Our Timoteo Student Center serves 311 children who live in the city of Cobán. Cobán is one of Guatemala’s major cities, located 219 km (316 miles) from Guatemala City. It is rapidly developing due to its location at the center of a coffee-growing area.

Cobán is beautiful city, but plagued by major issues like extreme poverty, alcoholism and drug trafficking. Poverty is rampant in Cobán, with 61 percent of its population living in poverty and 26 percent in extreme poverty. Lack of education and job opportunities, large families and high-priced food are just some of the reasons for the poverty in Cobán.

Poverty also triggers problems like alcoholism. Often, fathers turn to alcohol in order to forget their misery. They do not realize that the alcohol only creates a bigger problem, since they use what little money they have to buy alcohol.

Drug trafficking in Cobán has been growing strongly for the past six years. The town is used as a stop for people trafficking drugs to Mexico. Drug lords have taken advantage of the poverty and tremendous need, offering job opportunities to young people. The drug lords pay them well, which makes drug trafficking very appealing for impoverished young people.

Cobán is not an easy place to live as a child. Nineteen-year-old Jorge knows this all too well.

Jorge lives in El Barrio San Jorge in a one-room house made of wood, with a dirt floor and tin sheets as a roof. Jorge is the oldest of six children. His family of eight lives in this room and shares the only three beds they own. Their beds are made of wood and lack mattresses.

Jorge attended the Timoteo Student Center. This Compassion-assisted center seeks to eradicate the high index of spiritual, economical, social and physical poverty in the lives of boys and girls. Their vision focuses on fighting against the issues that are affecting the children in Cobán.

It is thanks to our help and the student center that Jorge has developed holistically into a strong and courageous young man in spite of his circumstances.

A Great Achievement

In October 2010, Jorge graduated from high school. His high school diploma included a graphic design certificate. Jorge is the first one in his family to continue past the seventh grade and the first one to graduate from high school. No one in his family, not even his extended family, has ever graduated from high school.

Even though high school graduation is a great achievement, Jorge is pursuing a greater dream. He wants to attend college. Our ministry has inspired him to dream big and work hard for his dreams. He wants a business administration degree and is doing everything he can to attend college.

Jorge is a very determined young man who thrives even in a difficult environment. Even though he was the first in his family to graduate from high school, his family does not support his idea of going to college.

His father often tells him that school is for lazy people, people who do not want to work. His mother is also skeptical about his education. Due to their financial situation her response to his dream is,

“I cannot support you because I have no money.”

Education is not taken seriously in Jorge’s home, which is why two of his four siblings who can attend school have already dropped out. Jorge supports his two younger brothers who remain in school, and he reminds them of the importance of education.

“The only way to get a better-paid job and end poverty is by being well prepared with education.”

Jorge says that a long-term commitment like getting a college education will improve their lives better than any short-term action like getting a job right now.

Jorge applied for the Leadership Development Program, made it all the way to the semifinal group and participated in the Academy. The Academy is a two-week program where we choose the Leadership Development Program beneficiaries.

The Academy also teaches the attendees studying methods, learning methods, how to organize time and about self-esteem, among other topics that will be useful for college. Jorge was very close but did not make it into the program. But he is already planning to apply again.

Nonetheless, thanks to our support during his high school education, Jorge is going to start working at a computer and internet shop this year. His “plan B” is to save as much as he can in order to attend college later this year. He is determined to go to school.

Jorge has not only developed his cognitive skills, but he has also grown spiritually in a very distinct way. Center Director Carlos mentions Jorge’s spiritual growth as one of the biggest changes he has seen in Jorge since the young man arrived at the student center.

“Jorge is an earnest Christian. He has grown a lot in our Lord’s Word. Some time ago I learned that he led one of his friends to Christ.”

Jorge explains that the biggest gift this ministry has ever given him is the opportunity to know Christ.

“I was 12 years old when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, here at the student center.”

Ever since then, Jorge has wholeheartedly learned more of God’s Word. He has fought for what he believes. There have been times when his dad would not allow him to attend church, but during those times Jorge knew he would still learn more about God at the center.

