Dear Friends and Family,
Most of you know that we have had the opportunity to visit Nuevo Laredo, Mexico several times over the last seven years. Our work there has been focused on Casa Hogar Elim Orphanage and the colonia’s outside of Nuevo Laredo. The colonia’s are very poor “neighborhoods”. The houses are built of anything a family can find such as discarded pallets, tin or wood. The colonia’s have no running water, electricity or plumbing and as you can imagine, they are not very secure from the elements.
On our visit last Christmas, the weather turned quite cold. We saw first hand how inadequate the houses in the colonia’s are to keep these families warm. We soon realized that not only was their shelter inadequate but many did not even own a blanket. It broke our hearts to think of these families, from babies to senior adults, having no way to keep warm.
As a group, we decided that our goal for 2009 would be to provide blankets to these colonia’s. It is our prayer that we can distribute 1000 blankets this Christmas. We are working with The Emerald Coast Fellowship of Baptist Churches to get the word out in the local area about this need. Additionally, we are working with two out of town churches, one in Ponchatoula, La and the other in Saraland, Al on this mission project. We believe that with God’s help we can reach or surpass this goal. However, we cannot do it alone. We are asking for help from our friends and family. The cost of a heavyweight blanket is approximately $11. We are working with a vendor who will ship them directly to Laredo, Tx and we will bring them across the border for distribution.
If you would like to help us meet our goal of purchasing 1000 blankets you can do so by donating $11 or any dollar amount you would like to give. 100% of what you give will be used to purchase blankets. Click the big blanket here on our blog or on our website.
If you prefer to pay via check, all checks should be made payable to Give Me Shelter Ministries (GMSM) and mailed to GMSM P.O. Box 864, Shalimar, Fl 32579. Please notate “blankets for Mexico” on the memo line of your check.
We need to place our order for the blankets by early November so if you would like to help us, please send your donations no later than October 31, 2009. All donations are tax deductible.
Please check out Give Me Shelter Ministries website at www.givemeshelterministries.org for more information and details about our planned end of the year mission trips to Mexico and Haiti. As always, we thank you for your continued support of our mission work in Mexico.
Kenny Phillips founder/director
Give Me Shelter Ministries, Inc.
850-496-7398
