Archive for March, 2009
A simple bag of groceries is important
Sponsor Margaret Looper was recruited to help distribute bags of food to CFCA families one day during her mission awareness trip to Bolivia. She was surprised by how important a simple bag of groceries is to families in need.
Watch more trip testimonials
Hunter Hardin gets to know his friend during a day of fun in Honduras.
A Philippines community puts on a special performance for Colleen Gawley.
A CFCA mission awareness trip is an uplifting experience that will deepen your connection with your sponsored friend and open your eyes to the potential of sponsored members and their families. Spaces are still available on some 2009 trips. Check our trip calendar >
2 comments March 31, 2009
Poverty and difficulty can’t suppress joy
By Monte Mace, CFCA writer/editor
How do you remain positive—even joyful—in the face of discouraging, overwhelming or dangerous circumstances?
That’s what I wondered after I met Lourdes, a tranquil mother of seven in Legazpi, Philippines. I had asked the local CFCA staff to arrange interviews with single mothers so I could learn how they manage on their own.
The first mother I met was Lourdes. She came out of her bamboo house at the edge of the city when we drove up. Coconut and palm trees created a quiet, shady yard.
One of the first things I noticed was her missing left hand. She told us her husband had attacked her during an argument five years ago and cut off her hand. He was sent to prison.
Lourdes needs to support herself, her children, and her aging mother. But she isn’t able to do much work with only one hand. Her eldest daughter sells food on the street in order to earn about $60 a month. That income, plus the assistance provided by CFCA sponsorship of 12-year-old Nika, allows the family to survive.
As I photographed her, she smiled easily. She seemed at peace.
As we were leaving, I asked:
“What gives you the strength?”
“I just gave it over to God,” Lourdes said. “Plus, my mother is there for me and gives me moral support.”
During two weeks visiting CFCA projects in the Philippines and meeting many sponsored families, I found myself repeating this thought: “What a joyful spirit they have.”
At one gathering, an elderly widow named Constancia stood up and said she no longer suffers from “nagging fear” about how to obtain food, clothing and health care.
“God is merciful. He answered my prayers and gave me CFCA,” she said.
The audience laughed as she told how she had learned to eat new and unfamiliar strange food. She beamed as I asked to photograph her. As I sat next to her for group photos, she held my hand. Later Constancia gave me a thank-you gift, a book in English entitled, “More Stories of Life and Laughter,” a book of life lessons by a Filipino priest, Father Bel San Luis, SVD.
A younger woman also gave testimony. Maricel, 23 at the time, explained that the death of her father when she was 4 began her family’s spiral into “chaos.” But her mother did not lose hope and supported her six children by working as a laundry woman.
“In the midst of crisis, God never abandoned us,” Maricel said. “In 1990, I was chosen for CFCA sponsorship. I came to realize that someone in a faraway place loves us in a very sincere way.”
Maricel said she was able to complete a college education and now works as “a humble kindergarten teacher.”
The Filipinos I met exhibited humility, gratitude for their sponsors, a love of life whatever the circumstances, and trust in God’s will—in short, a joyful spirit.
Learn about the CFCA documentary filmed in the Philippines, “Zamboanga: Poverty, War, Music.”
Add comment March 27, 2009
Relationships are essential for a full life
Lenten reflection: Week 5
By Rev. Kelly Demo, CFCA preacher
“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” –John 12:32
Our God, who is relational by nature, chose to become a member of the human family as an expression of intimate love. We, God’s children, are also relational and the yearning of our hearts for closeness to God and to one another is a reflection of our nature and God’s deepest desire.
Because of this, relationships are the very essence of life. God’s two greatest commandments are not about what work we do, or what we eat, or even how we are to worship God. Our two greatest commandments are to love God and each other.
We believe this is the greatest gift that CFCA has to offer to the world. The reason the founders chose the sponsorship model was because it is relational. One does not simply write a check and forget about it. Sponsors are called into personal relationships with someone they didn’t even know existed before sponsorship. They are given the opportunity to love God by loving another of God’s children. Sponsor and sponsored friend carry one another in their hearts and allow the other to change them for the better.
CFCA’s structure in our projects follows this model as well and feeds the need for relationships among those we serve. For example, mothers in Merida, Mexico, tell us that the CFCA mothers groups are the most important part of the program to them. Most of their families moved from villages to the city, and that move isolated them from the social fabric that had sustained their ancestors for generations. The mothers groups are recreating that sense of community that is so essential to a full life.
Lent gives us a chance to stop and examine our relationships. It is often easier to give up chocolate for Lent than to rebuild and heal relationships.
Author Stephen Levine writes, “If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?”