Jorge says that he has noticed how attending the student center has helped him be a better person. He sees how he is more responsible and that he has learned to control his temper. He knows how to manage his anger or frustration in a better way.

Jorge has overcome many hardships. His family belongs to the 26 percent of the population that lives in extreme poverty in Cobán. His dad used to have a tapestry shop, but he sold all his tools one night when he needed money to buy alcohol.

Jorge’s father is an alcoholic, which has only worsened the financial situation at his house. On top of that, his father has a strong temper and often fights with Jorge’s mother. There have been several divorce attempts. Jorge worries all the time because he does not want to choose between living with his mother or with his father.

Even though life has been rough, the Lord has provided Jorge with different blessings, one of them being Compassion’s Child Sponsorship Program, which has empowered him to dream big and has equipped him with the tools to pursue his dream.

God has also provided him with a sponsor who has been corresponding with him for the last 10 years. God has spoken into Jorge’s life through his sponsor, Alaina Blamchard.

“She tells me to keep on going in her letters!”

Thanks to support from his sponsor and our ministry, Jorge has learned to be strong and courageous in life and in pursuing his dreams. He is and will be successful in his life.

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The Dominican Republic has a population of around 9.6 million people; 73 percent of the population is of mixed race, 16 percent are Caucasian, and 11 percent are of African descent. Around 95 percent of the population is Catholic. There is freedom of faith in the country, which allows around 2 percent of the population to practice Voodoo.

A typical Dominican family has four people. Statistically, while 42 percent of the homes are run by both parents together, about 31 percent are run by single mothers, and the rest are run by relatives.

The Dominican Republic is divided into 31 provinces; 14 are in the northwestern region of the country: Dajabón, Duarte, Espaillat, Hermanas Mirabal, La Vega, María Trinidad Sánchez, Monseñor Nouel, Montecristi, Puerto Plata, Samaná, Sánchez Ramírez, Santiago, Santiago Rodríguez and Valverde.

Each province depends on the central government. Each, however, also has its own local authorities: governor, senators, deputies, mayor, etc.

Nationwide unemployment is around 15 percent. To help fight the situation, the government has created and granted a debit “Solidarity” card to more than 800,000 families across the country so they can get food for themselves and their children by using money allocated by the government every month.

Free-zone industries have closed in some towns causing unemployment to rise even higher. Unemployed parents don’t have many options; most try to find small jobs each day. The most common regular occupation in the urban areas of these provinces is that of motorcycle-taxi driver, which allows a man to make between $6 and $15 daily.

When family income is not enough, it is quite common to see children in the streets begging, cleaning windshields at crossroads, shining shoes, or selling pirated DVDs and CDs to generate income to help their families.

Children are also involved in scavenging in the dump, drug trafficking and child prostitution. Some of the worst cases of child labor and exploitation can be found at the Rafey garbage dump near the community of Cienfuegos in the province of Santiago. Entire families search the garbage to collect cardboard, glass, plastic and metal waste materials and anything they can sell or barter.

Given that many homes in Cienfuegos serve as warehouses for the variety of sorted waste materials brought from the dump, good hygiene is a challenge. But health consequences are dramatic and include skin diseases and other related illnesses. Even the street dogs get fungus that cause them to lose their hair.

A similar form of child labor and exploitation can be found in Dajabón, a border town where unemployment is high and the children often stop attending the Compassion-assisted child development centers because the parents take them to the local Haitian-Dominican market to help carry goods. The Haitians sell items like shoes, clothes and personal care products to the Dominicans. The Dominicans sell the Haitians foods such as corn, wheat, rice, beans, chicken, eggs, spaghetti, oil, herring, vegetables and others.

Families living in extreme poverty in the northwest usually have one meal a day. To help keep the children from going to bed with an empty stomach, the meal is eaten at around 5 in the afternoon. Many families use firewood to cook their meals, and the smoke will sneak through the gaps in the wooden walls and the tin-sheet roofs of homes.

