Child Sponsorship...102 Christmas Gifts!

Every year around this time we give out Christmas gifts to the kids in our sponsorship program. This year we had a problem with the store where we bought the gifts so we weren't able to give them out until after New Year's but the kids didn't seem to mind too much.

Johanna helped us wrap presents. We bought 79 Discman Players for the older kids in the program and other things for the smaller kids.

Marley wrapping... for the smaller kids we got soccer balls, inflatable row-boats, dolls and tea sets.

In 2007 we had 102 kids enrolled in the program.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We celebrated Christmas with our staff at our house. Several of our staff were away on vacation so we had a small group. I made lasagna...I know that's not a very typical meal for Christmas dinner but everybody seemed happy.

Left to Right: Anna (Sweden), Samy (Colombia), Me, Marley (Colombia), Karoline (Germany), Rebecca's (Karoline's sister visiting from Germany) and Blanca (Colombia).

Erika and her mom came too.

We spent New Year's with our neighbors who invited us over and then the next day we had our first visitors of the year: Franci Wunderlich (from USA) and Johanna Barrera (from Bogota). We used to work with Franci and Johanna's parents in Bogota in 1991, when we were first married. Johanna was just 2 years old then and I used to babysit her sometimes way back then!

We took Franci and Johanna out to Bocachica to see the ministry for the first time.

Our second house-guests of 2008 just left this morning.. our long time friends from Bogota, Cristo Manuel and Lucy with their three kids and two friends. We used to work with them in Bogota too, back in our newlywed days!

House-Warming Party

We had a Housewarming Party/Cook-Out to welcome all of our friends to our new place. There were about 50 people here, the majority of them were fellow-YWAMers... people that work with us here at YWAM-Cartagena. I was a little nervous about it because we only had chairs for 16 people and I wasn't sure where everybody would sit, but it all worked out in the end and I never felt like there were that many people here all at the same time. I got a little stressed because I had made a big tub full of potato salad and about an hour before we were going to put the food out I took it out to taste it (I had made it the day before) and it had gone bad!! I almost cried because I had the house FULL of people and I was afraid there wouldn't be enough food. Well, one of my friends, Monica, calmed me down...she said, "Karen, don't worry, the house is full of Colombians and Koreans, just make another pot of rice and everybody will be happy!" And she was right!!!!! The only problem was that I didn't have any more pots to cook in so I had to call around to some of my neighbors and I was finally able to get a couple more pots and so we made more rice and threw together a salad with what I had in my fridge and nobody ever knew the difference!

Jorge and Samy griling the meat.

Mary, Miguel and Martin. Miguel was our very first neighbor when we moved to Cartagena in 1997.



Newlyweds, Jimmy and Elizabeth. They work with the YWAM School of the Arts in Cartagena.

Mildred and Marley taking a break on the swings.

Martin and Rosita Morales with their kids Ana Melissa & Nathan and Rosita's parents from Bogota. Martin (from Spain/France) and Rosa lead the YWAM Street Kid's ministry in Cartagena.


Marley, Erika and Blanca, three of our faithful staff girls... I never would have made it without them that day... they helped me to cook and clean and get ready for this whole event!




Eduardo and Elizabeth will be moving to the city of Ibague (near Bogota) soon to open a new YWAM base there.


John and Monica Hwang lead the YWAM University ministry in Cartagena. Both are Koreans but John grew up in Brazil and Monica grew up in Argentina. Their three boys grew up in the USA but their whole family has been working in Cartagena for a little over a year now.

The Latest on Clinic Construction

In late November we did more construction on the roof for the clinic. In order to continue the next stage in the process we will have to wait until we are able to raise more fund$$$!

House Update

We spent the first month in our house doing a lot of work (scraping, painting, cleaning, etc...) and we finally got it to the point where we could at least unpack our suitcases and boxes and start moving in. We still have a lot to do...eventually we want to re-do the bathrooms and kitchen, put in new tile on the floors, install new windows, etc... but for now we will be taking a break. This is a long-term project so we have to just take it little by little and do things as time and finances allow!

We basically use our back porch as our living and dining room...it's a lot cooler out there!


I've always wanted to have a hammock in my living room! That's my favorite part!

Our bedroom. All the walls are bare... we are starting from scratch...again!

This is the living/dining room when you first come in the front door... we don't have much furniture yet... we'll get there eventually.