Give Hope 2 Kids Blog

Our "Families"

We wanted to let you see the kids in our Children's Home in their "family" context.  

Our first house parents are Will & Sinndya.  They have two kids of their own, José (7) and Dana (1), and then five more kids that have been with them since January.  There's a sibling group of three -- Carolina (9), Javier (7), and Fernando (4) -- and two more 4-year-olds, Carlitos and Lilian.  This group of kids abound in energy and enthusiasm!  After being together for 4 months, we feel we're really see positive long-term growth in the kids and that they are bonding well as a family unit.

 

 

(top) Dana, Will, Sinndya, Carolina;  (bottom) Fernando, Javier, Lilian,  José, Carlitos

Our other house parents, Oscar & Belkis, have been working with us for about 9 months now, but just recently came to live here as house parents.  They have three, very helpful daughters of their own, Irlen, Tanya, and Pamela and then the five newest kids.  These kids are all related to each other and all came from the same foster home before being placed with us.  We have two sibling groups here: Eugenio (9) and José Antonio (3) are one, and Jared (5) and Juvana (3) are the other.  The last little guy is Junior (5).  We're really enjoying getting to know this group of kids.

(top) Oscar, Irlen, Tanya, Belkis;  (middle) Eugenio, Pamela, Jared; 

(bottom) Junior, José Antonio, Juvana

New Kids Have Arrived!!

We wanted to let everyone meet the five new kids that have moved in to the Give Hope 2 Kids Children's Home.  We are so excited that they're finally here and feel blessed that we can provide them with a good home.

First of all, let us introduce you to the new family on our staff.  Over the past few years we've gotten to know this family from our village of Urraco.  We met the girls through our Library Program and English classes, then met their Mom, Belkis, through church activities, and finally their Dad, Oscar, when he joined our construction team.  We've been very impressed with their whole family and are so excited to have them working in our Children's Home.  They already feel like family.

On Tuesday we brought up five new kids to live in their home.  These kids are transitioning here really well, probably because they're all either siblings and/or cousins to each other, and because they all came from the same foster home.  Still though, please pray for their adjustment, as this type of change is never easy on a kid.

This group of kids is  such a contrast to our last bunch that came.  The previous group is all made up of kids bursting with energy and vivid personalities.  This group is much quieter.  The older ones are really into their studies and we can barely get the younger ones to talk!  It's fun to be widening our group and the personalities that make it up.  

Please consider sponsoring one of these kids.  Our sponsorship program starts at $35/month and will help provide these kids with a good education, a great home, and a loving family.   Right now only 2 of our 10 kids are fully sponsored, so we need your help!  For more details, please click to visit our sponsorship page. 

Fun Times with the Kids

As the kids in our Children's Home have adjusted to our place, we've tried to teach them to expect a balance of work and play in life.   Along with their schoolwork, they're learning to help with chores around our property, from picking cocoa, to feeding the pigs, to collecting eggs.  Since they're kids though, life is mostly play now.

For fun things around home, the kids get to go swimming in the creek, watch a movie, or walk up to the village for a pepsi.  Occasionally though, we like to send them out for a bigger adventure.  

A couple of weeks ago most of the Give Hope 2 Kids crew took the kids on a jungle hike to visit the place where David, our property manager, grew up.  Everyone had a great day of swimming in the mountain streams and having a picnic.  Maybe the biggest adventure of the day though was when one of the kids spotted an iguana, which the men chased, caught, cooked, and everyone ate!  

We're now starting the hottest, driest time of the year in our part of Honduras.  This is "summer" here and the favorite time to head to the beach or the rivers.  So, to celebrate our Semana Santa (Holy Week) Honduras-style, we took the kids to the beach.  

Our first house parents are from a beach town and they wanted to introduce the kids to their family and neighborhood and treat them to a fun day in a new place.  People where we live rarely get to the city, let alone to the ocean, even though it's only 25 miles away.   For some in our group, it was their first trip to the ocean!

Once we hit the beach, the kids couldn’t get in the water fast enough.  They loved the waves and the salty water, but their favorite part was making new friends in the tidal pool.

While we enjoyed the fun the kids had, these trips have been great for unifying our group.  We're creating a big-family culture at our place and we're loving it.  