Reflection questions:
1. How would you define your relationship with God? Is God your teacher? Friend? Distant relative you only see on holidays? Guide? Do you like that relationship or do you want it to change? What needs to happen to bring about that change?
2. Is there a friendship that you have lost and mourn that loss? What might God be calling you to do about that?
Add comment March 25, 2009
Notes from the Field #7 – El Salvador
Tim Deveney, manager of preacher relations, introduces us to parents Don Enrique and Doña Angelina in El Salvador. Although the couple was unable to attend school when they were young, Don Enrique and Doña Angelina value learning and make great sacrifices to provide their children with an education.
Editor’s note: Hazel was sponsored during a parish appeal on Jan. 24, 2009. Learn how you can volunteer to help at a parish appeal.
1 comment March 24, 2009
Letter from a former street child in Kenya
By Angeline, a sponsored child in Kenya
My name is Angeline. My mum was a businesswoman working in Uganda. I know nothing much about my dad as he never married my mother. I only hear stories about him.
When I was 5 years old, my mother got sick and died.
After my mother’s death, life was so hard. My sister and I joined my grandmother, who also was single. She worked on a farm to feed us.
My aunt lived in the Mathare, Nairobi, slums. She took me and I lived with her until I was 9. Life was very hard because she was selling onions and tomatoes and the little income she was earning was very little for the whole family. She decided to return me back to my grandmother’s home in upcountry.
After less than a year, my cousin and I planned to go back to Nairobi to look for jobs. But we never got a job and we didn’t find our aunt. We decided to start street life, whereby we were begging for food from hotels and slept on corridors along the buildings in town. Sometimes we used to get money and could rent lodging which was cheap.
I am focusing beyond the limit so that I can be a great Kenyan in the future. I thank CFCA for making me who I am. God bless CFCA.
Editor’s note: Angeline and her cousin eventually went to a rehabilitation house and then lived in two different children’s homes. The Kenyan government finally put Angeline back in school. Since being sponsored through CFCA in 2004, she is able to continue her education. Angeline hopes to attend a university and become a journalist.
1 comment March 19, 2009
Concern for the whole person
Lenten reflection: Week 4
By Rev. Kelly Demo, CFCA preacher
Lent, as we know, is a time of preparation and self-reflection. It is a time set aside to examine our relationship with God and our need for healing in our own lives. Scripture shows us time and again that God is greatly concerned with our wholeness, in mind, body and spirit. In fact, “wholeness” and “holiness” come from the same word that means “completeness.”
In 2 Kings, Chapter 4, we hear a strange and wonderful story of Elisha bringing a family back to wellness and wholeness. Like Sarah before her, God promised a Shunammite woman a son in her old age. God kept that promise but years later the young boy died. However, God would not forget his promise and, through Elisha, brought the boy back to life, restoring the faith of the mother.
CFCA’s benefits are structured to follow this guideline of concern for the whole person and the family. We do not simply feed children. Nor do we just educate them or see to their medical concerns. We are concerned for the whole person and we walk with them and bring others along to do the same.
Take, for instance, a widow in Guatemala whose son was sponsored through CFCA. The woman was suffering from depression and because of her illness she was unable to move forward in her life. She was unable even to address the health concerns of her son. He began to have trouble in school, and it was believed to be because of hearing loss.
CFCA was helping this family financially, but it was not until we brought in another CFCA mother to minister to the little boy’s mother that changes started happening. It took more than just the CFCA staff to help this woman back to health in mind, body and spirit. It took God working through someone who was not that different from her, to help heal her.
God, as the ultimate and perfect parent, is deeply concerned for the wholeness of each of his 6-billion-plus children. We need only open ourselves to the Spirit and to our fellow travelers through whom the Spirit works.
Reflection questions:
1. Where do you need healing in your life in mind, body or spirit?
2. Who might God be placing in your path who needs the gifts you have to offer for their healing?
1 comment March 18, 2009
Bob’s notes – special report
Mission awareness trips and Colombia national encuentro
Nicaragua – Colombia – Dominican Republic
Feb. 21 – March 7, 2009
Sponsors grow in grace
From the moment we landed in Managua on this beautiful Saturday afternoon, we have been a pilgrim community. The sponsors of Nicaraguan children, youth and aging have a culture all their own. Many have been here several times in the past. They have formed strong relationships with their sponsored families and with one another. It is wonderful to see them grow in grace through walking with the poor.
My group had the pleasure of coming to know an admirable young family. The mother, Alba Luz, 27, has taken special courses in the cultivation and use of medicinal plants and natural medicine. She teaches the other mothers in the community, and her husband, Uricer, cultivates corn and beans on property owned by his father. Their 1-year-old Alvaro is awaiting sponsorship. We’ve been over 10 hours in the vehicle this day, much of it over slow-going rocky roads. One flat tire didn’t slow us down much.
