Casa Agua Azul is an orphanage on Lake Izabel in the Rio Dulce dedicated to raising Guatemalan children who have been abused and abandoned. They currently have 12 children in the home and hope to increase their numbers.
We loved our time at the house and with the children; they are incredibly happy and loving. We want to support the mission of this home in every way that we can. We hope that our video and testimony will touch your heart and encourage you to help us reach our audacious goal of $20,000.
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We think you should visit.
And we want to challenge you.
Yes you, we're talking about you.
And consider joining us.
And you'll never be the same.
Hello everyone.
Hey guys.
We are saying hello from the Rio Dulce in Guatemala.
As you know, we are spending hurricane season down here.
And we're going to take a one week break from our Bahamas videos
to bring you a really important message from Guatemala.
And it's probably the reason why we're in Rio Dulce, Guatemala.
I don't think we would have come here or even known about this place
had it not been for what we're getting ready to talk about.
A few years ago, our friends Ted and Gail
started an orphanage here in Guatemala on Lake Isabel.
The orphanage is called Casa Agua Azul.
And it's for children who have been abused and abandoned by their families.
Currently, they have 12 children
and they're hoping to bring more children into this amazing setting.
We had actually heard about this orphanage for many years from Ted and Gail.
And we were really excited when we made the decision
to come to Guatemala for hurricane season
because we knew we'd be able to visit.
And it's really been a life-changing experience to visit.
Yeah, I agree.
And we can't wait for you to see why.
So the beautiful thing about the house is it sits right on Lake Isabel.
And we were able to take our boat past the Castillo,
up the river, 35 nautical miles inland from the ocean.
It's pretty amazing.
The first visit, we just went to get a feel of what it was like.
Yeah, we had never been to an orphanage before.
And we were completely blown away.
The first thing you see is this gorgeous yellow home.
And it reaches up into the trees.
It's just a happy place.
I was thinking it was going to be something real institutional,
like very efficiently designed, concrete, kind of impersonal.
And I was expecting the kids to be rather dour.
You know, I mean, they don't have their families with them.
And they're growing up with people they didn't know before.
But boy, was I wrong.
It was completely the opposite.
The children were happy.
They had so much love to give.
I think we had a year's worth of hugs in a day.
And just had the best time with them.
Just spending time with them and enjoying them.
And they were an entire loving family, brothers and sisters.
Because of that love was there, an organization that's running so well.
That's a real positive.
It's a lot of fun when you're growing up.
Always somebody to play with.
And the grounds are absolutely stunning.
Green and lush, surrounded by fruit trees.
It's just an amazing place.
Yeah, it seems idealistic.
And the staff is amazing as well.
Jerry and Griselda are the ones who run the property and run the house.
But they have a lot of assistance from nannies and psychologists and social workers.
The children require a lot of care.
It's a big organization to run.
We thought we were there to entertain them.
Well, au contraire.
They were entertaining us.
The kids asked us to play football.
And they were beating the heck out of us.
They had the teams loaded.
They thought that we were good.
Well, I don't know.
I think they just wanted to beat us.
Yeah, and they did.
They were super competitive.
It was really hard to leave.
After spending the day with the children, it really was an amazing experience.
And we knew we would be back.
So that was something we could look forward to.
Our second visit was a two-day visit.
And this is where we went with our boat up to drop anchor right in front of the house.
And it was a selfish reason to go see the kids.
But there was another reason behind it too.
And that was to take video and drone footage for the annual fundraiser for the house.
We had a great time with the kids.
We were able to go into town with them and watch them play in their football match.
Which was really neat to see them in a very competitive situation.
But it was very cute to see them play and play their hearts out.
I love it.
It's the national sport here.
It's just great to see everybody enjoying that.
And then I never thought seesawing would be so much fun.
I just get on this with one of the kids.
And then before I know it, there's six other kids on the other side.
And they're pulling me up because naturally I'm so heavy.
Man, I'm glad that thing was made out of really strong tubular steel.
After the football game, you would think the kids would want to take a rest.
But we got back to the house and they were raring to go.
So we taught them how to play spikeball.
We brought them a spikeball game.
And those that weren't able to play spikeball, I taught them how to play left right center
and tenzi.
And we had a pretty competitive dice game.
I think you're winning the fun factor against me.
After the games and an afternoon lunch, we were able to walk through town.
And that was fascinating.
The orphanage is located right in the center of the community.
And one of the treats that the kids were able to get on this walk was a bottle of Pepsi.
The kids loved it.
It was a fun day with them.
We also had dinner out by the lakefront one night and had a bonfire.
And the kids were able to roast marshmallows, which was really fun.
We just had a great time with them the two days that we were there.
Boy, we were running to the ground though.
It was like 14 hour days.
We were so exhausted.
But shockingly, baby Daniel, Daniel's only three years old.
He was up the entire day.
The reason we want to tell you about Casa Agua Azul, first of all, is we think you should
visit because this is just an incredible place that will change your life.
And if you're a sailor, Rio Dulce makes such great sense to come down here during hurricane
season and you're going to have a lot of spare time on your hands.
So it's super easy to shoot over there.
And we also want to challenge you to consider joining us in this fundraising campaign.
We're going to, as a start, give what we earned from YouTube and Patreon this month
to this fundraising campaign.
And thank you in advance, Patreon supporters for donating to that.
We have 3,500 subscribers.
If every one of our subscribers gave just $6, we would meet our goal.
Our goal is $20,000 US dollars.
So we're asking you to join us in this journey.
There are three main projects that we're raising money for.
One is just the annual campaign for the house.
The Guatemalan government does not provide a lot of resources, but they do,
which is a good thing, provide a lot of rules.
Very high standards that they have to reach up to.
So somebody has to fill the gap.
The second project that we're raising money for is a 20,000 gallon cistern,
which is absolutely essential for the home to have clean water for the children.
And the third project that we are raising money for is to complete the mission house.
The mission house is a home that can be utilized
for visiting teams that come and work with the orphanage.
This place is ideal with the way the late breezes hit you and the view of the lake
and also the view of the mountain behind you.
It's absolutely stunning and peaceful.
Yeah.
The people that are going to stay there are people that are going to help the kids and the house.
Plus they're going to have people that are helping the surrounding community.
Perhaps it'll be ready so you can stay there.
So we're asking you to please be as generous as you can be.
The link for the donation is in our show notes.
If you give over $100 and your top three donors,
we're going to send you a blown away t-shirt.
How about that?
Nice. I love it.
Yeah. And you can see how beautiful they are.
You can even have a tank top.
Anyway, we want to say thank you so much for watching.
Please don't hesitate to be in touch with us.
And we hope that you will decide to come and visit Casa Agua Azul
because you'll never be the same after that.
We love you guys.
We love you.
Thank you so much.