Primary and high school education is generally available in the northwest, but not all students can afford it.

Thousands of families in the Northwest become homeless each year due to the tropical storms and hurricanes that hit the island of Hispaniola between May 1 and Nov. 30. Their poverty worsens when their homes are destroyed, and the small amount of money they have must be used for relocation.

Examples of child development centers located in areas like this include:

DR-125, 127, 208, 242, 251, 254, 255, 293, 294, 300, 303, 306, 307, 313, 324, 326, 337, 346, 361, 380-383, 386, 388, 404, 406, 430, 466, 459, 500-505 and 600

To help you when writing to your sponsored child, here are some commonly used phrases in the local language of the northwestern region of the country:

• Mi niño (My child – when writing to a boy). Mi niña (My child – when writing to a girl). This phrase is received very dearly because it is generally used by people who love children a lot.
• ¡Hola, campeón! (Hello, champion!). This phrase is used to speak to boys. It highlights the competitive qualities of a boy.
• ¡Hola, princesa! (Hello, princess!). This phrase is used to speak to girls. It is an encouraging phrase that links a girl to fairy tales, success and the qualities of somebody who is dearly loved.
• ¡Hola, estrella! (Hello, star!). This phrase is used to speak both to boys and girls. It pertains to the children’s talents, good school performance, etc.

Mangú Recipe

A typical dish in the northwest is mangú. This Dominican dish can be eaten at any meal, especially when having a complete breakfast. This is how it is made.

Ingredients: fresh green plantains, water, salt, onion and oil.

Remove the outer peel from the plantains with a knife and slice the plantains into chunks for faster and more thorough cooking. Place the plantain pieces in water in a deep pan that allows the water to cover the chunks. Add salt to the water to taste.

Place the pan on the stove and let the plantains boil until they soften (around 20 minutes). If you can easily pierce the plantains with a fork or knife point, they are well cooked.

Remove the plantains from the water and put them in a bowl. Mash well by using a potato masher or even the flat bottom of a bottle or cup. As you mash the plantains, you can simultaneously pour in a little cool water and you will notice how soft they become.

On the side, pour some vinegar in a bowl; slice an onion and dip into the vinegar for a short while. Also, pour a little oil in a pan and place the pan on the stove flame.

When the oil is hot, remove the onion slices from the vinegar, place them in the hot oil, and stir for several seconds, avoiding burning.

Turn off the stove and pour the onion-vinegar-oil mixture over the mashed plantains, and mash again to allow all ingredients to mix well.

Serve hot either with cheese, fried eggs, boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, fried sausage, or any other food desired.

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But if your call to serve the poor extends beyond holistic child development, which it does for many people, we’d like to introduce you to our partner TEAR Fund New Zealand.

TEAR Fund stands for The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund, and its purpose is to glorify God by extending His kingdom in ministry to the poor, oppressed and disadvantaged, and to encourage God’s people to live out the values and principles of His kingdom by sharing with those in need.

TEAR Fund New Zealand represents the compassion of Jesus. This organization partners with local Christian organizations and churches in developing countries who use local staff to work directly with the poorest people, helping the poor find their own solutions, cutting out the middleman and reducing costs.

Microenterprise, community development projects and disaster relief are TEAR Fund New Zealand’s key activities, but that’s not all this ministry does. Right now, it’s working to eradicate the Guinea worm in Côte d’Ivoire, and also has programs to fight adult illiteracy and sexual slavery, among others.

TEAR Fund New Zealand offers child sponsorship too, but does that through us. Sponsoring a child with TEAR Fund New Zealand is sponsoring a child through Compassion.

Although our friend is from New Zealand, you can still partner with this Christian aid and development agency. Visit tearfund.co.nz to learn more.

We promise they don’t write with an accent…then again, maybe they do.

Oh yeah, you may like this. TEAR Fund New Zealand’s non-sponsorship programs are conducted in places of the world we don’t currently work.

• Afghanistan
• Cambodia
• China
• Malawi
• Mongolia
• Myanmar
• Nepal
• Niger
• Palestine
• Sudan

So if your heart is in those parts of the world, TEAR Fund New Zealand would be pleased to meet you.