In the early hours of Feb. 23, we met sponsors Colleen and George MacKenzie, Alhambra, Calif., together with their granddaughter and outgoing 8-year-old sponsor, Danielle Shields. All three are advocates and have found and motivated over 200 new sponsors. George maintains that their relationship with three sponsored children has changed their lives.
National meeting held
In Medellin, Colombia, everyone has worked very hard to make this a dynamic learning experience for all. Each of the six Colombian projects plus our international team (Brenda; Sarah; my wife, Cristina; and myself) covered a topic of keen interest to all. The topics included formal and informal education of children in Colombia, long-term and annual program planning, sponsored youth and their formation in values, and measuring the impact of our projects. I will add that the cross-project sharing and the CFCA spirit run strong in this group.
Music plays a big part in this encuentro (meeting) and all encuentros … and folkloric presentations by sponsored children and staff form an integral part of the meeting. The conclusions and resolutions of this encuentro are solid, balanced and heartily embraced by all. (more…)
4 comments March 17, 2009
Letters + watercolors = land for a family
By Marcia Willman, CFCA director of child services
At 11, Kinya knows how important an education is for her future because she is growing up where there often isn’t one.
One day I received a letter from Kinya that changed both of our lives. She wrote, “I’m now at a new school … This is because we moved after eviction. I’m still working hard.” I knew that Kinya, her mom and two older brothers were squatters on government land at the foot of Mount Kenya, but this word, eviction, caught me by surprise.
It is obvious that Kinya is loved deeply by her mom. Kinya is a joyous child. She is a good story teller. She shares her life with me in every letter that she writes. Her stories bring us together and build the bonds of our friendship. So when I heard that word eviction, I knew I had to help her.
I chose to sponsor Kinya because she is being raised by a single mother who struggles to put food on the table and pay rent because she can find occasional odd jobs. I know the challenges of being a single mom because I am one, too. Thus, I feel compelled to help another woman and mother in less fortunate circumstances provide the most basic needs of food and shelter for her family.
I have been painting with watercolors for years. I never considered marketing or selling my art until trying to figure out a way to help Kinya. I finally realized that I could use my God-given talent to help my friend.
For more than two years I have been on a mission to sell my paintings. Along the way, I won the right to call myself an artist. I send the proceeds from my art sales to help Kinya’s family. Last April Kinya’s family was able to purchase half an acre of fertile, productive farm land.
Kinya’s mom, Ann, immediately planted row after row of corn and potatoes to take advantage of the pending rainy season. Ann proved to be hard-working and industrious. Along the way, she proudly rose to the role of provider. While weeding with a hoe in hand, Ann beams in the photos I received from Project Timau. Ann’s smile demonstrates her strength to overcome adversity when given the opportunity. It shows she believes her family has a future.
So, Kinya’s house was built. Ann’s first crops were harvested. And, Kinya’s family bought two sheep because they were able to feed themselves and generate enough income by laboring on their own land. Along the way, Kinya found comfort and a safe haven from eviction. “At last I’m enjoying rains in a nice house that doesn’t leak. Thanks a lot for making my life happy … You are part of my life, I cherish your care.” Once again, I received another letter from Kinya that changed my life. It feels wonderful to be an artist, to help another single mom and to be cherished by Kinya!
You can see Marcia’s paintings by visiting her Web site, watercolorsforacause.org.
5 comments March 13, 2009
Creating role models close to home
Mothers groups offer the mothers of sponsored children a support system, both financially and emotionally. Dan Pearson of international programs says mothers groups allow the women to demonstrate their strength, which society, as a whole, does not always recognize. But perhaps one of the most important benefits of mothers groups is that the mothers themselves become strong, female role models for their daughters. Part four of four videos
Mothers share their talents to improve their community (Part 3)
Support in a time of need (Part 2)
Watch an introduction to mothers groups (Part one)
What do we mean by “empowerment?”
Add comment March 12, 2009
Mothers share their talents to improve their community
By coming together in the mothers groups, mothers in India can share their natural gifts and talents to help their community, says Dan Pearson of CFCA’s international programs. Josephine and the mothers group in her community work to improve their community by lobbying the city to pave the road from their village to the main road. Josephine also notices the number of homeless children in the community and starts an orphanage to care for them. Part three of four videos
Creating role models close to home (Part four)
Support in a time of need (Part 2)
Watch an introduction to mothers groups (Part one)
What do we mean by “empowerment?”
Add comment March 11, 2009
