Answering The Call | August 2014

R e p o r t s

f r o m

t h e

f i e l d

August 2014

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ON THE COVER: Abner, 3, cries from hunger; his face chapped from the cold and wind.

ABOVE: Maria will soon start the fire to heat some old tortillas for her grandchildren.

The children, Maria struggles to provide for her five grandchildren, but it’s not enough. birth ages 3 to 13, were orphaned when their mother died three years ago in child they have with Abner, and their father abandoned them soon thereafter. Since then lands of lived with their grandmother in a tin and plastic tarp shack in the rural high Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.

The family’s makeshift shelter doesn’t provide any protection from intruders or animals, which can easily wander in through the torn plastic covering that serves as a door. This scares the children, especially 7-year-old Wilson.

“I am afraid of rain and it gets cold. Lizards sometimes come in and dogs come in. A lot of worms come in too,” he said.

Wilson and his siblings are always hungry. Some days, they only have one or two small corn tortillas and boiled water to share between all of them. “Sometimes we eat, sometimes we don’t,” Maria said. With little food to give her hungry grandchildren, they must either beg from neighbors or go to a dangerous garbage dump. “Sometimes the kids beg, but often they get nothing. Everything else we get is from the garbage dump,” Maria said.

Maria loads little 3-year-old Abner onto her back, and all of them set off in search of food at the garbage dump, which is a 3-hour round-trip walk.

“We try to grab scraps to eat at the dump.

We need to go. Sometimes I find old bread and I give it to them. Sometimes I will find some discarded beans or some rice,” Maria said.

Abner is sheltered in his grandmother’s papoose.

“ I have to go to the dump to find food. I get headaches when I am hungry...“ Wilson, 7

“But You do see; You do observe this misery and sorrow; You take the matter in hand. To You the helpless can entrust their cause; You are the defender of orphans.”

(Psalm 10:14)

Wilson (right) and his brother Christian wait patiently to eat what might be their only meal of the day.

Their days are filled with trying to stay warm and scavenging for food to eat. Sometimes, Maria tries to collect firewood for a little income. A neighbor will watch 6-year-old Christian while Maria and her three older grandchildren set out to try to find firewood to sell. It’s a long, arduous trek for them, especially for Wilson. “It is difficult to get firewood,” Wilson said.

An open fire smolders frequently in their tiny hut for warmth and cooking, stoked with old, spent corn husks. Maria tries to keep it going while also keeping a watchful eye on Abner, who has more than once burned himself playing near it.

The children are often sick from breathing in the acrid smoke, and the cold and wind chaps their faces. Abner suffers the most. “They get the flu and are constantly coughing,” Maria said.

With only a strong faith to sustain her, Maria prays often with the children. “We are very sad, and so we ask God. The children pray with me, they cry with me, and we all get sad, and we cry loudly and pray,” Maria said.

When our team met with Maria, she got down on her knees and started pouring her heart out to God, saying:

“Hail Mary! God, you are Father. Help me God. Dear God, God, my dear God. Almighty Father, save us God. Watch over my children, so nothing happens to them, so they don’t get sick. You are with us. You are always with us. This I know.

Watch over us, protect us. Amen.”

Although very young, Wilson knows what he wants to do when he grows up. “I want to go to school to study mathematics.

I want to be a firefighter. I want to save people,” he said.

Your generosity can provide a hope-filled future for Wilson and many other children like him. You can give poor children life’s most basic necessities, like a safe home to grow up in, nourishing food, clothes to keep warm, and an opportunity to go to school.

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—— About Guatemala—— - Inadequate ventilation because of cooking on an open fire inside their house is a major driver of death and disease, particularly for Guatemalan women and children who tend to spend more time around open fires.

- It is estimated that every year, 1,200 Guatemalan children under 5 die of pneumonia resulting from solid fuel use (e.g. burning firewood indoors). (World Health Organization) - The chronic under-nutrition rate for children in Guatemala under 5 is 49.8%, the fourth highest in the world. (World Food Programme)

Maria is a loving, tender grandmother, but the children miss their mother terribly and remember the loving little things she once did for them.

