The church is essential in helping people escape from poverty, and Elizabeth’s story helps us understand the important role a local church plays in a community.

Elizabeth’s story is similar to the stories of others in her community of Los Montacitos, home to nearly 300 families. This town is located more than 1,200 meters above sea level on the central mountain range in the province of San Juan de la Maguana in southwestern Dominican Republic.

Elizabeth’s father died when she was only 1 year old. All she heard was that he had a sudden headache that killed him, and her mother could not take care of her. That’s when Elizabeth was given up for adoption.

Elizabeth was extremely malnourished and near death when Gabriel and his wife, Santa, received her as a tiny, fragile baby in their hands.

After seven months of care, Elizabeth got well. However, her condition was monitored very closely. In order to help secure her new daughter’s well-being, Santa enrolled Elizabeth with Compassion at just 2 years of age.

The Cristo Es La Solucion Mennonite Evangelical Church became Elizabeth’s second home, and the Los Montacitos Student Center became a place where she was loved and nourished, and where she learned about Jesus and His love for her.

As soon as Elizabeth graduated from the Child Sponsorship Program, she became a tutor for the adolescents at her center. She has since been giving back some of what she has received.

“Whenever I’m working with the children, I remember the time when I came to the center as a child. Before, it was me who needed support; now it’s them who need it. That gives me strength and power to help them.”

Now that Elizabeth has finished high school, she is planning to enter the university in San Juan to become a language teacher for children in the public school in Los Montacitos.

Many are the youth the church has encouraged to succeed in school, but before the child development center appeared, somebody had to lay the first brick as a living example. That was Sandra.

In 1995, Sandra supervised the development of 70 children in Los Montacitos. At that time, the Child Sponsorship Program was only an extension of another child development center in the neighboring community of Arroyo Cano.

In 1999, Los Montacitos Student Center opened and Sandra became the director.

Sandra got married when she was 15, and she only studied up to grade four of primary school; that’s all the local school offered.

Sandra could have been part of the low education statistic for the Dominican Republic, but as soon as she started working with Compassion, she found herself challenged to be an example for future generations.

Sandra continued her education through the Santa Maria Radio educational program and then went to San Juan weekly until she finished high school and then college.

At present, Sandra is working on a higher education degree in Child Advocacy with Compassion and the National Evangelical University.

After 20 years of continuous hard work for her community, Sandra sees the fruit of her labor.

“We have a lot of youth traveling to San Juan and some of them are in the university. We have some of our tutors traveling to San Juan too.”

The excellence of the center graduates is also inspiring.

Just last year, one of the graduates entered the Leadership Development Program (LDP), and four more students from the child development center have submitted LDP applications.

The Cristo Es La Solucion Mennonite Evangelical Church has been called “Mother of the Community,” and the church considers Los Montacitos its adoptive child.

In the past, children didn’t go to school during the harvest season because their parents used them to help in the harvesting of coffee, beans, green peas, corn and other seasonal crops.

This has changed since staff from the local church spoke with parents about the importance of their children being in school. Staff members have also been to the Ministry of Education regional office, asking the authorities to help promote this mandate among the parents.

There have been many other challenges preventing children from attending school, however.

In 1998, Hurricane Georges tore down the wooden school, which had been built by the parents’ own hands. The construction of the new school began, but for reasons the parents don’t understand, different political leaders have been in office for more than a decade and the school building has not been finished.

Sandra’s house is an ample place and she has lent three of her rooms to the Ministry of Education so the rooms can be used for school so the children won’t lose their school year.

Until recently, there was no electricity in Los Montacitos. In fact, the first television that arrived in the community was Sandra’s in the early 1990s. Farmers with muddy rubber boots sat at her home after a long day of work; they watched TV, played dominoes and shared family stories.

More recently, around 80 percent of the homes in the community have gotten a solar panel so they can at least turn on a few light bulbs at night.

There are no parks or movie theaters in Los Montacitos. Children spend their free time playing marbles. They also play baseball, using a stick and a ball made of a couple of old pairs of socks packed tight in a bundle, or they take green oranges to bat.

Quite recently, the government equipped a new primary health assistance building in Los Montacitos where simple cases like vomiting, diarrhea, headaches and blood pressure problems are addressed. However, they don’t have a lab, and the main hospital in San Juan continues to be the solution in cases of serious illness.

Often, Sandra hosts medical volunteers who come to serve the people of Los Montacitos and who don’t have a place to stay overnight. Her husband has a pickup truck and they always serve their neighbors, taking them down the mountain to the hospital in San Juan, which isn’t an easy task.

It’s a two-hour trip downhill to the main hospital. The road is rocky, tough and full of holes, with a precipice on both sides and steep sections along the way.

