Please Note:  This post is updated weekly on Friday

This summer we had a blast at SonSurf Beach Bash VBS thanks to the over fifty wonderful volunteers who taught our children, prepared snacks and led us in singing, games, crafts and recreation. A very important component of VBS is always our mission project. This year our VBS mission project was to raise money for Gabriel House in Ensenada, Mexico. Our offering went to help buy diapers that many of the kids and young adults who live at Gabriel House need because of physical disabilities.

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During VBS, we learned about Gabriel House from our teens, college students and adults who have done mission work there. Thanks to them and to Hilary Holbrook for organizing our mission project and for sharing stories and pictures from her year as a missionary at Gabriel House. We learned that Gabriel House was started 18 years ago by Ted and Renie Favre, an American couple from California.

They were on a short term mission trip helping a local doctor provide medical care to people in Ensenada, Mexico when they met a boy with autism and seizures. His parents loved him but didn’t know how to take care of him. They were poor goat farmers and couldn’t afford any medical care for their son. Ted and Renie took Gabriel home with them at his parents’ request and Gabriel House began. Today there are 35 children with severe disabilities who call Gabriel House their home. They range from toddlers to young adults in their late

twenties. They come from homes of abuse, neglect, and malnourishment to a place of love and wonderful care. The children receive physical therapy, an education, medicine and much more.

Thanks to the VBS children for making a difference in the lives of the kids at Gabriel House. By helping them with their basic daily needs, you are reminding these kids that they are beautiful and wonderful because God made them and loves them.