Over the last year we have been praying with increasing desperation for someone to help relieve my workload. With the quickly growing rural village ministry, the newly granted Guatemalan association status of our ministry, and the licensing of our group home for children with special needs approaching rapidly, I find myself overwhelmed. And just when I thought there was no relief in sight…God sent us a gift.
April Clark has been serving as a missionary in Guatemala for the last five years, but she recently saw the door close to her old ministry and felt God calling her to a new work. We have known her since our move here two years ago and have had the opportunity to observe her work and ministry first-hand. She has a passion for worship, a love for children and is skilled in administration. As a bonus, she also has experience in social work. So, when I found out she was seeking God for direction regarding future ministry, I mentioned our need to her.
Last week she decided to join us for our monthly trip to Guastatoya and experience our ministry first-hand. During the trip we had a lot of time to discuss what we needed and how she wants to serve. By the end of the day it was clear that God was leading us to work together. A few days later, I had submitted her resume to our board and received unanimous approval. So, April will be joining our team on Monday, February 3rd. She is already fully-funded, so the help she provides will cost our ministry nothing except ministry expenses.
April will help with the administrative tasks of our ministry and will assist in the scheduling, coordination and leadership of short-term teams that come to serve with us. In addition, she will serve as care coordinator for the families we serve through our rural village ministry and assist with quarterly reassessments of the care they receive.
We praise God for providing this wonderful lady to work alongside us! (Maybe I will post a video of me dancing a celebratory jig.) You can contact her at her new e-mail address, april@hopeforhome.org. Welcome aboard April!
Now, on to other updates. In spite of blogging regularly, there are a few people I need to update you about because special news and yearly reports have prevented me from doing so early. So, here you go (in no particular order):
One of the things that has been concerning me is that one of our families relocated a couple of months back. Jorge and his family moved from La Gomera to Nueva Concepción, which is about 50 minutes further away from us and is in an area in which we have never worked. It took us some time to track them down and even longer to get around to making the trip, but we finally got around to it.
Jorge has a sponsor that provides food and diapers for him, but we had missed two monthly deliveries due to their move. However, when we reconnected we realized that he was starting to a new school and needed supplies and a school uniform. So, we took him and his mom shopping and purchased these things for him, using the accrued sponsorship from our missed visits. He was so excited to see us again and to receive everything he needed for school.
One of the reasons I had been procrastinating on making this visit is because I know how things work. The moment we enter a new town or village to provide assistance there will be others lining up for help. We have been overwhelmed recently, and I did not want to add another community to our ministry. I can be pretty firm about saying no to most things, but a family with a special needs child is not one of them.
Sure enough, one of Jorge’s neighbors has a 17 year-old daughter named Rosario Margarita. She has what I believe to be cerebral palsy and cognitive delays, but has never been officially diagnosed by a doctor. The mother wanted to know if we could help them with a wheelchair and, of course, I said yes.
So, we need a sponsor for a chair. She has decent trunk strength and balance, so a standard hospital chair, which will cost me $100, will suffice. If you would be willing to sponsor Rosario for the cost of this chair, please write to me at daryl@hopeforhome.org.
That same week I was contacted by my friend Todd Erickson. He and his family are missionaries who work in the local aldea of Santiago Zamora. They minister to families and run a weekly Bible club for the kids of the community. In the course of their ministry, they encountered a wonderful young family who has a daughter named Cheili with special needs. We met Todd and his wife, Maureen, and went to visit them.
I fell in love with Cheili the moment I saw her. She is two years old and unable to walk or talk. Her parents had been told that she had a vitamin deficiency and has spent a lot of money on tests. Her doctor had told them that they needed one more test on her brain to determine what type of vitamin she needed. They were seeking our help in paying for that test.
I was with her for 30 seconds when I realized that she has cerebral palsy and no vitamin would change that. It was heartbreaking to have to explain that to her parents. Her mother choked-up and Maureen quickly stepped forward to comfort her. We also explained that we would help them at no cost and walk beside them to make sure that Cheili achieves all that she can.
We spent time teaching them how to do twice-daily stretches. We also talked to them about her diet and provided vitamins for her and for her nursing mother.
Cheili is underweight, so we provided them with our special formula that we use. We would like to continue providing that on a monthly basis along with weekly physical therapy, but we need a sponsor to do that. The cost of both the formula and therapy will be $45 a month. If you would be willing to help with that, please write me at the address above.
A few weeks ago an elderly gentleman came to our door. He explained that his wife had a wheelchair that was broken and wanted to know if we could visit and repair it. When we got to their house, we found a wheelchair that was broken beyond repair and had obviously been in that condition for some time. His wife, Serafina, was “walking” on her knees and using a short stick to assist herself. We measured her for a wheelchair and told them that we would return in a week or two with a new one. As I left I winced thinking of her continuing to walk on her knees for that much longer. Her knees, shins and the tops of her feet were already scarred and calloused and I hated to see the damage she was doing to herself.
The next day I was walking past our storage room and noticed a wheelchair that I had forgotten about. One of the men that we work with had received another wheelchair from a ministry in the community, so he returned the chair we had given him. You guessed it…it was a perfect fit for Serafina and had hardly been used. So, we returned to their house with the chair two days after our first visit instead of two weeks. I felt a tangible sense of relief as we assisted her off the ground and into her new chair. (And, in spite of her stoic expression in the photo, she was very happy as well.)
We recently added another part-time staff member around our household. Some time ago I wrote about Katerin and her family. Katerin has brain damage that has caused severe cognitive delays. She and her six sisters were living with their mom and dad until their father abandoned them all in December for another woman. They have been living in desperate conditions since then (even more desperate than the conditions before, as hard as that is to imagine.)
Wanda and I had been praying about what we could do to help beyond the monthly sponsorship they are receiving. With the growing ministry, our weekly daycare, the quickly approaching opening of our group home, and the beginning of a new school year and homeschooling, we finally decided that Wanda could benefit from some help around the house. So, we hired Katerin’s mom, Aura, to do some cooking and cleaning for us one day a week.
She started last week and I cannot describe what a wonderful worker she is. She worked non-stop from 8am until 4pm, taking only a few minutes break to eat lunch. She cleaned each room from top to bottom. I don’t know when our home has been so clean. (This is NOT a criticism of my wife! She is one of the hardest working people I know and does keep our home clean. But she is very busy with all her responsibilities and doesn’t often have time to go the extra mile that Aura does.)
We were so pleased with her work that we talked about her to our friends. Already she has been hired for a second day each week and we are hopeful that more will result. If so, she will be able to move her and her family to better home. Please pray for Aura, Katerin and their entire family.
Meanwhile, our daycare is running smoothly. Even as I have been writing this blog the final child was picked up and we are shutting things down for the night. We are spending more time these days focusing on physical and occupational therapy with each child. Our goal is to do more of this while they are with us and then better equip each family to assist the process throughout the week. Some of the special needs of the children with which we work are severe, so this is a challenging task as we set goals and develop PT and OT plans. But we are already seeing improvement.
That’s all for now. Sorry for the scattered nature of this post, but I wanted to get you caught up on ministry as much as possible.
Blessings from Guatemala!
Daryl, Wanda and the Crew