Without a connection, the cost to get into San Juan is typically $100. In an emergency someone has to pay that fee all alone. And when it rains, all travel gets canceled.

“People with an asthma have had fits and have died on their way to San Juan,” Sandra reports. “And women have sometimes delivered their babies on our truck before they arrive at the hospital. In fact, we have some of these children in the center.”

After the rainy season is over, the local church in Los Montacitos helps clean the entire community. All rubble from the winds and rainstorms are taken away, the holes in the road are filled, and the woods are reforested to help maintain the environment.

Cristo Es La Solucion Mennonite Evangelical Church is helping build a foundation for the spiritual growth and development of the community. It’s something they’ve been doing well, in various ways, for nearly 50 years.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

Almost a decade has passed since Vilma Canales completed Compassion Honduras’ Child Sponsorship Program, yet this 27-year-old woman still recalls those years as the best time of her life.

Growing up, Vilma lived with her mother and her two sisters, Sandra and Anahi, in Honduras’s western state of Copan, well-known for being the location of the Copan Ruins and home of the Mayan civilization.

Vilma’s childhood was normal despite the family’s lack of economic resources. Her mother was the backbone of the family, a hard-working, single mother who provided for her daughters until the last day of her life. Vilma and her sisters never knew their father.

When she was registered at the child development center, Vilma was a very shy girl. As time passed she overcame her shyness and became interested in knowing more about the Lord and the Bible.

“I came to the development center through my older sister who was working as a volunteer. It was in 1997 when I opened my heart to the Lord, the best decision that I have made in my life.”

As a child, the economic situation at home was difficult, and adding to the difficulty was the fragile health of Vilma’s mother. Vilma knew in her heart that she was not alone and that the Lord was in control of her family.

Just before passing away Vilma’s mother asked Vilma for two things: to look after her sisters and to do something good with her life.

“With the death of my mother, I felt lonely and hopeless. I was really concerned because I was left in charge of my sisters.

“It was quite difficult because of our lack of economic resources. I got a scholarship to finish my education because it was right when I was starting high school that my mother passed away. I worked as a volunteer at the church and received an offering that somehow helped me to feed my sisters.”

“During all that time I received nice words of encouragement, love and support from my sponsors, this lovely couple, for nearly 10 years. I thank God for their lives.”

Throughout the years, Vilma and her sisters have seen the hand of God in every need.

“God has been faithful to us. We are much better now because both of my sisters are working. I know that this is only the beginning of a better and new life for our family. I have seen the help of God all this time. Even in the worst times, He was always there providing for all our needs.”

Vilma completed the sponsorship period and was able to graduate from high school, but she wanted more and continued pursuing her dream of becoming a professional. She obtained a college degree from the National University of Honduras.

“I’m so happy that I fulfilled the promise that I made to my mother. I was able to accomplish this with few resources and hard work. I praise the Lord for this great blessing because I can inspire others to achieve their dreams, because anything is possible with God’s help.”

But there was also another wish in Vilma’s heart. She loves Compassion’s ministry and didn’t like the idea of being away from the children.

“I wanted to continue with this ministry because I consider myself a product of Compassion.”

So when the news came to Vilma that the Honduras country office was looking for a Partnership Facilitator for the western region, she was immediately interested and started to pray.

“I thought that this would be a great opportunity to continue with the organization and work for the children in my region. I went through some interviews with office staff, including the Country Director, and while going through all this I prayed a lot with all my heart for this position.”

Vilma was the strongest candidate for the position, and she received the job.

“I felt overwhelmed with so much joy and gratitude to the Lord, I started to cry. I was at the center and my pastor was with me when I received the news, and I still recall her words: ‘Vilma, the Lord blesses those who have been faithful’.”

Vilma is currently serving on the worship team in her congregation and enjoying life with her sisters. She hopes to support the churches she’s been assigned so they can continue with the holistic development of the children in their communities. Vilma knows Christ is needed in these communities and in this society.

“I’m going to serve 13 development centers in my area. It is great to be able to make this journey again and see many children coming up through the church with hopes and dreams.”

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

Florence Sena Amponsah is a Partnership Facilitator for 12 Compassion-assisted child development centers. She has been with Compassion Ghana for one year now. She is involved with a pilot program to train youths to educate their peers about HIV and AIDS.

“When children get to a certain age, around the teenage years, they tend to relate more to their peers and their siblings who are closer to them in age than they would from their parents or teachers or adults in general.

“Parents and adults have the inclination to be uncommunicative on issues concerning sex, but children get to an age where they need answers to many things happening to their bodies. When they do not get the responses they require, they turn to their peers for information.

“Most times the information shared among peers is by and large wrong and detrimental.

“Considering these facts, we believe that when the capacity of children whom we call ‘Peer Educators’ is built up by equipping then with right knowledge and correct information, then these children can carry the message across to other children, their communities, their churches and even in their schools.

