One of our sponsored students Kenia, with the Semana Santa (Easter) Basket we sent for her family. That smile is worth a million dollars!! Thank you to Mayan Families and Mayan Families Connections for making donating to our daughters native country easy, keeping us connected and providing us with wonderful photo's like this one. They let us know that our donations really do go to the people they are intended for. Thanks Again!

4 or 5 of us Guatemalan Adoptive Families provided the funds for an Easter Celebration for the children of the pre-school that we pay the teachers salary for. We have sort of gone from paying the teachers salary to providing these children with some of the things we think would be fun for them. Here are some pictures from their Easter Celebration and a description from Sharon of Mayan Families who organized the event for us.
Could these kids be any cuter?? I don't think so!!

I still haven't done a good job of updating our blog, but hopefully I will succeed at fullfilling my promise and keep in touch on a more regular basis.
I think I will post some photo's and then explain what is happening in them. That will probably explain what's been happening around here. I think I will start with the most recent photo's and work my way backwards with a little commentary in between.



Flora has been going to sleep exactly at 7pm lately. It's like a little switch goes off at 6:55pm she is a jazzed up toddler looking for trouble, giving kisses and playing with dolls, then comes 7:05 and the monster also known as Flora is born, so I put Flora down exactly at 7:00pm tonight and she was out like a light. Maria and I decided that we would make a trip to the grocery store to stock up on a few bargains that were only good on Friday the 13th so we left Daddy to do whatever it is that Daddy does when we are gone and headed off to Hy-Vee. After we returned home it was easy for me to get Maria to put on her PJ's because I had purchased some Cinderella snack cakes and one mention of, "If you put on your PJ's like a big girl, Mama will get you a Cinderella treat", did the trick. After the PJ's were on Maria decided that she wanted to do her hair. I asked if I could help her and of course I was told emphatically, No! So..here is Maria's hair that she did all by herself, a couple of clips and a headband. She was very proud of herself. After she was finished with her hair she decided she wanted to do my hair. She had a brush, a hairband and a couple of clips. I did my best not to wince as she yanked on my hair and declared that it was beautiful and that it looked just like Cinderella's. She must have brushed, and combed and tangled the hair band in it for 45 minutes. At one point, she said...Mama...it's stuck! Yep, it was stuck...I had to yank the hairband out of my hair. One of the most vivid memories I have of my childhood is brushing my mother's hair. I remember standing behind her brushing and combing and putting curlers in her hair. I also remember on at least one occasion twirling the comb in her hair and getting the hair so twisted around the comb that she had to cut it out. Sorry Mom!!


Maria, Flora, David and I went to Bob the Builder on Wednesday evening. It was fun. The girls liked the lights, action and the singing. The show was fine...they are all about the same. It was kind of funny...as we were walking in there were signs that said, No Outside Food...so we're walking in and I grab in my purse and pull out the tickets and give them to the usher, at that precise moment, Flora goes into my purse and pulls out a bag of Fruit Loops...the usher looks at me with a very scornful face and says...No Outside Food...I reply...Oh, those are in there from a week ago...we won't eat them in the show. Yeah...Right!! A few minutes later we were comfortably in our seats when the same usher walks by as Flora is holding the bag of Fruit Loops and a chunk of string cheese...if looks could kill I would never be allowed in the Washington Pavillion again, but also that usher and her management have never sat and waited for a show to start for a half an hour with a 3 year old and an almost 2 year old....if so they would say...oh honey, I know exactly what you are going through, if it takes a bag of Fruit Loops and a couple of hunks of string cheese to make sure these two don't scream their heads off, then you go right ahead. Ahhh...I can dream!

Love is the universal language
Adoptive mother forms a group to help others in daughter's native country

Cheri Peluso-Verdend co-founded an organization to help Mayan families. She and her husband, Gary, are the adoptive parents of 2-year-old Eliana, from Guatemala. SHERRY BROWN/Tulsa World
By MATT GLEASON World Scene Writer
Published: 1/18/2009 2:21 AM
Last Modified: 1/18/2009 2:25 AM

A boy so loved his gray canvas sneakers, he feared someone might steal them. So the Guatemalan child, who was maybe 7 years old, never took them off — not even to sleep or bathe. Eventually, though, his beloved shoes lost their laces and split at the sides as they gave way to the boy's ever-growing feet.

Then a Tulsa mother, Cheri Peluso-Verdend, visited Panajachel, which is something of a tourist town in the highlands of Guatemala. The boy didn't live there. Rather, he lived in the mountains overlooking all those tourists.

