Summertime at Jovenes

Well now that summer is technically halfway over, I am well due a blog post about our busiest season. The past few years we have been so blessed to have more and more groups added to our list of annual visitors. It's refreshing to see people come back year after year who continually are blown away by our boys, our staff, and our campus.

poppy and I love futbol

Thus far we have received 13 groups since the last day in May, and during July we are expecting at least that many again. In the first week in June our four summer interns arrived, who coincidentally are all girls from Nashville, TN. These girls are here for June and July and mainly help with summer groups, working with our bilingual boys who are on summer break, and being extra hands when needed.

our interns most photogenic moment

The rainy season has also officially begun here. This means it is hot in the day, then the afternoon usually involves an intense downpour. Our roads get destroyed here during these months (June-September), meaning we drive at 5 mph to avoid ruining our NEW CARS (I'm still on cloud nine, y'all).

Bayron just taking a casual nap

This is one of my favorite, and busiest, times of year. Summer is full of both new and old faces, both of which are heartwarming to see. I love watching first time visitors fall in love with the boys, and it's nice to see encouraging faces who support our mission here enough to come back year after year.

Besides this being our busy season, we've been fully engulfed in the world cup. As most people know, soccer is everything here. Honduras making it to the world cup was EPIC, and even though we are already out - we cheered our hearts out for those three games. The boys are now mostly rooting for Brazil, Germany, and Holland.

learning about drip irrigation from Healing Hands Int'l

I personally was blessed getting to host two weekends of teenagers from my own youth group, Harpeth Hills. It was so nice to have people here who have watched me grow up in that same youth group and know they love and care for me and my mission here. We celebrated our June birthdays together, played some "chubby bunny", and obviously there was a lot of soccer.

hanging with Lenny girl - representing Harpeth Hills at JEC

I am looking forward to the month of July (my birthday month!), all our summer groups, the world cup finals, and my trip home in August to meet my new nephew (due August 29th!).

My how this boy has grown!

Thank you all for all your prayers and support! It's already been an amazing summer here again at Jovenes.