“What they are learning are most of the general things they need answers to at their developmental stage, which they are not able to openly talk about.

“The Peer Educators Training is in the pilot phase for 12 child development centers, presenting two children from each. So there are 24 children involved in the pilot.

“From what I have seen so far, I can confidently say that the program is going to make a great impact. The group of children here are highly intelligent, and judging from their participation, I can tell they are learning a lot as they find the topics to be relevant to them.

“We chose HIV and AIDS as the topic for the peer educators because HIV and AIDS is a disease which is threatening Africa. It has cut across many countries, and is a problem here in Ghana.

“We have orphans, we have people who have been infected with the disease, so we are building the capacity of these peer educators to carry the message.

“They are being taught how the disease is spread so that if they know, they will make informed decisions about themselves. At least they will know how to protect themselves.

“They are also being taught the need to care for other people who have the disease to help prevent discrimination, isolation and rejection.”

Comfort is a parent and the Vice Chairman of the Association of Parents. She is a trader who deals in used clothing. She is among the many parents who have had the opportunity to benefit from HIV and AIDS education as part of our AIDS Initiative.

“I have come here for the parental meeting. My son is in the child development center. His name is Wesley. We named him after John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church.

“I have benefited so much from these meetings. Through these educations, I am well informed on HIV and AIDS.

“Now I know that a person can be carrying the disease for a long time without knowing it. I now know that HIV is when the person has the virus, but is not sick with AIDS but can spread the disease.

“I have been encouraged to go for voluntary testing because it is good to know your status early, so that help can be given to you to keep you from getting sick with AIDS itself.

“We were talked to about stigmatization of AIDS patients. Now I know that I cannot catch the disease just by socializing with a person with AIDS.

“I have a different attitude toward AIDS now. I do not know my status yet, but the next time the opportunity comes, I will be the first person to go for testing. I am already encouraging my friends who did not get the chance to be in these meetings to go for counseling and testing, because that saves life.

“In fact, I am sharing all I know about the disease with anybody I get the chance to talk to.”

Nyarko is 12 years old and is a peer educator.

“I have just graduated from junior secondary school and about to enter senior high school. As a peer educator, I am learning about HIV and AIDS, teenage pregnancy and many more topics.

“I have been told that AIDS is now a major problem in Africa, and more and more people are getting it and more people are dying. I also know that even though a lot of education is going on, many more people are still ignorant about the disease and teenagers are also getting it. Ghana has to intensify education on HIV/AIDS.

“In Ghana there is an increase in orphans due to parents dying from the disease. There is also an increase in the poverty rate because many people are so sick and weak with the disease that they cannot work to support themselves and their families. The high poverty rate has also pushed the youth into prostitution, which is helping the disease to spread.

“I now know that HIV is the virus and AIDS is the disease itself. There is no cure for AIDS so it is important that we abstain from sex. We have also had lessons in sex education, the different forms of abuses and how to identify them. I have learned a lot.

“I have also learned that it is only by doing the HIV/AIDS test that you can tell your status. I know now that it does not mean that you are going to die the moment you have the virus, HIV. But if you know your status and start taking good care of yourself early by taking your drugs and eating good diet, you can live for many years without getting AIDS.

“I intend to share what I have learned with my friends at the student center. I will educate everyone my age I come into contact with. I can even educate some adult who would be willing to listen to me.

“I will tell the girls that even if they do not get AIDS from having sex, they can get pregnant and drop out of school and their life will be a mess.

“I will tell them about all the forms of abuses and let them know that rapists are not strangers alone but rather can be close relatives or well-known people. I have also learned that boys can be raped. I will share with them what to do if they find themselves in any of these bad situations.”

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

“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).

Like any new activity, the center faced many difficulties — especially when moving 200 chickens. Some of the chickens died and others were stolen.

“We decided to move again the whole thing to a better and safer place, and we currently have 160 chickens and 14 roosters,” says Sandra, the center director.

In spite of all the problems 140 chickens are laying eggs twice a day, and the center is collecting approximately 280 eggs daily.

The children now recieve a nutritional, healthy lunch based on eggs daily. The blessing goes beyond that because the children’s families can buy a cardboard box of 30 eggs for a low price, allowing the center to generate the necessary income to purchase chicken feed.

Pentecostal Student Center is now prepared and confident about the future. This activity gives them the opportunity to bless others in need.

“We have been able to rescue families from precarious nutritional conditions, and we are encouraged to keep working hard and bless many families and children in this city of Siguatepeque,” says Sandra.

In the meantime, Keila and her sister Keren continue with their chores at the egg farm, and have a great time playing with the chickens. Both know how important their work is.