In December, Cheri joined 25 other volunteers on a Helping Mayan Families service trip. Most of the volunteers, like Cheri, had adopted Guatemalan children and wanted to give back to the impoverished country. They came from around the country to offer everything from medical and veterinary care to Christmas gifts and tamale dinners.

More importantly — at least for a little boy in dirty sneakers — all those volunteers brought him a new pair of shoes. Cheri, who co-founded the organization, watched as another volunteer sliced off the boy's old sneakers.

"His feet had grown into the shoes," Cheri recalled of the heartbreaking scene that wet her eyes. "He hadn't taken those shoes off in so long that we cut the shoes off. Then we couldn't hardly get new shoes on him, because his feet were so overly sensitive. He couldn't walk. It was just traumatic. We all cried. I couldn't believe it."


Adopting Eliana


Nor could Cheri believe this poignant scene: It unfolded as a mother and her children picked up their tamale-dinner basket, which had all the fixings for a family of 12.

"The kids were wanting to get into it right then, but it was for Christmas," Cheri explained. "The mother was scolding them, 'No, this is for Christmas.'

"I don't speak enough Spanish to understand, but the translator explained to me afterwards that the reason the kids wanted in the food was they hadn't had a meal in two days. I wasn't really prepared for that level of poverty. The basic food, shelter, clothes are like gold to them."

If not for Cheri and her husband, Gary, their 2-year-old adopted daughter, Eliana, could have been one of Guatemala's hungry children.

Cheri met her 10-day-old daughter in a Guatemala City hotel room. It was September 2006. If everything had gone as planned, Cheri would foster Eliana for a few months in-country, then bring her home to Tulsa. However, a snag in the adoption left Cheri and Eliana in Antigua, Guatemala, for 16 months. Cheri, a computer Web site programmer, could work from a laptop — but she could only see her husband about once a month.

Then Guatemala ended adoptions from the U.S., which left Cheri fearing knocks on her apartment door. After all, it was an "extremely high chance" the government could take Eliana.

No one knocked, though. Mother and daughter made it home together.


Back to Guatemala


Once in Tulsa, Cheri — who hadn't driven a car in 16 months — remembered how Guatemala changed her perspective on life.

"It just seemed like we have so much stuff," she said, "just unnecessary stuff, and everybody lives in their own little bubble."

Cheri stayed in that bubble for three months. Then a telephone call came from Trisha Downing, another Guatemala adoptive mother. Downing wanted to know if Cheri would accompany her on a weeklong trip back to Guatemala to deliver Christmas presents and supplies.

"Absolutely not," Cheri thought to herself, but six months later, she was ready. As word spread of their trip, largely via the Web site Cheri built, other volunteers signed on. They cut it off at 25 people, although four more eked in. They turned away at least 20 to 25 other volunteers.

By December, Helping Mayan Families had raised just a few hundred dollars short of $70,000 in supplies and donations.

"We could not believe it," Cheri said. "We thought, 'Oh, if we go down there with $1,000 or $2,000 that would be great.' "


A night of extremes


After a week in Panajachel, where a little boy got new shoes — and thousands were served — Cheri and about a dozen other volunteers set off from Panajachel to Antigua. They wanted to celebrate.

But once the van crossed into Antigua, all the emotions of Cheri's 16-month ordeal in Antigua swarmed her.

"Just all of the extremes, both on the positive and the negative, all just hit me. We pulled in, and I just started sobbing."

Instead of a celebration, Cheri got a hotel room, where she "lived through the emotions of that night" all by herself.

Still, old memories won't keep Cheri from returning to Guatemala. There are too many children without food in their stomachs and new shoes on their feet.


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Matt Gleason 581-8473
matt.gleason@tulsaworld.com


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Helping hands
Highlights of the recent excursion by the Helping Mayan Families group:

400 patients received medical care

88 pet spay/neutering surgeries

1,000 tamale baskets packed and distributed

25 orphans received shoes, a Christmas gift and party

850 school children received a Christmas gift and party

13,413 people and animals served



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How to help
To join Helping Mayan Families’ summer or winter trip to Guatemala, please visit tulsaworld. com/hmfcontact.

To learn more about Helping Mayan Families, visit tulsaworld.com/helpingmayanfamilies.

To learn more about Mayan Families, the group that inspired Helping Mayan Families, visit tulsaworld. com/mayanfamilies.