“I miss my mom… she used to comb my hair. I remember my mom and I feel happy…” 13-year-old Josylyn said.

Sadly, the one memory of his mother that Wilson cherishes is when she got him a ball to play with, but then it was stolen. “I remember my mom bought me a ball and then someone stole it,” he said. “I have never had toys. I would like a toy car. Sometimes I ask Jesus for a toy,” he said softly.

You can view more pictures and learn more about Wilson and his family by visiting

www.FoodForThePoor.org/notes

Page 3

Page 4 It hurts Jorbin’s mother, Aracely, to know that her children are stuck in the same poverty she has endured her whole life.

While other children are in school, 6-year-old Jorbin is trekking down a steep mountainside in Nicaragua to fetch water. He makes the difficult trip at sunrise, and then again in the afternoon heat.

Jorbin huffs and puffs under the container’s heavy weight while hiking back up a steep hill.

The only access to water in Jorbin’s hillside community is the Tuma River, which carries runoff and other pollutants from local farms. It’s where everyone bathes and collects water to cook and to drink.

Unfortunately, drinking the water sometimes makes Jorbin sick. “It’s dirty,” Jorbin’s mother, Aracely, said

of the water. “But we don’t have any other options.”

Lugging a large water jug, little Jorbin leaves the bare shack he shares with his mother, father and three siblings at first light. He hikes down a hill to a trail that winds down a rocky mountainside, joined by his mother who carries his 1-year-old baby sister. Others in the community who must also complete the same arduous, daily task join them.

Jorbin fills his jug with water and rests the heavy load on his narrow shoulder, slumping under the weight. He starts the

hour-long hike back up the hill. The ground is slick and makes Jorbin slip, but he manages to keep up with his family. “I’m fine,” he insists. “I’m not tired.”

Jorbin may say he’s fine, but he huffs and puffs under the container’s weight. There’s no pleasure in lugging a heavy container up a steep hill twice a day, every day.

Aracely hopes and prays that the future for her children will be better. “All my life, I always lived like this,” Aracely said.

“We pray for Him to bless our home and that we can get out of poverty.”

It hurts this loving mother to know that her children are stuck in the same poverty she has endured her whole life. “I have three children who should be in school, but I don’t have the resources to help them study,” Aracely said, noting that Jorbin has never attended school. “We have a lot of problems.”

Jorbin fills his water jug at the Tuma River.

Sometimes, the water makes Jorbin sick.

“ To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clad and roughly treated, we wander about homeless and we toil, working with our hands.”

(1 Corinthians 4:11-12a)

—— About Nicaragua——

- Outside of Haiti, Nicaragua is the poorest country in our hemisphere.

Jorbin, 6, wishes that he could study like other children. He has never gone to school.

To make matters worse, every day, Jorbin and his family have been taking a short cut between private properties to get to the river. Unfortunately, the owners no longer want them crossing over on their land. This means that Jorbin and his family will soon have to take a route that’s twice as long, and also alongside a busy, dangerous road.

This is the heavy weight of poverty. But you can lift this weight off Jorbin, and children like him, by giving them access to clean water. Trekking up and down a steep, rocky mountain is dangerous work that no child should have to bear. With your gift for water, you can help Jorbin and children like him enjoy their childhoods. You can relieve them from their harsh labors and give them a way out of poverty.

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- Almost half of the population lacks access to safe water.

- Half of Nicaragua’s population is living below the poverty line.

- The leading causes of death among children under a year old are intestinal infectious diseases and malnutrition.

You can view more pictures and learn more about Jorbin and his family by visiting

www.FoodForThePoor.org/notes

Page 5

Page 6 Little 9-month-old Joselyn is malnourished and suffering with a hernia, he is constantly in pain.

In the malnutrition unit at the Port-au-Prince General Hospital, a precious little boy is fighting to stay alive. Sadly, at just 9 months old, little Joselyn already shows all the fatal signs of malnutrition: thinning hair, loose, wrinkly skin, and a bloated belly. Joselyn’s mother, Clemene, worries constantly about her weak baby boy.

