She Never Took the Huge Smile Off Her Face!

Day 2 In El Salvador

Today was an early day for us. Up and at 'em at 7:30 and headed to a small village here. At the village we were greeted by a group of children who were already excited for the festival we were about to throw. There we painted faces, blew up inflatables, painted nails, made snow cones and cotton candy, made animal balloons, handed out gifts and played soccer with the children. Every single one of them with a huge smile on their face. 
Later that day we made food care packages to bless 50 families with, as well as a quick prayer and a small bible. After we were finished with that, we visited a young girl that is disabled with  Cerabal Palsy and her mother who were blessed last summer, having a house built for them by Starfish teams. The little girl never took the huge smile off her face. 

Sincerely, 
Kaci Oetjen

Shaved ice tastes so good in the heat!

This is Krissia, here is her story:

Krissia was born with a severe case of cerebral palsy! She has been crippled since birth. She can't move many of her muscles, but boy can she smile!   

.2 years ago Lone Oak High School took their second annual trip to El Salvador. This team goes to the same impoverished village each year to put on this festival. When the team returned to the mission house after the festival, a young football player named Steven Wooten came to me and said" Mrs. Laura, I know who the wheel chair is for" I said "what wheel chair is that?" He said  "the one we brought on the trip, the one sitting downstairs, it's for a little girl that we met today! She has spent her whole life in a papason chair, she is severely disabled and has no wheel chair, and the one we brought, it's like it was made for her, I KNOW she is supposed to have it! Can we somehow get it to her? "

The village was over an hour and a half away and we weren't even going in that general direction again on that trip.  I promised Steven that I would talk with our missionary Kurt with Sus Hijos about taking this wheel chair back to this girl a after we left. Kurt agreed to take it, and about a week after our team returned to Kentucky, we all opened Facebook to find numerous pictures of Krissia with a HUGE grin in the wheel chair that we had taken down to El Salvador! There were pictures of her mother weeping tears of joy, you see her mother had to carry her any time she went anywhere at all. She spent most of her time in that old chair that was fashionable in the 70s here in the US.

Everyone fell in love with the picture, and that huge, gorgeous smile! Last year when McCracken County High School (Lone Oak and Reidland students combined) went and did the festival, everyone had heard about Krissia (I think one or two had been on the same team as Steven, so they had met her the year before) and everyone wanted to meet her! Not only did our whole team get to meet her, we got to share the good news with her that God was sending 2 Starfish/Sus Hijos Teams back in the summer to build them a "forever home from concrete"!  Starfish sent back to back teams and a couple of the students returned as part of those teams to help build the house, which we dedicated with the family in June2013, Krissia still has the best smile ever, don't you agree?

Laura Roberts

Director

Starfish Orphan Ministry

The team will travel to the same area tomorrow to build a wooden house for another deserving family! Please keep them in your prayers!