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Gualey, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Like in any place where drug smuggling is done, a strong clandestine support structure is needed. A list of packers, sellers, messengers, gunmen, guards, lawyers, policemen, drug-storage-home owners and front men are supposedly kept on payrolls, and the financial benefits are still enough to make the capos richer.

Gualey is no exception.

“Drug trafficking is a very strange behavior,” says Pastor Rodríguez of the Church of God of Gualey. “I’ve stayed worshiping over night at the church and seen the vehicles enter the community and leave. You can see the moves.”

The national anti-drug agency is constantly doing drug raids, and it arrests many involved.

In October of 2007, in only 24 hours, the Dominican authorities disbanded a total of 223 drug rings nationwide and stripped several kilos of cocaine, pounds of marijuana, hundreds of portions of crack, and arrested several hundred people.

A press release published by the Dominican government on June 21, 2007 revealed that since August 2006, the national anti-drug agency had performed 8,715 raids and confiscated 5.5 tons of drugs.

Sociologists believe that drug smuggling is like a symptom of a disease, and if you treat only the symptom and not the cause of the disease, you won’t get a real cure.

“This is the reason why ever since we arrived we made a proclamation that Jesus Christ is King and Lord of Gualey,” says Pastor Rodríguez. “If there is no transformation through Jesus Christ and through education in this barrio, we understand that there is no other way.”

Drug trafficking in Gualey seeks to perpetuate itself under the disguised face of a helping hand, and children are at the top of the list for recruitment as prospects. At Compassion’s partner Church of God of Gualey they’ve had to deal with attempts of traffickers to gain the kids for their network.

One of these events took place in 2007 while making arrangements for the summer break recreational tour for three hundred children in the community, for which a minimum sum of money is requested from the families to cover some costs of the trip.

“A lady approached and said to me that a drug trafficker near the river used to pay for the trip for 15 or 20 of the children down there,” reports Eugenio, 51, a member of the local church. “He did so to start to coax them into that atmosphere, and he also gave them 20 pesos so they could buy some ice cream on the trip.”

Drug traffickers in Gualey begin by giving 20 or 30 pesos to children for running small errands. Then they send them to deliver a package at the corner, and that’s when children become drug mules.

If the police catch the children carrying drugs, there is no criminal consequence for anybody, not for the child because he is a child, or for anybody else because they are prepared to cover for the supplier for fear they will lose their source of income.

“When a 12-year-old kid gets a 500 peso bill, he no longer wants to study or work,” says Robinson, an evangelist at the Church of God of Gualey. “But when that boy tries marijuana, and then he tries cocaine and then crack, that boy who was the one in charge of delivering the drug is now stealing, and if necessary killing people, in order to buy from the same guy who gave him the 20 pesos to deliver the drug.”

Robinson gives thanks to the Lord because He transformed him. As a former drug addict in Gualey, Robinson has a very clear understanding of the problem there:

“Drugs enter a neighborhood by helping those who don’t have food to put food on the table so they will be able to set up a quiet sales spot. They will pay for medical prescriptions for the sick and cover any other need. The lack of employment also makes the neighbors cover the drug sellers.”

The neighbors that don’t agree with that illicit trade will not dare denounce it because, if arrested, the sellers may be out of prison soon, and they will gain a dangerous enemy.

“Family values are put aside,” says Eugenio. “Drug traffickers use a system here. They give bicycles, dolls, shoes, a lot of food and money to the kids. The child who is hungry at home, they send him to buy a fried chicken for them and one for himself. At Christmas eve, they give the child good clothes for free and on the Kings’ Day they give him his bicycle. That’s how the child begins to cherish money with no sacrifice.”

Sometimes after the family provider is arrested for drugs, a close replacement will keep the business. “When the parents are arrested, the children will continue to save the drugs for the sellers, and they will even pack it, because they have seen their parents do it,” says Robinson. He has been a witness of how drugs influence the children.