Just days after Joselyn was born, his eyes turned yellow.

Then, he began having regular fainting spells. To make matters worse, he developed a hernia around his belly button. He’s still unable to sit up without help.

“It’s a miracle that he’s survived this long,” Clemene said. “It must be a miracle.”

Welcoming a new baby should be a celebratory time, but without adequate prenatal or infant care, joy quickly turns to worry and despair.

Since Joselyn arrived at the hospital, Clemene hasn’t left his side. She sleeps next to Joselyn’s crib on a worn scrap of cardboard atop the bare floor.

Clemene prays that her baby will survive. Over and again, she returns to Psalm 23: “Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no harm, for You are at my side; Your rod and staff give me courage,” she reads.

“I’m not scared,” Clemene says, “because God will open any door.”

You can help answer Clemene’s desperate prayers and help bring this innocent little one to life with medicine and nourishing food. Please, give as generous a gift as you can to help malnourished children like Joselyn today.

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You can view more pictures and learn more about Joselyn and Erick (opposite page) by visiting

www.FoodForThePoor.org/notes

NOW: Erick is healed and full of giggles on the front step of his family’s brand new home in Honduras.

THEN: Erick, 3, sat at his mother’s feet on the ground

outside his family’s shack in Honduras. His foot was badly burned by hot coffee when the roof over his mother’s kitchen collapsed.

—Neri, 25, speaking about the improved health of her children since receiving a new home.

When we first met Neri in Honduras, she was distraught about her 3-year-old son, Erick, and his badly burned foot.

Just before we arrived at her tiny shack that day, Neri had been boiling a pot of coffee to sell cups of it to her neighbors, when the roof over her makeshift kitchen suddenly collapsed.

Little Erick was by Neri’s side when the roof came down and the hot coffee spilled, badly scalding the tender skin on his foot. All Neri could afford to do at the time was to squeeze some toothpaste onto the wound, believing it might give Erick some relief.

The kitchen collapse was a grim reminder of their unsafe living conditions. The roof of their shack leaked in so many places that during rainstorms, there wasn’t a dry spot to sit or stand, and the children were constantly getting sick from the moldy dampness inside the home. They hoped and prayed for a better life.

Erick’s story was originally published in the March 2014 Answering the Call.

The family’s new home is safe and secure. It has a bathroom, a locking door, and a solid roof that keeps the rain out. “I don’t have to get wet anymore,” Neri said.

“The health of my children is better. They are not getting as sick… “Thank You God that we don’t have to suffer anymore,” Neri said.

Thanks to loving people like you, Neri’s children now have a safe home to live in. Your support can help children and their families still waiting for a new home. You have the power to transform lives!

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Neri, holding her daughter Maria, 1, poses proudly with her sons Josue, 8; Erick; and 5-y ear-old Edvin, in front of their new home in Honduras.

As a result of your loving generosity and your outpouring of compassion, Neri and her family have received a brand new home. “I said thanks to God. I gave God blessings the minute I stepped into the house. I feel happy,” Neri said. “I still can’t believe it’s my house.”

You Can view a short video about how you’ve helped Erick at

www.FoodForThePoor.org/erick

Page 7

“And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple — amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

(Matthew 10:42)

Jorbin fills his water jug at the Tuma River. Sometimes, the water makes Jorbin sick.

See pages 4-5

For just over a dollar a day, you can help change the course of an orphaned or abandoned child’s life.

For just $34 a month, you can sponsor a child living in an orphanage through our Angels Of Hope program. Your sponsorship helps to provide the essentials every child needs and deserves, like food, clothes, shelter and an education.

You can be a hero for an orphan in need. Sponsor a child today!

To learn more, email angelsofhope@foodforthepoor.org

or visit www.FoodForThePoor.org/SponsorOrphan today.

6401 Lyons Road, Coconut Creek, FL 33073 • 800-487-1158 • 954-427- 2222 • www.FoodForThePoor.org Answering the Call is a publication of Food For The Poor, Inc. © 2014 Food For The Poor, Inc. All rights reserved.