Happy birthday, Sarge
Every year CFCA processes an estimated 1.5 million letters from sponsored children and elderly. Each of these letters, with mailing labels, must be put into envelopes before they can be mailed to the sponsors.
You might think we need a small army to get this done. But no, we have something better: a group of 35 highly dedicated volunteers.
And today, one of those volunteers, Angie Simms, is celebrating her 95th birthday!
Angie has been helping CFCA for 25 years, making her our longest-serving volunteer. She averages around 570 volunteer hours per year.
The staff and other volunteers know Angie simply and affectionately as “Sarge,” both for her military background (she served in the Women’s Army Corps in World War II) and her no-nonsense manner.
“She’s very spit-fire, and brings humor to the work place,” said Colleen McKeone, CFCA coordinator of child letters who works closely with the volunteers. “She has no qualms about speaking her mind. I enjoy her presence very much.”
For those who take the time to listen, Angie has a wealth of stories and life lessons. She’ll also trade some one-liners with anyone who’s quick enough to keep up with her.
After thousands of volunteer hours and probably millions of letters, we wonder what makes her so steadfast. Her brisk answer is pretty simple:
“God must have left me here in this world to do something.”
We’re glad He has, Sarge.
Happy birthday!
Add comment November 5, 2009
Bob’s travel notes to Chile
Mission awareness trip to Chile
Oct. 24 – Nov. 1, 2009
I’m told that the word “Chile” means “land where the earth ends.” Staff reports that Chile is considered “First in Inequity” in Latin America, with 42 percent of resources owned by less than 10 percent of the people. There are so many marginalized families, whose only shelter is a one-room wooden structure. A recurring theme is violence to women and children. Our CFCA families strive to make it on very modest income. According to staff, 70 percent of mothers in the Chile project are single heads of family.
A day with our sponsored elderly
CFCA currently serves 566 aging sponsored friends in subproject D. Most live precariously in houses constructed with nontraditional materials. Some of them rent a room in another family’s home. Only six live in homes for the elderly. The aging sponsored friends receive a $103 monthly subsidy from the Chilean government. However, the money is not enough to cover basic needs such as nutrition and clothing. CFCA provides daily breakfast, lunch and snacks for them at Casa de Día, a facility attached to the Valparaiso project office.
Bob serenades the sponsored aging during lunch.
At the Claretian Sisters facility at El Cerro El Litre, the elderly can attend different kinds of workshops. Every year, the subproject offers a field trip to give them the opportunity to share their talents and stories, and also just to have a fun time.
Testimony of Maria Cena, a 14-year participant in the program: “My dream as a girl was to have loving parents, and I achieved it. I’m also grateful for excellent teachers and social workers. At age 80, I now play guitar and sing in our choir.”
Free clinics serve health needs
After sightseeing in Valparaiso, the group visited Consultorio de Salud las Cañas. Consultorios de Salud are free health clinics created by the Chilean health system to serve the less fortunate. Valparaíso has 13 consultorios in the hills of the city. About 11,000 people benefit from the services. Not only do these clinics provide medical and dental care to our sponsored children and aging, but they also make CFCA aware of other families that could benefit from the sponsorship program.
Sister Sara at the El Litre CFCA facility devotes herself to the aging and to the most rejected street people of Valparaiso. Their source of warmth at night is the dogs with which they sleep. Relying completely on God’s providence, her team of volunteers provides lunch each day for more than 100 people on the street. She receives donations of food and clothing.
Key programs for women
The training program was created in 1992 to help the mothers of sponsored children learn skills that would allow them to save money and increase the household income. The program holds workshops in tailoring, weaving and hairdressing, and provides supplies, transportation costs and child care for participating mothers. Every year, around 230 mothers benefit from the training program.
The CFCA’s Women’s Program was created in 1993 to provide a space for the mothers to be better informed about domestic violence and its impact on their relationship with their children. The program offers workshops on self-esteem, child-mother relationships and formation for all members of the family. Around 200 people per year attend the workshops.
The fishermen and women of La Caleta
La Caleta de Pescadores Portales Valparaíso is the biggest fishing cove in the region. Approximately 200 families make their living from the fishing activities here. Family fishing is not only a dangerous job, but it also presents big challenges, such as a lack of government assistance, climate changes, high cost of gasoline and overwhelming competition from the commercial fishing industry. Here, fishing is done both with nets and hooks. Some of the sponsored children’s mothers work in this cove as fishhook baiters.
Don Juan, head of the fishermen’s union, explains in Spanish and good English the life and lore of family fishing in Chile.
