Archive for November, 2008
Thank you, dear sponsors
As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday, we would like to remember our blessings and give thanks for all the good things that are made possible with your support.
So, at this time, we want to express deep appreciation to all our sponsors and donors for the sacrifice you make each month in our shared journey of compassion.
Have a wonderful holiday! Please enjoy the following video with our heartfelt gratitude for all you do.
November 26, 2008 at 11:29 am Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA) Leave a comment
An opportunity to care
After the 9 a.m. Mass on Thanksgiving Day, sponsor and choir director Paige Shortal will give her fellow parishioners an “opportunity to care.” Shortal plans to set out 30 child folders from CFCA, inviting others in the congregation to become sponsors, too.
Shortal sent notices to her congregation in Washington, Mo., outside of St. Louis. Following is the message she sent to church members, talking about her sponsorship experience and the meaning that sponsorship has brought her life:
After a priest from Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA) preached at all the Masses about the fine work of this organization, Pat and I began sponsoring two children from Guatemala – a sister and brother the ages of our oldest two grandchildren.
I confess, I occasionally wondered if my $30 a month was being put to good use. Last year I went to India and had the opportunity to visit a CFCA project in Hyderabad. There I saw what $30 a month can do.
 Paige Shortal sits in a circle with the mothers of sponsored children. |
I was especially impressed with their philosophy of serving the whole family. They have formed mothers circles – groups of 30 women who are the mothers of sponsored children. Each woman contributes 50 rupees a month (about a dollar) to the treasury, and from that money, the women are allowed to borrow small amounts to start up businesses.
You wouldn’t believe the quality of the small business ventures I witnessed, started with just a few dollars. I had my business cards printed by one mothers circle business – Grace Printing. I also bought a beautiful dress for my granddaughter from a seamstress who started her own mirror-work business.
In Hyderabad I became a believer in the CFCA effort and promised to do some work for them when I returned home. Soon after I came back, there were 25 new sponsors in Washington, many of them from the choir. We also added 10-year-old Vignon’s picture to our refrigerator gallery of sponsored children.
Last month I got a call from the CFCA headquarters in Kansas City. Because of the economic issues in the U.S. and around the world, there are kids who have been too long on a waiting list for sponsorship. I promised to try to find 25 more sponsors from Washington.
These are hard times in the US and $30 doesn’t stretch very far. But in India and the other countries where CFCA children are sponsored, that $30 can literally save a life. And not just save it, but offer a quality of life that will spread and grow throughout the family and the community.
I met one sponsored “child” – Mary –who is now in her 20s and in medical school. She plans to come back home as her village’s pediatrician.
Mary also sings in her college choir and she and I sang a duet for her family as part of the grace before our dinner. I don’t think I’ll ever sing Silent Night again without remembering Mary and the pungent smell of curry.
November 25, 2008 at 10:44 am Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA) 2 comments
Bob’s report: Visit to India
Mission awareness trip
Nov. 5-18, 2008
Society’s forgotten experience ‘beautiful transformation’
“They are the leftovers of society, but we are moving them to center stage. We want them to be fully human and fully alive.” —Suresh Singareddy, project coordinator, Hyderabad, India
An extra bonus on this trip is the chance to meet for the first time our new sponsored girl in the Hyderabad project. From an hour away in the countryside, 6-year-old Archana came on motorcycle with her mother and father.
Suresh told the sponsors: “The government calculates that we have approximately 55 million child laborers in India. Yet at CFCA we get to see the beautiful transformation in children and families.”
Early Christmas for former child laborers
During visits to subprojects, sponsors handed out Christmas presents for the families in attendance. Of special impact for the sponsors were the 100 or so sponsored girls living at the Divine Word Home. Just a short time ago, they were the throwaway children, the rag pickers in the garbage dumps of Hyderabad but now they attend a prestigious English medium school.
“We promise you that we will remember you,” Veronica told our group. “You always will be in our prayers, and we will make good use of this precious chance you are giving us so that we will be able to help others as you help us today.”
We attended the huge 2008 Annual Day Gathering on Nov. 9, with an estimated attendance of more than 7,000 mothers. I told the mothers they—and posthumously Father Francis Thumma, former project coordinator—are the recipients of the 2008 Pilgrimage of Faith Award from CFCA. (more…)
November 24, 2008 at 10:19 am Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA) Leave a comment
A prayer for peaceful elections in Venezuela
The Nov. 23 election in Venezuela to choose hundreds of regional and local officials is an important one. Since 1999, the country has been in a tug-of-war between the government’s attempt to implement sweeping social programs and the opposition’s resistance to those reforms.
I visited Venezuela on a mission awareness trip last May. Most Americans would be hard-pressed to recite any facts about the country aside from knowing its president, Hugo Chavez.
Crime is on the rise
Venezuela has the highest minimum wage in Latin America ($370 a month), relatively stable unemployment and gasoline that costs 15 to 20 cents a gallon. But Venezuelans face many challenges—rising inflation and escalating crime, to name two.
“Children bring guns and knives to school,” said Isabel Alvarez, a former project coordinator for CFCA’s Barquisimeto project. “People will kill for a Razor phone.”
Sponsorship helps provide security
“Robbers will take blenders, toasters, anything they can find, and sell them for money,” said Teresa, a CFCA mother whose 19-year-old daughter, Leidy, has been sponsored for 18 years.
I chatted with Leidy and Teresa in their modest, stucco home with cement floors situated in a high-crime neighborhood of Barquisimeto. Over the years, sponsorship has paid for improvements, such as a heavy, metal door, to secure the home from intruders.