“What all the young kids long for is wearing Nike Jordan shoes, 22 and 23, and then they see those people who buy those shoes five pairs at once and even wear two pairs a day. That traumatizes them and entices them into that lifestyle.”

Eugenio has witnessed how entire homes have been ruined by the scourge of drugs.

“Sometimes both parents have to go for work because they have many needs and they leave the children alone at home, and before they can figure it out they don’t have children any longer — what they have is monsters, and they have completely lost their family.”

Unfortunately, illegal drug consumption is one factor that sternly regenerates the cycle of poverty. It is a cause of crime and prostitution, resulting in early pregnancy, homes run by single mothers, and children living with relatives because one or two of their parents are in prison for drug trafficking. These events cause a lot of pain, especially in the children, who don’t understand what’s going on.

“Recently, the center director informed me that a child’s mother went to jail,” says Pastor Rodríguez, so, around three days ago we went to his home to see how he was doing. The father is in prison too. What did they tell the boy? That the police is the bad side because his parents were at their business and they were taken to jail. Hatred has been growing in the heart of this little boy; for this reason the church is taking actions to provide this boy with professional help so that he will be able to better assimilate why his parents are in jail.”

Gangs inspire fear in the residents of Gualey and neighboring communities. Sometimes they fight for the control in one area and start a dangerous shootout. In many needy neighborhoods, innocent people are injured and killed by stray bullets during these criminal shootouts.

This was the case of a daughter of one sister of the church. The young girl went out to rescue another girl who lay in the middle of the street, shot, but young girl was shot, too.

“That was a time when a gang from Las Cañitas and a gang from Gualey were so upset between them that they shot one another, even with M-16’s,” reports Pastor Rodríguez. “Our church sister’s daughter died.”

“I know a boy from the Compassion child development center whose father uses drugs,” says Eugenio. “His sister died during a shootout. A sniper from Las Cañitas shot her in the chest and killed her. The family is traumatized, the mother cries a lot, and also the boy has a violent attitude because his sister was taken way from him.”

In Gualey, having a drug-addict at home is a very tough situation. “When a family has a person who uses drugs, he will steal all the things that they have to buy drugs,” says Eugenio. “He will be very violent and aggressive and not understanding. He will be somebody with low self esteem, and his family will reject him.”

The phone rings at many homes at night. Those are the wives and youth coming back from work, and the children coming back from school. Many call when they are arriving to the entrance so that a mature adult will come for them, for fear that they might be robbed, or that the police might mistakenly arrest them in a raid.

“You cannot walk the streets at night because you are robbed or killed,” says Eugenio. “You have to be careful when walking in the streets, because you don’t know who is watching you.”

Extensive parades with placards, prayer campaigns, and child ministry with the support of Compassion International are some of the efforts that the Church of God of Gualey is doing to fight the empire of drugs. This church has gained the respect of the community since many of its members are former drug consumers and traffickers and lived a life of crime. The neighbors are never too tired to confess to them “God has changed you in deed”.

When Pastor Rodríguez was appointed Pastor of the Church of God of Gualey in the year 2003, the members of his former church in Gaspar Hernández could not believe it. “The change was as big as from heaven to earth”, testifies Pastor Rodríguez.

“In Gaspar Hernández the people run away from the bullets, and here, when there is a shootout with the police, the people run to see what is happening” (The Pastor paraphrases the well known saying that in Gualey the people run away from the rain but run towards the bullets).

The Community of Gualey

Some say that the first residents of Gualey settled in the 1950’s during the dictatorship of General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. Gualey is located on the western bank of the Ozama River in Santo Domingo. It is a gathering of mostly poor construction homes built on hilly land. It has few paved roads, and most of it consists of a lot of narrow alleys and long and steep stairs that wander in a puzzled labyrinth of crammed homes down to the edge of the river.

When people say that they are from Gualey, a preconception arises in people’s minds. “When our youth go to a firm for a job, the first thing they ask is where they live. ‘Ah, in Gualey’, and they won’t employ them. They will believe they are criminals,” reports Eugenio.

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