Give Hope 2 Kids Blog

Opening the Community Library

We just had the grand opening for our library.  Thanks to the help of the Furrow Family Group, we were able to host a party for community with snacks, balloons, crafts, prizes, and a piñata, along with books to read.  We were thrilled at the turn-out of kids and adults that wanted to read.

 

Just to put this into perspective a little, let me say that I doubt more than a handful of the families in our village own a book other than a Bible.  Kids go to school to learn to read and write, but we live in a village with two or three written signs and almost no books.  Why learn?  Even in the classrooms there aren't more than a couple books.  In this part of Honduras I don't know of more than a couple bookstores and their books would financially be out of reach to the average person.

Jason and I (Sarah) really value books and have always been readers.  (I think if you weighed everything we owned personally, including furniture, the books would weigh more than the rest combined.)  We want to pass on this passion for reading to all the kids near us.  We want to raise kids up to be life-long learners.

So, we've been collecting books in Spanish anywhere we can find them to have a library for our Children's Home and our community.  We've turned the building previously known as the "office" into a library and we'll have library hours two afternoons a week. 

In February we have a group coming to build a playground and next summer we're building a covered area for sports and assemblies.  With these and the library together we will have a complex we can open to the community.

Thanks to the Furrow Family Group!

As I write this the Furrow Family (& Friend) Group is flying home.  We certainly had a great week with them and we want to express our thanks for all the hard work they did.

The guys from the group wired the 3rd house for kids, worked on building that septic tank, put in a beautiful stone path between the first two houses, and did some other odd jobs.  The 3rd house is now really close to being done -- all we need now are doors and windows, a kitchen counter, some paint, and some furniture. 

Meanwhile the ladies of the group had the big, pressured-by-the-clock job of getting the library up and ready for it's grand opening to the community at the end of the week!  They sanded and painted and organized and handed out flyers and decorated.  We got everything finished about 5 minutes before the grand opening started! 

Thanks to all of you for your servant's hearts and diligent work!  We couldn't have pulled this off without you.  We love you.

Independence Day Marching

Every year on the 15th of September, which is Honduras' Independence Day, the schools all march in a parade.  It is one of the biggest events of the school year. 

At Instituto El Rey (www.ierschool.org) the students learn how to march and practice for months to get ready for this special event.  This is also the big show for the school's band for the year, so they put in a lot of work.

This year Ruby played a drum in the band and Roxana got to dress for the parade in a costume celebrating the Honduran indigenous culture.  So, it was particularly fun to see them in their special roles this year.

Dia del Niño

In Honduras there is a holiday called "Day of the Child."  The schools all throw a big party that day for the kids with a piñata and more.  This year Jason and I were involved in two celebrations for Kid's Day. 

In the morning we went on a hike with the 9th grade students from Instituto El Rey  (www.ierschool.org).  We walked out 45 minutes from the road and jumped rocks (or waded like me) across a river to reach a little village called Nueva Suyapa.  The 9th graders then threw a party for the local school kids.  They played games, taught the kids a dance, read stories, and had a piñata. 

It was a great experience to hike to Nueva Suyapa again, to have a special day for the kids there, and especially to spend time with our former students from Instituto El Rey. 

After this trip we hurried home to change out of hiking clothes and went to our local school in Urraco, where we've been teaching English classes all year.  We made it just in time for their party.  We had more piñatas, food, time with the kids, and we handed out little prize bags to them all.  We were reminded that day how privileged we are to have created such great relationships with the people in our village. 

Neighborhood Helpers

Our place is the new hang-out for the neighborhood boys.  They come to play, to help in the garden, to see our monkey, to borrow a soccer ball, and to ask us to come watch them play soccer or going swimming with them.

This new neighborhood trend has a lot to do with the Tippy Family that is volunteering with us.  Amanda has been teaching a lot of the English classes at the local Urraco elementary school lately.  Her 4-year-old son Jude goes to classes with her and all these boys have become his friends.  One of Amanda's favorite places to be is out in the garden -- she's been heading up lots of planting and landscaping -- and now she tends to have a troop of kids out helping her.

