First Church
of Winsted

Serving Our Community Since 1778



DAY 1 & 2





Uneventful travel and New Shoes



Saturday was merely a travel day. Rain, one of our New Mexico team members, flew in from London, England. She arrived to Oaxaca at 8 am on Saturday morning. She stayed in a hotel room and caught up on her sleep and adjusted to the new time zone. The Connecticut delegation left BDL on a 5:30 am flight, and arrived into Oaxaca at 7 pm after making connections in Detroit and Mexico City. The rest of the New Mexico delegation left El Paso at 2 pm and arrived into Oaxaca at 10 pm. We thank God that everyone’s travel was uneventful. Departing from Mexico City, we got a great view of El Popo, an active volcano outside of Mexico City.





On Sunday morning, we had a leisurely breakfast and made a short visit to Monte Alban, a prehistoric city within the city of Oaxaca that was occupied by the Zapotec Indian tribe.





After a lunch at the archeological site that consisted of chicken tacos, tamales with mole, and quesadillas made with Oaxacan cheese, we made a quick trip to the home we are renting to pick up the sneakers we purchased for the residents of Casa Hogar.


After introductions, we presented each child with their new sneakers.





The residents are always gracious and quick to adapt to new friends. The rest of the afternoon was spent playing games and just spending time with each other.





At 5 years old, Soledad is the youngest resident and is a social butterfly. She even got JT to play with her!





Bob joined the kids in a game on Jenga.





Cat and Rain teamed up to play a board game with the kids.





The number of residents is much lower right now, but they managed to devour 7 pizzas from Sam’s Club. We bought a dozen so that there will be leftovers of a while. After dinner, everyone had an ice cream bar (vanilla covered with milk chocolate was by far the favorite).


We also scoped out our projects and made plans for the week with Mari, the new Director of Casa Hogar. She was the administrative assistant to Carol and Fran when we first arrived, went to work for a while at the Simply Smiles facility a little way out of town, and then returned again to Casa Hogar. She and Vicki are the 2 primary adults who care for all the residents.


The facilities look a bit different, but many of us remember Angel, Mirian, Vicente and some of the other residents from our prior visits, and the warm, loving spirit you feel when you are there hasn’t changed since our first visit over 18 years ago.





First Church of Winsted



95 N. Main St, Winsted, CT 06098