Beautiful Day 2009

On Saturday, November 21st, all around San Jose a number of events went on called Beautiful Day. From the start of Beautiful Day we have always believed that our calling and purpose is to empower people to service and bless the very community that they live in through service, compassion, justice, and blessing.

http://www.ourbeautifulday.org/index.html

Here at Farm Drive, the city of San Jose provided 6 dumpsters with the goal of cleaning up the neighborhood but more in particular to allow the community to get rid of mattresses, furniture, couches, electronics, etc., items which are very hard to dispose of. Below is Patty and some of the kids helping with the cleanup. Gary also brought some friends from the Kiwanis club.

some of the 6 dumpsters that were provided:

Below you can see that we had lots of helps from the kids in the neighborhood. They in particular like to try and ride in the back of my truck!


Here is one of the dumpsters filled.

An area all cleaned up.
Afterwards, we had a barbecue for the entire neighborhood. We had hotdogs and hamburgers, chips and sodas. It was truly a beautiful day!

Followup to previous post

We ended up driving 4 neighbor girls to Hera’s funeral. It started late so we got to talk while waiting outside the church. The funeral itself was all in Spanish so it was hard to understand. It was sad and the whole thing felt so senseless. 20 year old young men should not be dying of shootings. Our girls were crying off and on. They knew Hera way better than I. There were a lot of people from the neighborhood there, even some older kids that have not been around at the Center for several years so it was great to see them and give them a hug. It was good to see and talk to Hera’s brothers and even his dad as well. I am sure as time passes the girls will open up more about their feelings. Today it was just a day to cry.

Tonite I was out in the neighborhood hanging with kids and got to talk more about what happened. It is all the buzz in the hood. We talked about how sad it was, how Hera’s family has lost so much, about gangs, choices, and more. One girl Ellie said she didn’t think she’d be able to sleep tonite.

So it was a hard day but in the end, a cool thing happened. All the Barajas kids walked down to our apt. and they invited Pete and I to their house to have cake and celebrate Maria’s birthday. It was mainly the family and a couple friends. We had a wonderful and fun time. Enclosed is a picture of Maria and her dad and as you can see Maria was all smiles. That was so good to see. Her mom Elizabeth died June 28^th, not even 5 months ago. So, God turned our sad day into a very happy day.

Thank you for your prayers. God is so good! Patty

Part of What We Do:

Here is a prayer request Patty sent out today - an example of how important it is to just being here:

This morning at 10am Gary and I are going to a funeral for a young man that used to live in the neighborhood. His family (7 kids) moved away around 2 years ago. 3 of the 6 kids (Jose, Junior and Victor) were involved at the Center. The funeral is for the oldest 20 year old son Hera who was shot and killed outside his house last Tuesday. Could be gang related, we don’t know. Hera had been in a lot of trouble in the past. He had just come from the Farm Drive neighborhood where he visited so a bunch of neighbor kids had just seen him so his death came as a shock.

Yesterday afternoon Pete and I drove 5 of our older neighborhood girls to Hera’s house where they had the rosary and Hera’s body. A very sad and hopeless sight. Lots of people there, all in black, crying and praying the rosary. The girls all got to see and touch Hera’s body. We got to see Hera’s 3 brothers that used to be involved at the Center and that was nice. The sad news is that Jose who was the oldest of those 3 has changed a lot and seems headed down a dangerous path, just like his older brother. A lot of anger there.

Pray today for Gary and I as we go to the funeral. We want to support the family and we want to be available to the kids that go to the funeral that live in the neighborhood now like those 5 girls that we took to Hera’s yesterday. Maybe we will have time to take them to lunch after. We know it is important to the kids to show them we care for Hera and his family. This has shaken up some of the older kids and it has opened up some great opportunities to talk about choices, gangs etc.

Thanks. Patty

Halloween week at Farm Drive

On Halloween morning at Bible Club the Junior High girls and Rosa and I decorated cupkakes and then we gave them to the older girls and all the leaders. We had a great time. This is Briseida, Jessica, Rosa and Angie.


This is Zareli who came over Halloween day in the afternoon to show us her vampire costume. She lives right across the driveway from us.


Halloween night we had a party and opened the Center. We bbq'd hamburgers and hotdogs and then played and later we made s'mores out on the patio on the fire pit. A fun night. Kids came in and out all night and we got to see lots of fun costumes. This is the view from our apt. balcony.


Making s'mores and enjoying the fire with neighbors

The week of Halloween we took the younger kids to a pumpkin patch. They played on bounce houses and got a pumpkin to take home. This slide was a favorite! Samantha and Alexis sure seemed to think so.

A bunch of kids showing their pumpkins.

Rich and Samantha, Briseida nd Eveline

One other night we took the older kids to a corn maze. The corn was so high! We all had a blast getting lost in the maze. Here we are getting our wristbands.

A typical scene in the maze. Which way to go? The sunset was beautiful that night.

The kids got to feed this cow. What a great week of being with the kids. And that's what it is all about.