February 2013 - New Beginnings

From Left: Milagro Ponce with Angelica from our center, Milagro in the early days, Milagro and Wilson, Milagros wedding
When we first started working with the youth in Linaca, the vast majority of young girls took the path of least resistance - that led them into single motherhood and the perpetuation of poverty. Few had the fortitude of character to go against the tide. All new thinking, with a huge amount of faith, is required to turn the hope of a better life into substantative reality. Yet how many of us need little faith boosters along the way? Surely, that would be me On November 30, 2012 we injected a faith booster into the youth of Linaca when our teacher/mentor Milagro married her sweetheart, Wilson. Most of the village turned out to witness this celebration. Milagro means Miracle in Spanish. And indeed, she is one. Born very prematurely, Milagro was not expected to live. But live, she did. Her father soon abandoned the family, but Milagro managed to believe for great things in life. When she was 18 and just out of teacher training school, one of our biggest supporters in the village asked us to hire Milagro to teach in our center. We owed it to this professor to at least give Milagro a chance. When she first came to work with us Milagro was a shy little teen. She had not grown up with us, and I can only imagine how intimidated she was. To make the task of being respected as a teacher all the more difficult, Milagro was almost the same age as many of our teens. Her first order of business was to win their respect, confidence, and trust. This was not an easy thing to do. But Milagro persevered and over time won the hearts of our staff, the teens, and the younger children. She always had Jose's and my heart. Milagro is also one of our University Students. In exchange for her tuition, she basically is a full-time volunteer at our center. She is given a little bonus to help with her expenses on top of her tuition and transportation to school. Last year Milagro began to dream about marriage and told us that Wilson had proposed. The only thing standing in the way was the lack of a house for the newlyweds. From her savings, Milagro bought a small piece of land and with every penny they could muster, the couple began construction of their home. To honor Milagro's sacrifice and her tremendous example to everyone in the village, we gave her $5,000 to finish off the house and throw a wedding that included all of our teens and children. This may sound like a lot of money, but the example she gives the young girls and the community is priceless. When Nidia and Franklin married we did the same thing for them and that wedding planted a lot of very good seed in the minds of our young people. After each of these weddings, our girls told us that they dreamed of the same thing for themselves and realized the importance of education and waiting for the right man to marry. Both of these couples weddings restored a fresh vision of what family and marriage should be to our kids and to the villagers. And, both were a well-deserved thank you to young people who have sacrificed so much in service to their communities. Jose and I are so thankful for the high standards these young couples have set. We want to raise up an army just like them! So far, we have plenty of young people behind them who can be standard bearers in the communities we serve. It is these types of people who will cause the tipping point and turn the tide of poverty in their communities.

Current Needs and Prayer Requests

The 2013 School Year has started and we matriculated over 1000 students!The number of regular attenders in Linaca has pressed us to our limit of capacity in the center. We are in need of desks, tables, chairs, and every other kind of supply imaginable to handle this influx of children. The cost of matriculation runs us about $10,000 a year in uniforms and supplies for the students to attend public school. If you would like to donate to offset the expense of the wedding and the academic supplies we need, there is no time better to do that! Please designate Wedding or 2013 Center Needs on your checks. Anything over and above these needs will be assigned to our Childrens Center and used where our board deems the need is the greatest. We are off and running at a very fast clip in this new year. The fields are white to harvest and we need to raise up as many excellent workers as possible! May God bless each of you richly for helping us to do just exactly that!

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