Yenifer's eyes (Cori at the Aldea)

Yenifer (on the right) is simply an incredible girl. There is one thing that I really want to try and describe about her, but I also know that words won’t really do justice. I am going to try to anyways. She has the ability to do something that is pretty rare. When she hugs me, she is able to look up at me with her gorgeous eyes and it brings immediate joy. There is something about the power within her eyes. I wish I could explain, but don’t know if I will be able to, but she has that ability to say a million different things with a look.

She has so much personality and spunk, it is so much fun to be around her. I love how playful she is. When I was eating at her Casa she made me feel so loved. She was always one of the first to give me a giant hug. I can see that she has so much potential with whatever she does because she seems to have a lot of determination. Her ability to make others feel comfortable is incredible considering the age that she is. Seems to me that she is one of those born leaders.

PS - special thanks to Leonie Cramer and Carl Reese for sponsoring Yenifer!!

our first sponsor for our Aldea kids!

A huge thank you to the children at Paramount Elementary school for sponsoring Blanca at Aldea Infantil!

Blanca is 5 years old and is in her first year of primary school. She loves to do art and to paint and her favorite classes are math and communication. She also has been practicing her cursive and has been doing very well—the tias all agree she has the neatest handwriting in the Aldea. Blanca has a speech impediment which makes her difficult to understand at times but her smile is a language everyone understands.

The students at Paramount Elementary are collecting "Change for Change" so they can earn money for the children of Southern Cross Humanitarian.

Watch for more updates and spotlights on the children coming up. If you're interested in becoming a child sponsor, check our website or shoot us an email. 100% of every sponsorship dollar is sent to South America to help the children.

Thank you for helping us care for these children!

Wilfredo (Natalie)

I’ll admit it, I’m partial to Wilfredo. I love all the Sunflower kids, but Wilfredo melts my heart.

Wilfredo, like all the kids, has had a tough life. Most of the kids will come up to you and give you a hug. Some will take your hand. A few will climb on your lap. Wilfredo is shy, very shy and would never take the first step to give me a hug - until our visit last month. (The picture above is my first visit to the Sunflower in June 2006 - Wilfredo is wearing the red shirt on the very right).

On the first day of our arrival at the Sunflower last month, the kids came running to greet us. I started getting emotional as soon as I heard little voices yelling “Natalie”. But I couldn’t hold back the tears when I saw Wilfredo quietly walk towards me, heard him softly say “Hola Natalie” and hold out his arms to give me a hug.

When children come to the Sunflower, Laura always asks them what their dreams are….what they want to be when they grow up. Wilfredo always replied, “a policeman.” Since I’m Wilfredo’s sponsor, I told Laura that I wanted to help Wilfredo get an education after high school and help him towards his career of choice – especially since I was comfortable with the amount of training/schooling it would cost for him to become a policeman.

Then a couple of years ago, Laura and I were on an expedition – I think it was December 2006. Laura was working on a project and cut her finger and it was bad enough that she needed stitches. Luckily we had a doctor in the group. Wilfredo was in the clinic watching while Laura’s cut was cleaned and stitched up by the doctor. He must have been fascinated with the procedure because after they finished, Wilfredo looked at Laura and said, “that’s what I want to do.” Laura just smiled as she told me to start saving up for medical school.

I was surprised how much Wilfredo had grown since I had seen him just last July. He told me he had grown out of his shoes so Tony and I took him to town with us one day and bought him a new pair of shoes. One-on-one time with the kids is a rare treat. I loved taking Wilfredo into Urabamba, seeing Tony looking at shoes with Wilfredo and telling him to pick out whatever shoes he wanted, and afterwards, enjoying an ice cream cone in the plaza.

Did I mention what a great kid he is?

clothes for the children (natalie)

I love to open my email and see messages from people interested in helping our children. Our needs are miraculously met each month and we appreciate the generosity of so many.

The past few years we have had some generous donors send us enough money to buy new shoes for Christmas for all the kids and we had someone send money for shoes again this year. So our intern Alex will be able to take them shoe shopping. I recently received an email from our interns with a note that the kids asked for new belts and shoelaces for Christmas (what every kid wants right?).

One of our child's sponsors just emailed me and said they were sending a $50 check to buy toys for the children (in addition to their monthly sponsorship donation). When I asked if we could use their gift to buy belts and shoelaces, they replied "of course you can use the money for whatever you deem necessary." I never thought I would cry over belts and shoelaces, but today I did.

