News from Give Hope 2 Kids
Making a Difference in Our Community
July 2009 Newsletter |
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| Greetings! |
These past few months have been anything but boring in our lives here in Honduras. We've had political transitions, earthquakes, groups visit, several breakthroughs in our agricultural work, and at the end of the day, a lot of fun. We continue to make incredible progress, but we also continue to wait for final approval from the government to be able to take in our first kids.
In the meantime, we're not just sitting around. We're almost done with another house, we've just planted another fruit orchard, we're teaching in our local school, but I'm getting ahead of myself...here are a few of the recent happenings in our lives here in Honduras. |
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| A Coup or Defending Democracy? |
Many of you, no doubt, have heard of the recent news of political situation here in Honduras. International news outlets have labeled the decision by the Honduras government to oust its elected president, Mel Zelaya, as a huge setback for democracy in Honduras. We were staying in the La Ceiba area this past Sunday when the president was "removed" from power.
For our part, there has been no violence where we are, and people are happy to be done with a ruler who was trying to change the constitution of the country to remain in power. From our point of view, things look a lot less like a coup, and a lot more like a Wall Street Journal articled entitled, "Honduras Defends Its Democracy" (check under quicklinks above). |
| On Our Way to Opening Casa de Esperanza |
We appreciate all of you who have partnered with us for the purpose of taking care of abandoned and orphaned children here in Honduras. We want to give you a short synopsis of where we at in the process of doing that.
There are three main steps that we have to take to bring in kids. The first step is getting Honduras residence. We began that step over two years ago in March of 2007, and finally received our residency in March of 2009. Step number two is having our US nonprofit recognized by the Honduran government. We are about three-quarters of the way through this process. Then the third and final step will be applying with social services, which we feel will go very quickly.
We have hopes of being able to take in kids by the end of the summer or by the fall.
We've invested huge amounts of time going through this process and it feels like we're on the last leg of a really long race. Just the other day we saw a note on sustainability in non-profit work that said how our work is a marathon and not a sprint. We have to pace ourselves for the long haul and remind ourselves that big things don't happen overnight.
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| Construction and Agricultural Progress |
 We've been keeping ourselves very busy with building and agricultural projects in the past few months.
Right now we are finishing the stucco coats on the 3rd house for kids and we're constructing the metal rafters for the roof. This house has gone up so fast! We are so excited to see the progress that we've made on this house in such a short period of time.
 We've also spent a lot of time developing our agricultural projects recently. Just one month ago we started vegetable gardens on the terraces we constructed and we already are harvesting cucumbers! When things decide to grow here they certainly don't waste any time doing it. Recently we bought another batch of fruit trees that we can use later for grafting: varieties of mangos, avocados, citrus, etc. We have started planting these trees in our exhibition garden.
Some of our other new gardening ideas that we're researching right now include how to have a vanilla plantation and how to graft tomatoes and eggplants on a particular weed so they produce for two years. It's interesting stuff...
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| Involvement in Our Community |
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While we wait for the government to approve our children's home, we are expanding our efforts to reach out to our community. We've continued to teach English classes in our local elementary school, have gotten involved in teaching improved agricultural practices to farmers, and are now making plans for a community library.
There are very few families in our community that own even one book. In our local schools, children often share tattered books between several grades. It our vision to help change this trend and give people access to books and other resources.
For the library we envision a place where local villagers can come in the afternoons to find resources that will improve their lives and strengthen their families. We will start out with about 200 books, and build from there. For kids, this will be a chance to come to story time where they can enjoy listening to stories, broaden their understanding of the world, and develop their love of learning. For adults we have books on agriculture, parenting, and Christian living.
We'd like to give a special thanks to the Nosser family who recently came to visit and made a large donation of children's books. If you'd like to sponsor the purchase of books to add to our library and bless the families of Urraco, please specify "community library" with your donation. We'll use the money to buy the very best resources that we can find and make it available to our community.
One exciting side-note to this story is that we have a group coming from Canada in spring of 2010 to build a community playground. This will mean that families can come and bring their kids to play and read all in the same spot. Follow our blog for more updates about this project.
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| Publishing Our New Blog |
| Living where we do (an hour-and-a-half away from town), we're always searching for better ways to keep friends involved and updated on our efforts to begin a children's home here in Honduras. We have put several hours into improving our blog. We're adding more videos and photos, so you can "see" what we're doing. Please click here to check it out and find out how you can get more involved in what we're doing. |
 We want to express our deepest thanks and appreciation to all of you who are supporting our ministry and rooting for us here in Honduras. Our work depends on people like you.
Thanks so much,
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Jason & Sarah Furrow
Give Hope 2 Kids
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