A Look back at 2013
2013 was year of great blessing, hard lessons, intense intercession, relationship building, healing and breakthrough. We are deeply grateful for your loving support of Nueva Esperanza-New Hope Girls,Inc. We cherish your prayers, sponsorships and friendships.
We began the year with a fast inspired by Jen Hatmaker’s book 7. We lived on 40pesos or $1.25 a day for the month. We discovered on many levels how fortunate we are and were inspired to take a step of faith in feeding ALL our girls breakfast and lunch before the finances were raised…God provided for our girls!
In February our staff began a year long commitment to become certified Montessori teachers with full scholarships!
Joy traveled to the states in partnership with Dare for More ministries and Mercy Jewelry as they inspired women to Dare for More in their spiritual walk believing in His Amazing Grace as they answer the call to be His hands and feet. Dare for More has become New Hope’s biggest vendor of bags and we are so grateful for their faithful support of our ladies in the workshop!
After literally years of praying for consistent house help in our safe house…God began to grow our staff and provide us with women who have a heart for prayer and love for our girls.
We studied together Mark Batterson’s book, The circle Maker and then culminated with a 21 day fast drawing some prayer circles of our own. There is no greater uniting force that prayer and we were blessed to see God’s hand at work.
We lost a dear friend Megan Garven in an accident. Inspired by a challenge created by her parents, we took 25 girls to Sweet Frog (her favorite) in honor of her 25th birthday!
This summer our girls were able to attend their first overnight camp provided by Grace Church in Sarasota, FL. What a thrill for us all! They planned, prepared and staffed the entire week and it was dream come true for all involved...And while the girls were at camp some talented guys were building us a new kitchen!
Most of you now know the miracle story of Amanda Metzler, former second grade teacher to my son Isaac, joining our New Hope team. I’m certain it has been perhaps her most challenging assignment yet, but she has brought with her New Hope for our academy and our girls are beginning to truly learn English from a loving life role model in her own little classroom rented next store which we refer to as, “Casa Amanda.”
Hope Aglow made more beds for more girls so we could fill our safe house to full capacity and added beds for visitors in “Casa Amanda”.
God sent us another co-laborer, Gail Leroy. She formerly worked with Compassion Intl. helping with their sponsorships and now she will be managing all of our DR sponsorship correspondence. I can't think of a better fit to meet this need. She walks alongside, supports and encourages --She is a true blessing to our staff.
The ladies in the workshop received some much needed storage space, introduced a new product line of laptop bags and our prayers for industrial machines were filled bringing us one step closer to our dream of launching a leather line of bags and accessories! We have joined with Opportunities and Hope Aglow who now sell our bags in the states and we look forward to growing opportunities for more women in our community to work with dignity.
We ended our year with a PJ party full of special food, new PJs and backpacks. So much fun!
