I thought that we should retrace our steps a bit and recap the last several months. Per usual, it's been a very full and wonderful season. In September, we had an awesome group that visited us from Emmanuel Christian Center in Minnesota. They worked really hard, but knew how to play hard too. They built an aqauponics system (to grow fish and vegetables together), helped us finish our community kitchen, and brought some fun crafts to do with the kids. We really enjoyed our time with these guys!
The holidays were a special time here. We utilized our fantastic new kitchen facilities to make the traditional Christmas fare: tamales. It was an incredible feast! And of course, the kids were pretty excited about their presents too. (Thanks to all the sponsors who sent a little something extra for their kids!) Thanks to our donors, our Christmas Gift Catalog was a success! With the gifts given we're now purchasing 4 more dairy cows and we're able to continue teaching English and computers for our village school. Others helped us towards the purchase of our solar project and our bus.
So far this year we've prepared to homeschool our kids on-site (that's for another post) and we've installed our solar electric system. We just received the final components for the solar project and as soon as they're installed, we'll be ready to flip the on-switch. This is such a HUGE step for our long-term sustainability! In our years in Honduras, this is how we've moved a crowd: While riding in the back of at truck is a great way to view the mountain scenery here, it's also a great way to get covered in dust or soaked to the bone, depending on the weather. It's also not the safest mode of transportation, especially for young kids. And we move kids around here: We currently have 25 kids and teens that live on our property. On Friday nights for our Youth Group we'll have 60 young people try to squeeze into the trucks like you can see above, and that's just from one village! It's time to buy our bus! Yesterday Jason and our two house-dads, Wil and Oscar, traveled to view a bus. They feel that it's perfect for our needs. The size is right , the price is right, and it's in great condition. We're excited! This has been a long time coming. We feel overwhelmingly blessed. Thanks to some generous donors, we raised over $3000 for the bus in one day! Now we can purchase the bus outright and do the little tweaks it needs to work just right for us. We want to say thanks to those who passed along the message about our goal and an even bigger thanks for those who gave. Thanks for believing in our work!
Since we started GiveHope2Kids, we have had some great volunteers walk these paths, teach classes, play with kids, and just in general get the job done. We always hope and pray that the time they spend here leaves an imprint on their worldview and changes their lives for the better. The hard part with volunteers is saying good-bye, parting ways, and not knowing when our paths will cross again. We've just had to say good-bye again. In the month of August, we had two volunteer families head off to the next adventure. But even in seeing them leave, we are excited for their futures and what God will do through them. They are headed out with the long-term goal of launching more homes for orphaned and abandoned children! It is humbling and exciting to see God use our imperfect selves to help plant other Children's Homes. Both of these families saw GiveHope2Kids as their training ground, so we can pass on the model of a family-style and community-focused Children's Home. To the Johnsons and the Bakers, we want to say thank you for the time you served here. We want you to know that we are praying God's fullest blessings upon you as follow his path for your lives. Kelvin & Monica Johnson served with us for 2 1/2 years and you can now find them in Ecuador. Jacob & Cynthia Baker volunteered here for just over a year. Their family will soon be headed to India. People often ask us why there are so many orphaned and abandoned kids in Honduras, so I'm writing a series of articles to answer that question. I write this from our 8 years of experience in working with students, abandoned kids, the Honduran social services, and many other non-profit organizations in Honduras. While we will keep our kid's histories private, these are the types of stories they could tell. -- Sarah Furrow Stolen GirlsWe live in the country of Honduras, where girls can be stolen.
In Spanish they use the verb robar, to rob or steal. Where we live, people use this word to describe a few different relational contexts. 1) Getting Married – If young people don’t have money for a wedding (meaning that they can’t afford to feed the whole village a nice meal), then they might choose to get “married” unofficially. This is how most of the previous generation got married. They would generally have their parent’s consent. The guy would come get the girl in the night sometime and then they’d be considered married. 2) Eloping – Sometimes without parental consent a girl will be stolen in the night. The girl is choosing to run away and live with a guy. Maybe it’s a secret relationship with the boy down the street. Or, maybe it’s a married guy in his 50s (or older) that’s promised a better life to a girl (we’ve seen as young as 11). 3) Kidnapping – And then there’s kidnapping. Men do it as revenge between feuding families or because they think (know) they can live beyond the law. Thankfully this isn’t commonplace anymore, but it does still happen. The first two methods of “marriage” are the norm here and often just what’s expected. Girls often don’t see any other choice for their lives, so they settle for these (usually) short-term relationships. Some of these “marriages” work, but generally it seems that they’re over in a few months or a couple years. The girls are normally left with a kid or two and no way to support themselves, since they probably never finished their education and live in a country with an unemployment rate of about 30%. They often move home with their parents until they find a new relationship. And often the new relationship isn’t interested in the kids from the last one, thus more “orphans.” There’s not much hope in this system. So, how are we offering hope? We’re helping to educate kids from our community and teaching them skills like English and computers so they’re more employable. We’re encouraging kids to stay in school (and not get “married” so young), and giving some young people work so they can pay for their school fees. In our Friday Youth Group, we’re teaching about good marriages and how to break out of negative family