Sponsorship supplements the income Teresa earns working six days a week at a pediatric hospital. She is scheduled to work every other month so the hospital won’t have to pay her health benefits, she said. Her husband fixes cars.
Leidy studies information technology and wants to work as a programmer after she graduates next year. She is so petite, I mistook her for a young girl of about 13 rather than a young lady of 19, but she is poised and mature.
This hard-working family exemplifies many of the families I met during my trip. I pray for peaceful and fair elections Nov. 23, and that Teresa, Leidy and all Venezuelans may work together for safe communities and a prosperous future.
November 21, 2008 at 11:34 am Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA) Leave a comment
Bob’s report: Visit to Chile
Mission awareness trip
Oct. 18 – 25, 2008
Together with Guatemala and Honduras, Chile is one of our pioneer projects. CFCA has been involved in Chile since 1982. The project center, located in Valparaiso, serves 4,500 children and 641 aging through six surrounding subprojects. The country’s name seems to have come from the Aymara word Chilli, which means “where the earth ends.”
A program rich in benefits
For sponsored children and their families, sponsorship benefits include education, health, help with housing, a loan program and a variety of livelihood training courses such as sewing, knitting and hairdressing.
Children who have trouble in the regular school system receive special attention, tutoring and care. The CFCA sponsorship program offers after-school care and learning opportunities.
Mothers who complete the beauty shop course are able to set up their own salon at home. Mothers who complete the sewing courses can apply for a no-interest loan to purchase a sewing machine and begin their own business. The CFCA center also offers domestic violence counseling and support.
The 641 sponsored elderly in Project Valparaiso can participate in literacy training, Tai-chi, creative theatre, folk dancing, guitar classes, choir and a variety of livelihood projects. They also receive services which improve their quality of life, such as podiatry care, hairdressing and dental prosthesis. CFCA also provides the elderly with breakfast, lunch and a snack in the afternoon before they head home. Many of the sponsors on the mission awareness trip purchased things made by the mothers and the elderly. (more…)
November 12, 2008 at 2:06 pm Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA) Leave a comment
Notes from the Field #4 – Honduras
Melissa Velazquez, a mission awareness trip coordinator for CFCA, talks about the support of education in Honduras by CFCA parents.
November 5, 2008 at 9:53 am Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA) 1 comment
From the mail bag: Writing your sponsored friend
Blog reader Carol commented and asked:
My husband and I sponsor a 14 year old girl in Guatemala. We always wrack our brains trying to find things to send her but the rules are so restrictive (no money, certain size package under a pound, etc, etc). It seems silly to send jewelry, which we usually resort to, when they may desperately need blankets. We ask in our letters “what do you need” but we don’t get an answer. How can you help us?
We thought that most of our sponsors are probably interested in this answer, so here it is, from Sponsor Services representative, Claudia.
Your letters and photos are the best gifts you could send
I know it sounds too easy, but we hear from our project staff time and time again that letters are really what the sponsored children and aging want the most.
Many gifts sponsors send are confusing to the families and children
It’s fun to pick out gifts, but customs are very different in the countries where CFCA works. We have heard from project staff, such as Father Mathew Vettukallel in Bhagalpur, India, that the children may receive items from the sponsor that they have no idea what to do with. Even though stickers and other doodads are something we see in our everyday lives, these items are often unfamiliar to sponsored friends, so they spend time inspecting the envelope that the items arrived in to see the stamps and the handwriting of the sponsor instead.
Gifts that you send could be at risk for being stolen
Mail is at a constant threat of being tampered with, especially once it leaves the United States. Packages sent internationally attract attention from thieves not only in transit within the local post offices, but also while being delivered by project staff. Some staff members have put their lives on the line during robberies to save precious letters they were delivering to the subproject offices. Although it is not a pleasant thought, receiving something that even just gives the appearance of value could put your friend at risk of having the item stolen by force.
Gift items can be difficult for the project staff to handle
Postal services are different all over the world. Picking up packages from the post office can be quite a challenge for our project staff.
In Kenya, the staff has reported that sometimes it can take three to four hours to clear one parcel through customs. Imagine how much time would be spent at the post office if they had to pick up one package for every sponsored person in Kenya. There are more than 15,000 children and aging individuals sponsored there right now!
This season, try sending a special letter to your friend instead of a gift
It seems cliché, but truly, it is the thought that counts. When our staff visit sponsored friends’ homes, the first things they are shown by those sponsored are pictures and letters from their sponsors. When I visited the Dominican Republic on a mission awareness trip in 2007, I had the same experience. Many homes were adorned with pictures and letters sent by the sponsor.
Sending a letter has the best chance of arriving safely and is less draining on the limited project staff than packages. You don’t have to worry about finding an item that will fit into the right sized package, or choosing a shirt that is the right size. You can’t go wrong with a letter, even if you just say, “I’m praying for you and your family this Christmas! With love, Your Sponsor.” (Or in Spanish: Les rezo para ti y tu familia esta Navidad. Con cariño, Su Padrino/a.) Read helpful writing tips.
You also always have the option of donating to the CFCA Christmas fund. The children enjoy the gifts and parties that are made possible by donations to this fund. One hundred percent of the donation goes to CFCA projects, which use this fund to provide gifts and a celebration for the entire community of sponsored members.
Thank you for all you do as a sponsor! Your support and encouragement is a great gift in your sponsored friend’s life!
November 4, 2008 at 10:07 am Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA) 54 comments
