You may remember that last year we built the Activity Center. One of our main reasons was to create a space for our future Children's Ministry. We've lived in Urraco for the past three years. As we've taught classes, opened the Library to the community, and simply developed friendships with people, we've seen those relationships deepen and grow in trust. One fantastic example of this, is that at our recent community movie and game night we had more than one hundred and ten people come and participate, from our village of five hundred!
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During our time living and working in Honduras we've seen how much education changes lives for the better. Without education, people have few options in life and often end up trapped in poverty. There are almost no jobs where we live and if people move to the city without resources they often end up in the roughest neighborhoods with drugs and gangs. But education changes things. We know kids that are in medical school that come from families where the parents only went part way through grade school. We really believe that education means more options and opportunity for a better life.
Ronald is a student that's lived with us for close to a year-and-a-half now. As an older student (he's a 23-year-old 12th grader) he's had to fight to stay in school. When he lived with his family, they expected him to be up at 4am to help with the cattle and then he worked for us after school to pay for all his school and living expenses. Ronald was thinking of dropping out of school until we offered him a place to live. He still works after school, but now he has the time he needs to study and he's looking forward to graduating from high school this November.
We are passionate about continuing to invest in the education of young lives, to give them a future with greater possibilities. We want to say our thanks to so many of you who enable us to be a blessing to these young people.
Also this year, we finished our Activity Center, bought cows, bought sheep, and bought beehives. In our REWIND we also talk about our plans to start a Children's ministry for young people in surrounding villages. We've got lots going on. Thanks for helping us be here and make a difference in the lives of vulnerable young people. Click below to visit the site.
Several months ago when Jason's Father, Paul Furrow, came to visit, he spent time up at the elementary school while Jason was teaching English classes. He got it in his heart to help put new roofs on two of the buildings there. We teach our English classes in the assembly hall of the school and the roof on that building was getting dangerous. Many of the wood rafters had termite damage or were rotted and part of the roof actually had several inches of plant life growing on it. It was time for it to be fixed.
So far Jason has taught some of the computer basics to the older elementary grades at school and then invited them to come for a special training session at our library. We had the computer teacher from Instituto El Rey, Dennis, come and teach the kids. Dennis is from Urraco, so it was really neat for him to be able to help the kids growing up behind him. We had about 30 kids and a few adults show up to learn, starting from the very beginning with how to move a mouse. Our library attendance has been booming since the playground opened. We are now averaging about 30 kids on library days. They come about an hour early to go swimming in our creek and to play on the playground. Then we bring everyone inside for reading time, puzzles, and arts and crafts, before releasing them to the playground again at the end of the afternoon. The crowd of kids then walk home together before it gets dark.
This is a quick video that a short-term missions group from Seacoast Church in South Carolina made after their time with us. It shows our English classes, library, and other ways that we reach out to these kids.
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