Introducing Jansel

My friend, Fior, had her baby yesterday! Jansel is a healthy baby boy at 7 lbs 15 oz and 21 inches long. I had the great opportunity of being able to see her at her house (yes, just a day after the birth and she's home) and doing a mini photo shoot. It was raining really hard and has been for several days so no nakey baby pics! boo....but when i come back in a month i'll take some of him just in his diaper. I love those! Enjoy!

Happy First Birthday, Daniel!

One of my good "mom" friends here, Carmen Dilia, asked me to take pictures of her son's first birthday. I also had the privilege a year ago today to photograph Daniel in the hospital. It's been so much fun to watch him grow up as he is about two months older than Landon and I get to see ahead of time what to look forward to next with Lando. It was also fun to be pregnant along with Carmen Dilia as she really helped me through those last few months of being really uncomfortable. She always was hopeful and gave me lots of advice for the last stretch of pregnancy. We had a great time at McDonalds and I was honored to be able to photograph the event. Here are just some quick pictures so you could see a little of what went on!

Daniel, just hours old

Daniel, one year old

Landon with his face painted, with Yajaira (pretty much my best friend here)

Landon and Daniel, so not interested in each other

He loved this balloon...

Tim and Zoey....Zoey with her Pirate hat :)

Daniel and his cake!

The moms with their babies (the baby on the right is only 3 months old!)

Catherine and Polon are engaged!

I had the unique opportunity to participate in another one of my passions with photography...portraiture. The first of our "international weddings" is coming up in May with Catherine and Polon getting married. It was so much fun to take their engagement photos this week and wish them all of God's blessings in their future together. Enjoy!

St. John United Methodist Church

St. John United Methodist Church was here this week doing construction and children's ministry. They were scheduled to do construction three days in Hato del Yaque but had to adjust their schedule a little bit and ended up working on one of our missionaries' new house being built. They did a couple months worth of work in just one day. It was amazing!

The work continues out at the church in Hato del Yaque. It has been such an incredible blessing to see the rapid progress the last couple months. There is tile on the floors and in the bathrooms, the entire outside of the building is almost painted and almost all the concrete work is done. It's so crazy. It is looking like a real church/feeding center. Plus the dorms are coming to completion as well. There are ceiling fans and running water as well as bunk beds going up. So fun!

The team also did work in Santa Lucia (La Mosca), Hoyo de Bartola (the Hole) and Los Perez. The kids were so excited to see them and to do some fun crafts and sing songs.

This group is especially fun because the parents of Will Partin (one of our staffers) were on this trip, as well as Will's sister, Lucy. It is so great to see family as it helps with missing your own family members by kind of living vicariously through others!!! This team is special too because they are really coming behind one of our National workers, Bienvo. They built a relationship with Bienvo on their trip last year and have really cultivated it again. Will, Audrey and several team members will be presenting information about Bienvo and the work he does here, to their church in Kentucky. Be praying that hearts will be opened and support starts flowing!

They had a wonderful trip and are an incredibly flexible group. Enjoy the show!