March, 2003

Unbelievable! The New Year has barely begun and two months are already gone.

By the time you read this, almost three months will have passed. We hope that all of you are doing well and being blessed by our Lord and Savior. We are all doing well. Many things have happened since we got back from our short trip to the States in October.

Here at the Home we are in full swing. Well, it is kind of hard not to be in full swing with 110 kids around. The kids are just getting used to going to school again. We have changed many things in our curriculum to fit the kids' specific needs. So many of them are behind. A good number of them are 3 and 4 years behind. We pray that things will go well until the end of the year.

We are really happy with some of the changes that we have seen in many of the kids' lives. It seems like they have finally seen the light. They are growing in stature and wisdom, that is what our work is all about. This is what makes us keep going, even when things get tough and discouraging.

We have had a lot of persecution. Basically, there is one man who has decided to make things hard on us. He has gotten in contact with every one that he thinks can hurt us or be against us. The only ones he didn't contact were the prosecutors and the juvenile court judges but this man accused them of covering up for us. Needless to say, that did not make them very happy. The Bible does say that when we don't control our anger it destroys us. Well, our enemy is really getting himself in quite a bit of trouble. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. So all we have to do is be kind to the inspectors that come to the home. Trust me, that is not always easy. "And he opened not his mouth." Pray for us to be strong when things get rough and that we will have wisdom when we need to talk.

We have an unusual situation here at the home at this moment. We were asked by the Judge to keep a young lady that is 15 years old. There is nothing unusual about that except she is 8 months pregnant. That in itself is sad. But she is here because the baby's father is the girl's father. Until the father is proven guilty, the authorities wanted her far away from the father. Pray for her that while she is here she will come to know the Lord as her Savior.

The church in Garca is doing great. We have started more visitation groups. Different teams go out on Saturday afternoon and visit in different areas of town. We have had many new people coming. Several have been baptized. Many of them have been children that live with us. Also, we had one of our boy's mothers to get saved and baptized. What a blessing!! There are several other parents that are coming to church. If they get saved it will make a difference in their relationships with their kids. Also, the judge has sent a man here to do some work to pay his dues. He got saved last week at church. Praise God! This is a Carnival weekend and he was at church last night. It was a test because before he was saved he had a pretty liberal life. Pray for him. Marcos is his name. We thank you all for your love and support. Your prayers are much needed.

May God richly bless you.

Odali & Kathy Barros, Tito, Jonas & Gabriel

Happy faces at the Alpha and Omega Home