I also received an email from Marcia who is going down on our December expedition participants who is taking down THREE suitcases of clothing for our Sunflower kids. When Tony and I were at the Sunflower in November, we organized the clothing donations by size and gender. Then we brought each child in and asked them what they needed. The kids were modest in their requests - they would ask for a new pair of pants or a belt or new socks. Note the word "OR" - they rarely asked for pants AND a belt AND socks. I had to keep asking them "do you need new underwear?" "Do you have enough shirts?" One time the older girls (Nancy, Ninoska and Sonia) came in and brought Yudy and searched and searched for a new skirt and shirt for her. I love how these kids take care of each other.

Sadly, although we had a fair amount of donated clothing, I was unable to find clothes that fit all the kids. It broke my heart to tell Hilario that I didn't have a pair of pants for him. Wilfredo didn't complain at all when I didn't have dark socks that fit him. So when Marcia emailed me and said she was bringing hoodies and sweat pants and shirts I did a silent shout for joy while crossing my fingers that they will fit Hilario.
So many people have asked me for clothing sizes that I promised that I would post them on this blog...so here they are: They are in the following format: Name: Shirt Size / Waist in inches / waist to ground in inches / shoe size (they use the Euro size)

Adriel: Medium / 31" / 37" / 39

Almendra: 12 / 31" / 31" / 34

Carlos: 18 / 32" / 27" / 42

Christofer: 4 / 21" / 20" (no shoe size yet)

Darwin: 10 / 26" / 28" / 33

Dayana: 9 / 28" / 30" / 31

Edy: 9 / 27" / 27" / 32

Evelyn: 7 / 25" / 27" (no shoe size yet)

Francisco: 8 / 25" / 38" / 30

Gabriel: 4T / 23" / 23" / 29

Hilario: large / 29" / 32" 40

Hilda: 4T / 36" / 27" / 30

Jhoel Dos: 6 / 24" / 23" / 31

Joel Uno: 14 / 25" / 28" / 30

Lisbeth: 12 / 25" / 26" / 30

Maria Uno: 10 / 29" / 30" / 32

Maria Dos: 10 / 23" / 25" / no shoe size yet

Marisol: 12 / 28" / 28" / 31

Mayda: 6 / 26" / 28" / 31

Nancy: 12 / 32" / 32" / 35

Ninoska: small / 30" / 32" 35

Profeta: 8 / 28" / 23" / 30

Ronal: 10 / 26" / 31" / 35

Sila: 5 / 24" / 28" / 30

Sonia: Med / 31" / 31" / 34

Wilfredo: 12 (Med) / 30" / 36" / 38

Wini: 7 / 28" / 32" / 33

Yeison Cruz: 12 / 28" / 33" / 36

Yeison Dos: 10 / 29" / 34" / 37

Yeri: 6 / 23" / 22" / 30

Yosimar: 10 / 25" / 29" / 32

Yudi: 5 / 25" / 23" / 29

writing letters to our sponsors (natalie)

Today we wrote letters to our sponsors. I always bring a spreadsheet with the list of our kids and who their sponsors are so I know who each child should write to, but I’ve never shown this list to the kids until this trip. Once they understood what it was, they all wanted to see it. They poured over that list! They would search for their name, then find their sponsors name and then ask me questions. “Is Carol a woman or a man?” “Where do they live?” I’ve never seen them so animated and interested.

Since last week, they’ve been asking me when they were going to write letters to their sponsors. So today we wrote them. The kids were so cute! And their letters are thoughtful and colorful. Here are some photos of the kids writing the letters.

I also need to do a bit of explaining. We had a few kids without sponsors who felt sad when they saw a blank space next to their name. We also have a kids with a couple of sponsors and others with just one. And every child wanted to write one or two letters. In order to not hurt any of the children’s feelings, I shifted some of the sponsors around. So some sponsors may receive a letter from a child they don’t sponsor. I hope everyone is ok with this – I just did the best I could on the spur of the moment.

By the way, if anyone wants to send a Christmas card to any of our children - sponsor or not – you can send them to our office in Woods Cross, Utah. And if you want to send a small gift you can also send those. Please make it a modest gift as not every child will receive gifts from sponsors.



Thank you for caring for our children!!