It's been a joy to get to know more of the kids from our area.  Now we walk down the street and see all familiar faces among the kids.  We are looking forward to having our library (coming soon) and playground (to be built in February) available to our community.

Giving Clothes

In every group that comes to volunteer with us invariably there are a few who leave clothes behind.  At first we were a little perplexed at what to do with these adult clothes and shoes that were piling up, but we now have a great solution.

There is a widow in our village that has five children to provide for.  She is a hard worker, but still struggles to make it.  The pastors and leaders of our community said she could use our help.  So, we decided to give her the clothes.  She takes them around the the village to sell.  Since most people in our area buy used clothing and since there is no seller up as far as we live, she has done quite well with this micro-business.  After the last batch of clothes she sold, she came and gave us the money to keep.  She wanted to wait until the bean harvest -- when people have money again -- to buy more clothes to sell. 

Well, the bean harvest is coming in (though it's a sad one this year) and we were able to provide a another round of clothes to sell, without the widow needing to buy more.  So if you've ever left clothes or shoes behind, now you know where it goes... 

The Real Life Group from Minnesota

We just had a group from Minnesota come and help for a week.  We had a great time with them and accomplished lots of good things.  They used their muscles to dig the foundation for the next stretch of fence-line, got the new security system closer to up and running, made a diagram of our land to map out the water and electrical system, and painted us a sign by the road. 

  

While they were here they also participated in the English classes that Jason and Amanda teach and spent time swimming and playing soccer with some of the neighborhood kids.

Thanks group for all your hard work!  We appreciate it.

The Give Hope 2 Kids Crew

This is a little overdue, but I wanted to introduce the whole crew working for Give Hope 2 Kids this summer and (for some) onwards. 

Nate & Lindsey Hepner are from Northern Indiana.  They have come to give their summer to our ministry and what a help they have been!  Nate has a lot of expertise in construction work and is generally handy, which comes in handy.  Lindsey loves to organize and is willing to help out anywhere. 

Jared & Amanda Tippy are from Kansas and are now living in our 2nd house with their family.  They have two kids: 4-year-old Jude who loves to build castles and sunny 1-year-old Lucy who just took her first step.  They also brought along a family friend Dru to help out during his summer vacation.  The Tippy family will be helping out the Give Hope 2 Kids ministry until December of this year.  Jared is very handy and into the idea-making and engineering of projects to help us along.  Amanda loves to be outside in the garden and she is helping us develop our composting and gardening system, along with teaching English classes in the local elementary school.  It is so great to have these friends to work along side with.

David & Olga are a young Honduran couple that live on our land and work with us.  David heads up our agricultural projects and manages the other Honduran workers when we're away.  He is a young man that we hope develops into a long-term leader in our work with kids.

And of course, we are Jason & Sarah Furrow, the directors of Give Hope 2 Kids.

So, we have a nice little neighborhood here on our land and it's wonderful to have a community of people here to live with and work with. 

We want to say to all of you working with our ministry that we couldn't do it without you.  Thank you for all that you've sacrificed to serve the kids of our area. 

A Priceless Photo

Here is our monkey Chitlin getting a bath.

Thanks to the New Castle Group!

We just finished up a week with a group from New Castle, Indiana, led by Jason's cousins Lynn & Karmen Furrow.  We had a blast with them and got SO much done. 

Among their many projects, they put the roof on the 3rd house, added an extension to our storage shed, moved fill dirt into the 3rd house, helped us set up for our big security system, and did a lot of painting. 

They also rented a mini-excavator for us and dug a septic tank, worked on our roads into the property, dug for our new fenceline, and leveled the land for our future playground. 

Needless to say, we feel that it was a huge leap ahead for us.  Thanks again guys for all your hard work!  We so enjoyed having you here with us and we look forward to seeing you all again soon.