Plus, there's one more thing that excites us about these trips:  We've invited a particular family from our village to go along on these adventures and become a part of our "family."  They've spent a lot of time helping our current house parents and doing other projects for the ministry.   And now, just last week, they agreed to be our second set of house parents.  With their family, we will be able to open a 2nd house for kids in the near future!

Using Education to Broaden Horizons

School has been back in session in Honduras for about a month now.  This makes life quite a bit busier around here.  It's been fun watching our new kids head off to the village school in their little uniforms.  So far, they've done really well with their schoolwork and have made a bunch of new friends from the community. 

We're proud to say that we have our English classes up and running again this school year.  These classes will give a good head start for the kids who go on to high school.  Monica and Erin are our English teachers for the 3rd-6th graders at the school.  The teachers are enjoying the extra time with the kids in the community and the kids love practicing their English, so everybody is having a good time.   

Since school started for the older kids, we've started preschool for the three 4-year-olds living with us.  Twice a week Lilian, Carlitos, and Fernando all head up to the Library with their backpacks and notebooks to practice shapes, counting, and coloring.  We spend time playing outside and reading books.  This has proved to be an great way to get them excited about learning and prepared for school.

In January we started new classes as a part of our Library Program.  The most faithful Library attendees had the choice of computer classes or music lessons for our first round of these classes.  It's been so fun to see the kids get excited about this.  Most have never had the opportunity to learn an instrument before and they see the computer classes as a way to have a head start when they get to computers in high school.  One of the things we're really enjoying about these new classes, is that the teachers are local young people.  So not only are we furthering the education of our village kids, but we're also giving work to young people from our area.  

Now that we've finished the addition on the Library and reorganized everything, we've discovered a mountain of great resources to use with the kids.  Previously we had so many kids and supplies squished into such a small space, it was hard to get creative.  We're really enjoying having more room now and we know it's helping us improve our Library Program. 

It's been a great few months of launching new educational programs.  We see that this is such a great way to broaden the horizons of the kids in our area and we're excited to see where a love of learning will take them in life.

A Construction Update

We wanted to give everyone a little update on our current construction projects.  

We’re getting really close to finishing the Furrow house and we (the Furrow Family) may be able to move into it in the next few weeks.  For awhile now our Honduran crew has been finishing the final stucco coat and they've poured almost all the floors and countertops. 

During the past two weeks, we were blessed to have a few electricians and handymen come down and help further the progress of the house.  They were a tremendous help and did everything from spending time with the kids, to installing shelves, to finishing the electrical work in the house.  We want to say thanks to these guys who came and helped us out so much.

Our other main project right now has been putting an addition onto the Library.  We quickly found that our small building struggles to hold the 30-some kids that attend the Library Program.   Also, we've run into storage issues with all the chairs, instruments, and sound equipment we use for the Youth Nights.  So far we've got the walls up and the floors poured.  Once the roof and door are installed it will be ready to use.  We are excited to get our Library Program organized and all our new books in circulation for the local kids.

Introducing More of the Give Hope 2 Kids Team

Ever since we started Give Hope 2 Kids, we've had endless projects to do without the human resources to get them all done.  Recently though, we've been really excited to watch  a great team of people gathering around us.  We feel that we're able to accomplish so much more now.

We've yet to introduce our house-parents to everyone on the blog, so we want to take this opportunity to have you all "meet" Wilfredo & Sinndya and their two kids, José (6 yrs) and Dana (1 1/2 yrs).  They've adapted really well to life in the country with us and have done a great job accepting kids into their family and life.

This season, we are excited to have four volunteers here with us.   They'll be with us for most of this year. With the arrival of new kids and never-ending construction and agricultural projects, we are thankful for the extra hands.

Kelvin and Monica have always had an interest in missions.  With their newborn baby Kelly, they made the decision to sell their house and move down for year.  So far they've been living with some of the kids and helping parent them.  Kelvin is a great dad and handyman and loves to work on agricultural projects.  Monica has been an excellent mom for the house they're in and has helped with organizing and running our Youth Night, Library Program, and English classes.  We are blessed to have them as good parental figures on the property.  Kelly is practicing sitting up on her own and is Josiah's little buddy.

Brayden came to visit us on a short-term summer trip with his church.  It didn’t take long to for him to realize God was calling him back to continue building relationships with the community here.  He spends his days working outside with  construction and agricultural projects and hanging out with the kids (and most of that time the kids are literally hanging off him).  Our village soccer team recently invited him to play goalie for the season and Brayden is excited for the opportunity to make friends with and minister to his teammates.

Erin has always had a desire to serve people in Latin America and felt God was calling her to volunteer with Give Hope 2 Kids after her college graduation.  Erin spends time working with kids in the Library Program and English classes and enjoys dabbling in the agricultural work.  She also works a lot with administrative projects (like helping to put together this blog).

 We're really grateful for all these awesome people working with us and helping to make Give Hope 2 Kids a success!

Five New Kids in the Children's Home!

We are excited to announce that we have five new kids living with us.  

On January 5th we brought in a sibling group of three -- Carolina: 9, Javier: 7, & Fernando: 4 -- along with two more 4-year-olds, Carlos and Lilian.  

This bunch of kids is so full of personality and energy that they're hard to keep up with!  We're so thankful that we have the Activity Center and Playground so the kids have a place to burn off their energy.  The kids are thriving on our property, with so much room to run around on and so much to do, like learning how to take care of the chickens.  

All of these kids desperately need sponsors.  With all the extra mouths to feed we're really feeling the strain on our budget.  Please consider sponsoring one of our children.  For only $35/month you can help sponsor and care for one of these kids.  For more information click here.

Gift Catalog Success: Lots of New Farm Animals

Thank you to everyone who contributed to our 2011 Christmas Gift Catalog!  We had a great response this year.  People showed the most enthusiasm in donating towards animals.  With the funds that came in, we were able to buy four cows (two for meat and two for milk), two pigs, and one hundred baby chicks.

We will soon be adding two more pigs and thirty more laying hens.   Then, once we have more pasture fenced off, we plan to buy one or two more steers.  

We’re making progress towards our goal of self-sustainability, meaning that a large portion of our food intake will come right from the property we live on.  Many of the animals will be used for meat within the next year and unbelievably, the new chicks will be ready to be made into chicken nuggets in about 40 days.

The 2011 "Cows Edition" Gift Catalog

Here it is:

The 2011 “Cows Edition” Gift Catalog

Just click on the link above to see what it's all about.  Why is it the “Cows Edition” you might be asking?  Good question.  That’s going to be our focus this year, because we’re rolling out two major projects that have to do with cows. 

The first cow-project is pretty obvious.  We are planning on raising our own cows both for milk and for meat.  Last year we bought 3 milk cows, and this year we are hoping to buy 3 more milk cows and 4 young males for meat. 

The other “Cows” are not as obvious.  It’s our new “Computers On Wheels” program (get it…COWS!).  This is going to be a mobile computer lab that will allow us to give computer classes to students from three local communities.  We received a donation of 15 laptops, which arrived on our container, and we want these machines to be used extensively in our library and our community schools.   Giving young people training in this practical skill can often make the difference between having a job and not.  We’re hoping to sponsor the computer carts we will have to build, the voltage regulators to protect the machines from the frequent power surges, the computer desks, and the teachers who will help us instruct the students.

There will be other projects available to sponsor too, but this year, it’s all about the cows.  

 

Our Graduates

November is graduation month for schools in Honduras and we've been partying with lots of graduating students.

First we celebrated with Ruby and Ronald at Instituto El Rey's graduation.  These two were part of a class of twenty-one students that graduated with a Bachillerato (a degree that lets them go on to university) and a technical degree in computers.  These were the first students Jason taught as 7th graders back in 2006.  

We are so proud of this whole class, but especially of these two that have lived at our place for the last couple years.  We know how hard they've worked.  Both Ruby and Ronald have overcome a lot to be were they are today and they're the first ever in their families to graduate from high school.  They also both received a special award for their proficiency in the English language.  

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We were also invited to celebrate with the graduating 6th grade class at our elementary school in Urraco. They asked Jason to be the padrino (sponsor/guest of honor) for the graduating class.  This was to honor Give Hope 2 Kids and what we've offered the kids of the community through English classes and Lee's Library.

One of Ruby's younger sisters, Jenny, graduated with this class.  Here's a picture of Jason presenting her with an award for academic excellence.  We are excited that she and her next older sister, Areli, will be entering Instituto El Rey as 7th graders in February.