Indigenous roots
Cabildo, one of the communities served by subproject RUR, earned its name from the indigenous people known as Cabildos. Subproject RUR was created in 2001 to serve the rural communities of the Valparaíso region. This is the biggest subproject of the Valparaíso project with 1,258 children and 116 aging. The mid-sized Las Cenizas copper mine in Cabildo is owned by Chilenos who are seriously working on minimizing ecological impact of the mine.
Thank you for joining us in this wonderful experience! Cristina and I are looking forward to a couple of days “on the farm” in San Lucas before heading for Costa Rica on Nov. 7. We shall be with you in spirit, song and prayer.
God’s blessings,
Bob Hentzen
Add comment November 4, 2009
Dia de los Muertos
By Enrique Espinosa, Sponsor Services Department
In Mexico, it is customary to honor our beloved family members who have gone before us by celebrating Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Every Nov. 1, Mexicans celebrate the passing of children (12 years and younger). This is more of a private ceremony.
Nov. 2 is the traditional Dia de los Muertos, which people celebrate by setting up an altar in the Church or the family’s home, depending on the community tradition. On the altar, they place the deceased’s photo, their favorite foods (including fruits, vegetables, hot chocolate, pan dulce, tamales, pulque, atoli, etc.) and flowers. Then the family prays the rosary and a novena. Afterward, they play the deceased’s favorite music.
This is a joyous occasion because they are celebrating the lives of their loved ones, and the fact that they have moved on to a better, eternal life, sharing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Day of the Dead fills a void
By Sheila Myers, Communications Department
The loss of a loved one leaves a hole in your heart. With time, you get used to living with this void, but occasionally, something–an aroma, a song, a situation–reminds you of the person and for a second, the hole closes and you feel oddly comforted.
Years ago, my husband and I discovered the Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday when you lovingly remember departed relatives and friends.
The holiday has its roots in the Aztec culture. The ancient Aztecs embraced death and viewed it as a continuation of life. They believed that life was a dream and only in death did they become truly awake. Day of the Dead for the Aztecs was a month-long celebration when the dead came back to visit. After the Spanish conquest, the ritual evolved and spread to other cultures. It is now celebrated to coincide with All Souls Day in the Catholic faith.
For the Day of the Dead, Mexicans build elaborate altars for their deceased. They fill it with pictures and mementos of the deceased and decorate with colorful flowers, candles, brightly painted skull masks and whimsical skeleton figurines called “calacas.”
When I learned about Day of the Dead, I welcomed the opportunity to put our departed loved ones front and center in our home, to talk about them with our children and to reflect on the essence of their lives.
So in early October, we gather photos of our deceased relatives and set them out in the living room. Our display is plain and simple, unlike the beautifully adorned altars I have seen. It lacks the favorite food and drink of our departed family. We don’t play their favorite music or burn incense. But it serves the same purpose.
When I pass by the display, their faces call to me. I stop and reflect, remembering them and how their presence shaped my life. And for a brief moment, the hole is closed.
CFCA celebrated Dia de los Muertos at our headquarters in Kansas. Employees were invited to bring in photos and mementos of their departed loved ones. Below you can see a couple of photos of our altar. We would like to invite you to share some memories of your deceased loved ones with us in the comments section.
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1 comment November 2, 2009
Fourth typhoon in a month strikes Philippines
Typhoon Mirinae struck the Philippines this weekend. The severe weather follows three other such storms, including Typhoon Ketsana, reported as giving the region the heaviest rainfall in 40 years.
CFCA staff members are assessing damage within the CFCA communities affected by the storm. We will post updates here and on the CFCA Web site as reports come in.
Please keep the people affected by the typhoons in your prayers.
Add comment October 31, 2009
A story of love and solidarity
A few days ago, CFCA sponsor Jeri Blanch wrote about the positive developments happening in El Salvador. Now you can watch the video below to share her personal experience as a sponsor.
Add comment October 30, 2009
An interview with Samuel about baseball
Here is an interview between Santo Domingo project coordinator Nelson Figueroa and Samuel, a 17-year-old sponsored youth from Santo Domingo.
Q. When did you start playing baseball?
A. I was five years old. I started in a children´s league called Borinquen. However, I’ve always played in the streets with my friends
Q. How often do you play?
A. I play every Saturday and Sunday in the league. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday we have practice in the league, but I play with my friends every time I can.
Q. What do you think about baseball and why do you like the game?
A. It is very important and very good. It helps my muscles and allows me to be in shape by being active all the time. It keeps my mind busy and away from unhealthy environments.
Q. What position do you like to play?
A. Center field because you get many balls and can throw them to the bases. You run a lot.
Q. What is the best thing you ever did in a game?
A. Once I was playing against the team from Azua (Azua is a province in the south) and I grabbed a ground ball and threw it with all my strength to home plate. The player was out and we won the game. On another occasion, we were in Barahona (another province in the southeast). I was playing with my team. I had to bat and I hit a home run out of the field. We were losing, but the team got energized by it and we won the game. By the way, I have never done it again!
