A new day begins in the city of Siguatepeque, Honduras, and with it a routine process caarried out by two girls at a child development center egg farm. They change the chickens’ water and pick up the eggs.

“Hey, here is another one,” says Keila with enthusiasm while they search for more eggs and the chickens walk between their legs.

The center is in a fresh environment with lots of pine trees. The 140 chickens lay eggs to feed the 257 children at the Pentecostal Student Center.

One of the desired outcomes of our programs is the physical development of children, but the rise in food prices has worsened our church partners’ ability to help the children grow healthy.

In Honduras, 70 percent of families in the rural areas live in extreme poverty, and in the past year, the cost of basic grains has doubled. The price of fertilizer has gone up 71 percent.

This egg farm is one of the ways Compassion Honduras is responding to the global food crisis, which has created great difficulty in the holistic development of the children.

The chicken project started as a dream of this student center in November 2008, and the dream came true through our Complementary Interventions program (CIV). (more…)

The green leaves start to receive the first rays of the sun, leaving the darkness and cold of the night behind. It is 6 in the morning and the harvest looks ready – ready to be separated from the corn bush, ready to become part of a meal, and ready to be part of a change in the lives of an entire community.

This is the fruit of seeds planted with hope, watered with hard work and dreams, and, at last, harvested with joy.

Pastor Damian checks two sacks full of beans. It is just the beginning of the harvest and the fruits already look promising.

Another man, Brother Juan, a seasoned farmer with dark skin and gray hair, is a perfect example of a Salvadoran farmer – thin but somehow robust, quiet and wise. Juan has served as an adviser to Pastor Damian since they decided to implement program “Double Seed.”

Juan talks about the beans and how they should keep some leaves and dirt in the sack so the beans will not lose the humidity they need.

“This way, they can last for about a year,” he adds, and smiles, knowing that the efforts made these past three months have given results – promising results that translate into hope.

It has been three months since Double Seed started in the community of Corinto, in Zaragoza, a city located eight miles south of the capital city, San Salvador, in El Salvador.

These past months meant sweat and great efforts for the people, but it also meant hope for a future that did not seem so clear a few months before. (more…)