cycles. And we’re providing a solid family and home for some of these orphaned and abandoned kids in our Children’s Home. We hope and pray that God will use our efforts to help change a generation! Part 1: Teenage Moms We had a very busy summer with four different groups that came to serve here at GiveHope2Kids. It was a summer of reconnecting with good friends, as all were repeat groups for us, full of familiar faces. Each and every team worked hard and were a joy to host. To start out in June, and just 10 days after the birth of Micah, we hosted a group from Destiny in Alabama. This team helped us build wooden tables, benches, and a couch for each of the kid's homes. They also painted and moved fill dirt into our Community Kitchen. One of the most special moments from this week was watching this team teach some woodworking skills to our kids. Then we hosted a team from Cloverhill in Virginia. They tackled organizing, painting, and more with a lot of energy. They got the very "down to earth" experience of building a mud oven for our Community Kitchen and they took time to do some leadership training for our house-parents. We planned our bridge project around a group from Cornerstone in Virginia. They brought lots of young, eager workers who helped dig, move rocks, paint cables, and more. It was a BIG project that week and really made the difference to have so many hands. Our last group of the summer was from Lancaster, in Northern Minnesota. They mixed a LOT of cement by hand to help us pour the floor in the Community Kitchen. This group also did some organizing projects and helped us with fun activities for our kids. We want to say a big THANKS to everyone who came to serve at GiveHope2Kids. We enjoyed having you and appreciate the sacrifice you made to come and work. The bridge project was completely finished this week, and just after it was done we started to get our first big rains of the year. This bridge is going to be a huge blessing! Many thanks to the Sowers family and their expertise in these projects and the youth of Cornerstone Assembly of God for making this project possible.
And this friends, is the third little Furrow living in Honduras, Baby Micah. He was born in La Ceiba on May 20th and we're really enjoying this addition to our family. He's the cute and lovable reason that this blog has been so quiet in the past few months.
Here's a recent family photo of our Furrow family: -- from Volunteer Leah SuttonWhen I started this grand adventure May 31, 2013, I never knew how much of an impact it would have on my life. I went from not knowing about my future to being almost one hundred percent sure. I give all my thanks to God and to the wonderful opportunity I have had here at Give Hope 2 Kids. Before this year I have never been involved in missions. I have always had a heart for mission work, but have never listened. This year has made me realize how much I want and need to be involved in mission work. When I get home I plan on becoming more involved in missions with my church. I am really looking forward to this. Give Hope 2 Kids is my family. I have multiple moms, dads, brothers, and sisters. I have witnessed some amazing parenting from all of our wonderful house parents. They all have so much love and patience for all of the children here. One of the things that I really love is how the kids call their house parents mom and dad. They have made a huge impact in their lives. I have also had the privilege of being friends with some fantastic young men and women. It makes me so happy to see the young teenagers and adults take on leadership roles in the church. I love attending church and seeing them praise God with song, speech, instruments, and dance. I know that God has huge plans for all of them. This year I have been able to work with two little boys in particular who have special needs. They have made tremendous progress and continue surprising us with their new abilities. Even though I was teaching them, they were the ones that changed my life. I always knew that I wanted to work with special needs children. These two little boys have made me realize that I want to go back to school to earn my masters in special education and start a non-profit preschool for special needs children. The idea of the center is to prepare the special needs preschooler for kindergarten. This is a very big dream, but I know this is God’s plan for me. I thank God every day for what he has done and what he will do. Big dreams are possible. This brings me to my last paragraph. It’s taken me a while to write this because I know I will be leaving soon. It’s hard to believe that I will going home April 6th. I have had several people ask me if I am ready to leave. The answer is always no and yes. No, I’m not ready to leave everybody and my work here. Yes, I’m ready to turn a page in my life. Honduras has been one of the best chapters in my life and it will never end. I may be going away now, but I will always come back. My heart will always be in Honduras and with Give Hope 2 Kids. People often ask us why there are so many orphaned and abandoned kids in Honduras, so I'm writing a series of articles to answer that question. I write this from our 8 years of experience in working with students, abandoned kids, the Honduran social services, and many other non-profit organizations in Honduras. While we will keep our kid's histories private, these are the types of stories they could tell. -- Sarah Furrow Teenage MomsYoung teenage moms are commonplace in Honduras. Statistics from a major hospital here record that the average first pregnancy is at 15-years-old.
I could probably write all day on our observations of and experiences with teenage moms here, but I’ll try to simplify it into a few main points:
Teenage moms often can’t support a baby, financially or emotionally. Moms sometimes abandon their kids in an effort to "start over" in life when they feel they've run out of options. In our years in Honduras we've seen this story repeated over and over. So many girls we know have gotten pregnant young and stopped short their dreams of an education and career. Unfortunately, they don't believe that they have any other options in life. Part of our job here is to encourage girls and help them set goals for their futures. We tell them to wait for marriage until they're older and educated, and tell them that they're worth waiting for. We are teaching young people how to have healthy marriages and good parenting skills. Hopefully we can encourage positive change, for a better future for Honduras and it's young people. |
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