to the party for Marlyn’s 13th birthday a few weeks ago and it was a beautiful time for Marlyn to be surrounded by so many people who love her.  Everyone shared special words with her and encouraged her to continuing to follow God and grow into the young woman that He created her to be.  One of our missionaries was able to have a few minutes alone with Marlyn and shared with her that everyone at Servants loves her, is praying for her, wants the best for her life and that she is very special to us.

Marlyn’s mom sharing some special words for her birthday!

Marlyn with our missionary, Melissa. We love this girl so much and we are so thankful that someone from Servants was able to remind her of this at her birthday celebration!

It was a time filled with laughs and tears of joy.  One of the times of laughter was at Marlyn’s brother, Josue, who decided to take one of the women’s bags and start walking around with it.  We were sure to get a picture so you all can see how “pretty” he looks 🙂

Isn’t he just so “pretty” 🙂

A few weeks later one of our missionaries, who is also an English teacher at Josue and Marlyn’s school, shared that she noticed that Josue has been hanging out with a bad crowd of kids at school.  A few days before that Marlyn had asked some of our other missionaries to talk to her brother because she does not like the way he has been acting in school.  So we met with him and with the people who care for him and are like his parents to see what is going on.  It was a long difficult meeting but Josue shared that he knows these aren’t the best guys for him to be hanging out with and that he is going to take some time to think about his friendship with these kids.  We reminded him that he does not have to cut them out completely because Jesus wants us to love all people but that he needs to decide for himself what kind of people he wants to hang out with and that if he chooses to hang out with a bad crowd he has to realize that he could end up making some poor choices and getting into trouble. We all shared with him that we have each made bad decisions in our past and encourage him to learn from our experiences that it is better to be with people who are a good influence rather than people who are a negative influence and that we can then try to be a good influence to others.  Please pray for the Lord to touch Josue’s heart and show him that this is not what He wants for his life.  Also, please pray for the Lord to help Josue to navigate this difficult part of life.

This past week we went to the school that Luis attends and checked to see how things are going.  They shared that he is doing well in school but he is struggling very much with English.  We shared this with the people who care for him as they are also the ones who are in charge of the study hall that he attends at the church in his community.  They told us that they know he has been struggling and that they are going to try to work more with him on his English.  They also shared that they have had some struggles with him recently as far as going places without permission, a bad attitude, and even one instance of stealing money in the house.  They are asking for prayer for him as we all work to figure out what is going on and why he is having so many struggles.

Please continue to lift these children up in prayer for wisdom, guidance, healing from past issues, and the developing relationship with their mother.  Please also pray for all of us who serve and care for them that the Lord would give us wisdom in how to best help them.

Thank you for all of your prayers, love, and support of these children!

Luis and Josue with one of the leaders of the church Patricio. This was for mother’s day not Marlyn’s birthday but we thought it was a great picture and since Luis always runs away from the camera we sneak whatever pictures we can get 🙂