Our Story

Our beginning, cont…

Some years later, we heard of a family that had lost their father. The mother was a waitress with three children to take care of. She asked her brother if she could come and live with him and his family at his place, because she could not afford to pay the rent. So she moved in. At the time, he was already living with another sibling because they could not afford to pay rent for their house either. We decided to visit this family to assess their needs and to support with education for her children. When we visited this family, we found out that three families lived together in a small, three bedroom shanty house (under 700 sq. ft. area). The maternal grandmother also lived with them, for a total of 11 children and 6 adults. Our hearts sunk. What were we going to do to assist all children with education? We could only take care of so many, but not all. So, we started to pray and see who would partner with us to assist them all.

In Guatemala, public education is mostly not available in many areas. The majority of children attend private school.  Private schools range from inexpensive (about $25 a month) to very expensive and competitive.  It is hard to find an inexpensive private school that delivers adequate instruction. After doing some research, we found one that fit the need of all secondary school children.  Since public education was available for the primary grades (even if it is not what we wanted), we decided to leave the elementary students in public education and registered the middle and high school children in a private school.  Each student’s tuition ranges from $28 - $38 monthly. Also, at the beginning of the school year (January-October), we pay for registration fees, school supplies, backpacks, uniforms, and shoes.

Back to the families in need, we were told of another family where the father witnessed a crime. An attempt was made on his life. The entire family had to flee and hide in a family house garage. They were all living there and daughter needed to attend school and receive mental health assistance. Both parents are looking for work and the dad sometimes gets to do a job here and there, but they have no money for education and sometimes neither for food. They have a 12 year old daughter that was not going to attend school because they could not afford it. When we visited them, we saw first-hand the need this poor girl had. She is a very smart young lady and she just wanted the opportunity to go to school. We ended up “adopting” her as well.

Through the family of this girl, we met another young woman. Her mother is a single mom. She has her grandmother living in the house as well. She is a very bright girl that wanted to finish her vocational career in high school and start working to help her mom and grandmother. She was born as the result of rape. Her mother chose to keep the baby, even though she could not afford it. We offered to help her as well through her high school years. She graduated last November and now she has a good job. She is now helping her mom and grandmother and attending college.

These and a couple of other stories have ignited our desire to help as many families as we can. However, we can’t do it without your support. Our goal is to find sponsors that would like to support one of these children and pay for their education and expenses for school. We hope to reach people that share our same commitment and heart to help in the education of children. It’s our firm belief that if we help these children to learn a trade or a skill, they in turn will help their own families (and future family) to live a better life. We are giving them a fishing rod and teaching them how to fish instead of just giving them a fish when they are hungry.