We celebrated the Finca’s 30th anniversary party on Saturday, May 23rd, and it was SUCH an incredible day to celebrate a special, unique place that so many people love with their full hearts! The special day started at 10:00am with a BEAUTIFUL mass celebrated by Bishop Jenry Ruiz! Trust me, anytime that you can have a mass celebrated by Monseñor Jenry, IT IS A GREAT, GREAT, GREAT DAY!! I always leave a mass celebrated by Monseñor Jenry feeling on fire with the Holy Spirit, ready to love the mission, our kids, and everyone involved in our mission with my entire heart, and ready to depend on God’s grace each step of the way.
We then had a party from 12:00pm until 3:30pm with about 200 or 250 people total, which included the Farm USA Board of Directors, many former employees (including former tías and house parents), former missionaries, our local neighbors, and MANY former Finca kids that were returning to the Finca for the first time in many years (& some with families of their own!!). There were lots of speeches by Zulena and our executive leadership, a great meal with grilled chicken, organized dances from our Finca middle school and a local Garifuna dance group, and an open baile with our Finca kids! WHAT A PARTY!!!
As you can probably imagine, planning a party of that magnitude celebrating something that means so much to so many people required lots of coordination, dedication, sacrifice, and hard work by all of our employees and different departments. It required that every person put the well-being of the Finca over their own individual needs and desires for a party of this magnitude to be successful. & that is exactly what every single person did!! Our security guards came in early on the day of the party to help organize traffic, our maintenance staff worked overtime for the entire week trying to set up tents and chairs exactly how the party coordinators wanted it, our administrative team and Franciscan Sisters brilliantly executed a plan to feed a fantastic meal to that many people, and truly countless other examples show just how much work that was put into our anniversary party and why it was successful in the end.
As missionaries, we were responsible for hosting and cooking for many of our visitors that stayed a night or two in the Finca because they live further away than Trujillo or Tocoa. We ended up cooking every meal for between 20 to 30 people from Friday thru Sunday morning, and we had an extremely tired group of missionaries after mass on Sunday to say the very least. HOWEVER, IT WAS SO DANG WORTH IT!!! 2 of our former Finca children that were reintegrated with their family about a year ago after spending about 1.5 years at the Finca were able to come to the anniversary party, and they actually stayed two nights at the Finca because they live in a super rural village about 4-5 hours away from the Finca. It was one of the greatest blessings in the world to be able to spend time with those two girls again and to be able to spend such quality time with them in the missionary house and at the beach.
We also had many former tías, former Finca kids that arrived at the Finca shortly after the Finca opened in 1996, and lots of former missionaries/US board members eating with us in Casa Santa Teresita. Despite the crazy amounts of food that we had to prepare for everyone, the conversations and laughs shared around our enormous table in the cocina de Casa Santa Teresita made everything so worth it! God was SO, SO, SO present in all of the smiling faces, all of the hilarious stories about everyone’s unique times at the Finca, and the overall sense of community and family that everyone could feel. I have found myself reflecting in recent weeks on just how much the Finca means to so many people in this country and how much the Finca has impacted the lives of so many people. As I have said before, the Finca is one of the most magical places in the entire world!! It is certainly not a perfect place, and we improve poco a poco every single day how we love our kids and prepare them for life after the Finca. BUT DANG, WHAT A GIFT TO BE ABLE TO CALL THIS MY HOME FOR THE LAST 5 YEARS!
One of the most amazing parts of the anniversary party was seeing all of the former Finca kids come back as fulling functioning adults in society! WHAT A BEAUTIFUL SIGHT!! Many ex-residents from when the Finca first opened and in the mid 2000’s were able to come back for the party, and it was incredible to see them as hard working professionals with families of their own! They are now teachers, cooks, nurses, security guards, administrative workers, university students, and so much more, but they also are loving spouses and parents to some of the most beautiful kids in the world! It was such an amazing sight to be able to see them come back to the place that they called home for so many years and be grateful for what they Finca did in their lives and how it prepared them for this magical dance that we call “life”.
Despite a VERY, VERY, VERY tired group of missionaries in the missionary house, I am overcome with gratitude for the ability to be present during the 30th anniversary party this year! I truly wouldn’t change a thing because each moment was filled with God’s love, grace, and overwhelming presence! I am grateful every single day of my life to be able to live and work at the Finca del Niño, and I will continue to enjoy each and every moment in this mission (good and bad moments alike!), knowing that one day I will no longer have the privilege of calling this place my home. GOD IS SO GOOD!
Please pray for our summer volunteers, as they start their ministries this week!
Please let me know how I can pray for you!
God bless!