Q. Who is your favorite baseball player?
A. Pedro “El Grande” Martinez.
Did you miss Nelson’s blog post about baseball in the Dominican Republic? Read it here!
Add comment October 29, 2009
Baseball: not just an American sport
Baseball is America’s favorite pastime, as the saying goes. And tonight with game 1 of the World Series, which pits the New York Yankees against the Philadelphia Phillies, fans and teams alike will wind up for a nearly a week and a half of baseball mania. We wanted to know what another baseball-crazed nation, the Dominican Republic, thinks of the sport, so we asked Nelson Figueroa, Santo Domingo project coordinator, to weigh in on the topic.
Baseball in the Dominican Republic is considered a national entertainment. This is the sport that gathers all levels of society. Pretty much life in the DR flows around baseball and the teams of the Dominican Baseball League. As a matter of fact, we have a saying here. Dominicans talk about two things: the “ballitic,” or baseball and politics.
The children generally like to wear the colors of their favorite team. There is no place in which people don’t talk about who is or isn’t the best player. Baseball makes the front page of the newspaper all the time. Even politicians use baseball terms in their political material.
Everyday language uses baseball terms. For example, when a person does something illegal, people say, “He/she batted a foul.” In contrast, when a person does something really good people say, “He/she hit a home run through the 411.” The number “411” is the measurement through the center field of the largest stadium in the country.
It starts early
In general, the life of Dominicans flows around this sport, and children start playing it at a young age.
We could probably say that children start playing at about age five, but they begin learning the basics when they take their first steps. In fact, one of their very first gifts is a plastic baseball bat and ball. Children play in parks, streets, their backyards and on organized leagues.
The organized league starts with the mini league at age 5 to 7. The organized leagues are for boys only. Girls usually play informally.
Improvising the equipment
Children usually play baseball in the streets. They use juice or milk cartons as mitts by flattening them and making a horizontal opening for the finger, similar to regular baseball mitts. Baseball bats are made with broomsticks or a piece of wood carved to the shape of a bat.
Many times the balls are rubber balls sold locally, but most of the time they are made by wrapping a small rock with paper and holding it with tape. Once that is done, they put the ball inside of a sock to form the ball.
Children use anything available for the bases: electric posts, trash, rocks, whatever won’t blow away. Sometimes they paint bases on the floor with paint or charcoal.
A famous legacy
The most popular baseball player in the Dominican Republic is Juan Marichal, the only Dominican player in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in the U.S.
The Professional Baseball League of the Dominican Republic is the major league, and the season starts in October. Most Dominican baseball players in the U.S. come from this league. At the same time, players from other countries are brought here as support.
For some time, the town of San Pedro de Macoris turned out many professional baseball players. I don’t know the reason why so many baseball players came from this town. Nowadays, there are players from all over the country—famous players such as Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Hanley Ramirez, Vladimir Guerrero, Albert Pujols, Miguel Tejada, Placido Polanco, Alex Rodríguez, José Reyes, Omar Minaya (general manager for the New York Mets), Robinson Cano, and others.
Of course, one of the dreams of our boys and their families is for them to become a professional baseball player. It is a way out of poverty
CFCA’s Santo Domingo project does not usually organize baseball games as recreation because children usually play it in their own communities.
Check back tomorrow to read an interview between Nelson and Samuel, a 17-year-old sponsored youth from Santo Domingo.
1 comment October 28, 2009
Dreams come true for La Realidad
By Jeri Blanch, CFCA sponsor
Last year I had the privilege of going on a mission awareness trip to El Salvador to visit my sponsored children. One of the communities we visited was La Realidad, which had grown up around the town dump. The people ate scraps of food and used items from the dump. Their houses were made of cardboard. In order to find any type of employment, the parents had to leave the area to work. That meant that the children were left unattended during the day. School attendance was basically non-existent. Crime, including violent crime and murder, was rampant. The people lived without hope in the most abject poverty.
The turning point came about seven years ago when CFCA started working there. Food was provided to the families of sponsored children. The children started going to school and were required to attend extra tutoring classes after school. A soccer team was formed. Sheet-metal housing replaced the cardboard. As money became available, the sheet-metal houses were replaced by more substantial cinder-block homes, one family at a time.
When we were there last year, CFCA and the parents were getting ready to embark on a new venture. The mothers wanted to be able to work within their own community so they could look after their own children, as well as become financially self-sufficient. It was decided that learning to sew would be a way to accomplish both goals. CFCA was going to purchase the sewing machines and the first batch of material and provide someone to train them. After that, the women would purchase additional material with the profits earned from the sale of their finished products.