In the warm city of Comayagua, another great CIV program is taking place at Vida Cristiana Student Center: a micro-project fish production that intends to help 312 children and their families.

For Yanira, the center director, this idea started as a vision to help many people, especially children who are living in extreme poverty with so many needs.

“We have seen the need of many families, not only for the lack of food but also because many parents do not have a job and as a result do not have the means to buy food for their children.

“We have seen children with headaches and stomachaches simply because they have not eaten at home, so we are here to attend those children who are going through these difficult times, and we feel blessed to have the opportunity to keep their weight and nutrition.”

It was a common desire within the church to strengthen the children’s nutritional lunch at the center during the global food crisis. Perhaps the biggest challenge was to purchase the material for the fish tank, which is sometimes difficult to find in Honudras.

But the church was always confident that God was going to provide the tools for this activity. They were able to obtain the fish tank material, and eventually began to set it up on the hill behind the church.

Currently, the fish tank has 2,000 fish that are being taken care of by young boys like 15-year-old Gerson.

For two months Gerson has been responsible for the fish tank, an activity he enjoys because of the benefits it will bring him and his friends at the center.

Every day he walks 2 kilometers to the site to do his job with enthusiasm and professionalism. His job is feeding the fish thre times during the day, and also activating the pump that add oxygen to the water.

“They have trained me over the handling and maintenance of this fish pond, also about agriculture and many things.”

In spite of having just two months of experience working with this fish tank, the center is starting to see the fish gain weight and size. They continue training young people how to take care of the fish pond.

In the near future, these fish will be part of the children’s daily lunch. According to Yanira,

“In six months, this cycle of fish will be ready and then we will start over with another 2,000 fish. There is a good market to sell the fish, so the fish pond can be maintained economically.

“We wish the children to learn to dream big and hope that this experience will help them to have the opportunity to become entrepreneurs.”

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

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.

Declarations made by international organizations since the third quarter of the year contrast with the hope at Zaragoza.

On July 13, 2008, the president of the World Bank, Mr. Robert Zoellick, declared to news agencies that they estimated that poor countries will need over $6 billion in assistance because already rising food and energy costs will continue to climb until 2012.

The economy section of El Diario de Hoy newspaper the next day showed that the cost of staples has increased 40 percent. But numbers are not as compelling as individual stories.

The journalist recalled a scene at a street market where a woman who preferred not to be identified collected the grains of maize that fell on the floor after the salesman weighed the grain to put it in bags and sell by the pound.

After much effort, this woman collected about one pound of maize just from the grains that fell on the floor, which would her feed her family that night.

Since the global food crisis filled the headlines and breaking news segments, Compassion El Salvador and its partner churches began to create strategies to face this threat. Among the strategies are agricultural development programs for the families of Compassion-assisted children.

The crisis experienced all around the world has complicated roots, and the truth is that the most affected are the people in greatest need. Now Compassion is striving to provide help, hope and the Word of God to those families at greatest risk.

Compassion El Salvador created multidisciplinary teams at the country office level, which developed a strategy that first takes into account the valuable input of pastors and church leaders.

This strategy has been implemented in two stages. First is the short-term response, where families  most in need receive immediate relief through our Complementary Interventions program (CIV). They are receiving enough food for their families to cover six months.

The second stage involves the church more, since the purpose is to support the families at the child development centers, and start income-generating activities such as chicken farms and hydroponics.

Among these programs to secure food for the short term is Double Seed, implemented by our church partner, Iglesia Jesucristo es El Señor, which runs the child development center, Nuevo Amanecer (New Sunrise).

In rural communities like Corinto, most of the people do not have a steady job and survive with what they can harvest with the seeds they receive from the government. The real hope and help they have comes from churches and organizations like Compassion. Churches like Jesucristo es El Señor and Pastor Damian understand this and have taken the challenge to make a difference in the lives of the children.

Sister Sandra, partnership facilitator for Jesucristo es El Señor, says the church received $2,000, and there will be another $700. With that money the church was able to buy seeds and other materials they needed to begin the harvest.

The land was borrowed by the pastor’s family, and the labor was the result of the collaboration of the families of the children at the development center. So far, they have sowed five acres of corn and one more of beans.

The most impressive part of this plan is the name, Double Seed. “At the place where they have sowed the beans, the church has a small group that meets to share the gospel,” says Sister Sandra.

It is called Double Seed because they are not just planting grains that will secure food next year for the families of the children from the child development center and the church - they also are planting the gospel that will secure the salvation of the families that are not Christian.

For now, Double Seed has been a short-term immediate response to the food shortage and is intended to secure food for the families of the children enrolled in the program for the next several months.

The church is becoming a holistic oasis in that poor community, where people are not only finding support for their children, but also for their families and for their souls.

“The LORD will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.” – Psalm 85:12 (NIV)

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates