Early Christmas at CONIN!!!

Hola everyone! I finally got some pictures posted, aren't you so proud of me?! We took three huge bins of stuff to CONIN. When we unloaded them all of the tias had to look through everything. It was like Christmas to them. We then went around with teddy bears for each child. Cutes thing ever. These kids really loved the teddy bears and Sra. Gloria said that they can sleep with them! Big shock because before the kids were never aloud to sleep with anything. It was generally a happy day, but we did have one really sad thing happen I'm going to post the story from what Paige said in an email because she explained what we were all feeling very well.

"There´s a little boy, Jason, who is so incredibly sweet. Sometimes a punk ( He hits and bites and spits), but he´s also very sweet. His mom sold him and his little brother for drugs, which is how they ended up in CONIN. He´s now 5 years old. And when you turn 5 you move to a different orphanage where you live until you turn 18, or until you´re adopted. Wednesday was his day to leave. As a going away present we gave him and his brother each a teddy bear and new outfit to wear. Literally, that´s all they had when they left. A teddy bear and the clothes on their back. When they brought Jason in to say bye to us he wouldn´t even lift up his head because he was so sad to leave. It had been his home since January. I was having a hard time holding back my tears. But then they told us that we could go with them to take the 2 boys to the other orphanage. In the car I held Jason. He was so sad. When we got there and got into the office he burst into tears. I then started crying, too. It seriously broke my heart. They finally got him into the back room… and not too much later they brought out a bag of his and his brothers clothes. They even brought back the underwear. These boys now had only the teddy bears we gave them. Of course this made me cry all over again. They had nothing. Not even the clothes on their back. It´s such a sad realization to me and I´ve been thinking about little Jason and his brother ever since. It´s such a hard life, I can´t even imagine."

It was a hard thing to witness and we just hope Jason is doing well. If we get a chance we might go visit him some day to see how he is. Well, that's all I can think of right now. Enjoy the pictures!

The tias and Sra. Gloria (on the left) looking at some stuff we brought.

Them looking at the capes and loving them. Thanks Aunt Ann!

Looking at some books we brought.



Paige and Jamie stamping CONIN on all of the clothes. We had to either write or stamp CONIN on everything we brought so nothing would be stolen.

Jamie stamping books.

Paige going through things and me writing CONIN on books.

Us giving Jason his bear. Poor kid, he was so sad.

Saying goodbye to Damian, Jasons younger brother.

Fernanda collecting teddy bears.

Fransisco also collecting teddy bears.

Irma with her teddy bear

Irma, Ruben (in the background, Fransisco, and Fernanda)

Jose and Michael.

Franco

Fransisco really liked to steal everyone elses bears

Paige, Belinda, and Franco

Franco and Michael. Yes, they are hitting each other... such boys.

Vicente loved loved loved his bear.

Claudia