This year, I returned to El Salvador on a mission awareness trip. We went back to the community of La Realidad, so I had the opportunity to see the progress that has been made there. The women have been trained to make bedsheets, purses, hats, pillows and other similar items. They have the sewing machines in their homes, so even the mothers with very small children are able to both work and tend to their children. As a group, they set their own monthly goals, which they have consistently met. A certain amount of the money they earn is placed in a savings account, and they are taught how to most effectively manage their money.
Each of the women in turn stood up and told us what this project means to them. They are excited not just about what they have accomplished so far, but they are very excited about the future, both for themselves and for their children. They are looking forward to learning how to make school uniforms and other articles of clothing. The one father who has decided to participate wants to specialize in tailoring. They are hoping for an expanded market for their finished products and are thinking about ways to accomplish that.
In the community of La Realidad, which translates as “The Reality” in English, the dreams of the sponsored families are indeed becoming the reality, thanks to CFCA.
2 comments October 27, 2009
A Simple Translation
By Chris Palmer, Project specialist for International Programs Department
Each day, Augusto wakes up in his small and unassuming home on the outskirts of Guayaquil, Ecuador. He gets ready for work by starting up his computer for a full day of CFCA letter translations. With more than 2,300 sponsored children and aging members in the Guayaquil project, one can imagine that there are plenty of translations to do in a given year.
Augusto is a simple man with dark, black hair, and his inviting demeanor is calm and genuine as he speaks with passion and wit. He has been translating letters and other documents for CFCA since 1995.
“It is important to have a quality translation to accompany the original letter, whether it is from a sponsor in the U.S. to a child here in Guayaquil or a child from here to a sponsor,” he said.
In a given day, Augusto is able to translate on average eight full letters from Spanish to English, only stopping for a lunch break in the afternoon.
“Sometimes I can do more depending on the length of the letter; however, there are a few cases in which children write three- to four-page letters that will in turn take me longer to translate,” he said. “In these instances, I am only able to get four or five done per day. There is one girl in particular from the Mira subproject who I think is slowly trying to write a novel to her sponsor, letter by letter.”
Although taxing at times, Augusto keeps a positive perspective on his important duty and role in the journey of a CFCA letter.
In 1979, Augusto was serving in the Ecuadorian Air Force when, during a “red alert” situation with a neighboring country, he found himself rushing back to the airbase with three other comrades. On the way back they suffered a severe car accident.
“Right away, I knew I lost the mobility of my legs,” he said.
It was discovered shortly after that Augusto had severed his spinal cord in the accident and would require the assistance of a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Augusto was transferred between military hospitals in Ecuador until, with permission from the minister of defense, he was sent for treatment and rehabilitation to a specialized hospital in Houston, Texas. Even though there were others in the hospital who spoke Spanish, the majority of conversation in the hospital was in English. During his two–year rehabilitation stay, a professor came to the hospital to give English lessons to those interested.
It was through immersion in the English language that Augusto slowly turned a positive light on his time in Houston. More than 10 years after his return to Ecuador, Augusto was asked to by a director of a local school to assist in the translations of letters for a sponsorship program called CFCA. Little did Augusto know at the time, but this part-time job would eventually become his full-time vocation.
“This is an activity that I do with much care and dedication because it has filled many spaces in my own life,” he said. “In countless ways, this position is therapeutic because it gives me the opportunity to be utilized for the benefit of others. It also keeps me busy while allowing me to pay my daily expenses, as my translation fees are my only source of income.”
The impact of CFCA’s program not only affects the lives of those who are sponsored, but the ripples and reverberations continue to affect those in proximity to it. By employing local translators, CFCA exposes the hope and potential of the poor to others in the community.
A translation may seem like a simple act, but this behind-the-scenes service is doing a lot more than transforming one language into another. After meeting Augusto, one can clearly see that the work he does for CFCA brings him much freedom, despite the physical limitations of his disability.
“It is through the letters I am able to become acquainted with the customs of each region,” he said. “If you ask me to describe Mira (a town located up in the highlands of Ecuador) I feel as if I am able to picture the landscape and its surroundings in my mind.
“When I translate the letters from the U.S. or other countries, I am able to get a unique description of each of those places also. Although I am unable to travel due to my condition, it is through these letters that enable me to travel all over the world. Each letter is a new journey for me.”
3 comments October 23, 2009
Notes from the Field – Bolivia
Jose Rodriguez, CFCA’s project director for South America, talks about his recent visit to Bolivia where he witnessed the work being done by two CFCA scholarship students, Juan and Janet. The students are helping to give back to their own communities by working with families to build greenhouses and teaching local mothers to read.
Watch more Notes from the Field
Donate to the scholarship fund
1 comment October 22, 2009
