Give Hope 2 Kids Blog

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!

Celebrating Five Years of Ministry

We are celebrating five years of ministry!  God has blessed us with a very productive season and we are thrilled as we look back and see how far we've come in our quest to care for children who desperately need help.  

To celebrate these years we put together a memory book summarizing the time.  These pictures show how we prepared to, and now are caring for abadoned children, and how we've reached out to our community.  Click on this link, choose to make it full-screen from the bottom right hand corner, and enjoy watching a ministry be born!

http://www.blurb.com/books/2356454

Please feel free to share your comments with us

and share the link on your facebook page!

 

Equipped to Reach Out

For several months we’ve been working on a project that will make a huge difference in how we minister to our community.  In order to continue forward we realized that we needed more tools from the US.  We needed to equip our Children’s Ministry, get food processing equipment to help us be more independent with our food production, and bring in 15 donated laptop computers.

So, we undertook the huge process of bringing a container from the Richmond, VA area and we lots of people we need to thank.  Paul and Shirley Furrow (Jason's parents) worked tirelessly to help us gather the items that we need.  Thanks Mom and Dad.  We love and appreciate you.  Life Church and Evangel Christian School helped us out by donating items, storing everything until the container was ready to ship, and loading the container -- thanks you guys!  Destination Church also donated items and helped load the container on shipping day.  And we can't forget David Martinez (our right hand man down here) made 8 trips in our white work truck to bring all of the items up the mountain.  Thank you everyone!  

It was a lot of work, and we’re still sorting it all out, but now we have so many more of the tools that we need to grow in our ministry.     

 

Thanks to the Clover Hill Group!

We just enjoyed having a group come from Clover Hill Church in Virginia.  It ended up being the same week we brought the first kids into our Children's Home, so it made for some busy days.  We really appreciated how flexible the group was as we changed things to accommodate the new kids.

While they were here this group spent a lot of time with the children in our village.  At the elementary school they taught English classes and put a fresh coat of paint on one of the buildings (with lots of assisstance from the kids!).  They also helped with our Library Program and put on a soccer camp.  Our village kids had such a fun week.

The group kept busy by visiting Instituto El Rey for a day of work projects and a soccer camp and they also helped us do some work on David & Olga's house.

Thanks guys for all your hard work and great attitudes!  We enjoyed having you.

Wiring and Roofing

This past week we enjoyed having a group of eight come down and help us out. It was a mixed group of friends and family, all who had been down to volunteer on a previous trip or two. We so enjoyed having these "repeat visitors" down. They showed how much they value the work we're doing by their continued investment in us and we REALLY appreciate it.

During their week with us we were able to put roofs on the Volunteer House and the Furrow House. We also got a good chunk of the wiring done on the Furrow House.

We also want to say thanks to those who donated to help us buy materials for the roof on the Volunteer House.  This really helped us along with this big project.

As we look back at the past few years we feel so appreciative of everyone who has invested in our construction projects, either with time or finances.  We wouldn't be near so far along in our work without our generous supporters!

Help Roof the Volunteer House

As we’re getting closer to opening the Kid’s Home we need to free up the houses we’ve been using for other purposes.  Right now we (Jason & Sarah) live in one of the homes for kids and volunteers, groups, and other visitors also bunk up in the kid’s homes when they’re here.

In January, we began work on our personal home on the property and we’re continuing the work on the Volunteer House.  We hope to finish these houses in the next several months so we can free up houses for kids.

During the second week of May we have a group coming down that hopes to put a roof on the two new houses and wire them for electricity.  Our problem is that right now we lack the necessary funds to purchase the roof materials for the Volunteer House.  This is the only chance we have to get this house wired for a long time and we need the roof on first.  We want to offer you the opportunity to help.  The estimated cost of this roof is: $4000.  If this is a project you would like to donate towards, you can click on the donate button below.

 

 

Thanks to the Group from Life Church

 
We just enjoyed having a group come from Life Church with Jason's Dad, Paul Furrow.  The big project for their trip was to get the new roofs up on two buildings at our elementary school.  In preparation, men from our village pulled off the old roof and took down a few trees.  Then our Honduran work crew built the rafters and prepared the buildings for the new roofs.  When the group arrived we were amazed that they got both roofs up in just over a day of work.  With another few days of work they put in all new wiring into the assembly hall and the kindergarten, both for lights and for a little computer lab (that we hope to put in as an upcoming project).

Then the group came back to our place to do some finishing work on our Activity Center.  They wired the building and put the lights up.  Then much to the kid's delight, they built soccer goals for our little indoor field.

  
 
We really appreciated the time we got to spend with this group and the friendships we formed.  Thanks for all your hard work group!

 

Thank You to the Cloverhill Group!

 
Well, we've just finished another week with a group here helping us get construction projects done.  This time we hosted a group from Virginia.  Some of this group were here on their 3rd trip to work with Give Hope 2 Kids.  We enjoyed spending time with these old friends in the group, as well as making new friends.

The group worked diligently to help us fill in the porch for our volunteer house so it's ready for the floor.  They helped finish pouring in the final squares of our activity center floor, cleaned out a lot of stumps and brush by our playground area, and put a fresh coat of paint on a village church.

We enjoy when our groups get to participate in our English classes and library time as they did.  This time really connects them with the kids here and gives people a glimpse into life in our village.

Thanks team for all your hard work!  We hope to see you down here again.

Activity Center Video

Watch some of the construction process and hear Jason talk about our vision for this space.

Thanks to Our Volunteers Matt & Preston

During the summer months, while college classes were out, we had two guys who came to help us out.  Preston and Matt were very different people from different places, but both excelled here in their time volunteering with us.  They taught our English classes and ran the library during our trip to the States in June, as well as helping out our construction crew and managing other projects.  They did a great job connecting with the kids of our community, keeping our educational programs running, and just helping out in general.

We want to say thanks to both of you for all the hard work you've done this summer.  We appreciate you and hope to see you both down here again some time.