Archive for October, 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.”
4 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
2 comments October 22, 2009
Bob’s notes – Visit to India
Mission awareness trip to India
Oct. 2-13, 2009
The drought this year and just recently the worst flooding in 100 years have caused serious problems for families such as father Narsing, mother Radhika , their 7-year-old sponsored daughter, Archana, and her 5-year-old brother, Pradeep. They plant mainly rice on a 3-acre plot. The family also cares for the grandparents. We are indeed honored to be associated with this beautiful family.
At the inauguration of the CFCA Community Centre in Balanagar Zone-Subproject JGG, we enjoyed a large fiesta. Sponsors handed out Christmas presents. Especially impactful 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. They not only know their sponsor’s name, they also know their CFCA ID number.
After telling us her sponsor’s name, Veronica said:
“Our golden age began when Mr. Prakash and Mr. Suresh visited us in August 2002. They saw our poverty and our need. Soon CFCA started to look for sponsors. This has helped us leave our rag picking. Now we are attending a prestigious English medium school. We promise you that we will remember you always in our prayers and that 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.”
What it’s all about
At our project in Hyderabad, mothers of sponsored children are taking leadership roles to help their families and communities. More than 600 mothers groups and 10,000 members help manage and operate CFCA programs in Hyderabad and outlying areas. Mothers groups join with social workers to assess needs and design benefit plans. Besides giving mothers a voice in the sponsorship program, the groups help raise the status of women in their communities. Savings plans and low-cost loans to fund small business startups or meet critical family needs are also part of the groups. CFCA currently impacts the lives of more than 11,500 children, youth, aging and their families here.
Visit to Subproject CCP
We heard testimony by a young woman, Jeevan, who is a former sponsored girl and now works as a professional staff nurse. Remarkably, Jeevan herself sponsors a little boy named Malesh. Jeevan is Catholic and Malesh is Hindu. We also heard a high-energy speech by a mother who, before CFCA involvement, was so shy she could not leave her house. Now she is more confident and very active in her mothers group.
Janagam subproject
In Addabata village, I was able to visit my own sponsored child, Archana, together with her mom, dad and little brother. They are a young farm family struggling first with drought and now with flooding. They traveled the 5 kilometers (3 miles) from their home to the main highway on their aging scooter.
After lunch at the major seminary, we visited the 37 aging and 56 children at the leper colony at Karunapuram. The enthusiasm of these lepers and recovering lepers is inspiring—reminds me of recently canonized St. Damien of Molokai.
Visit to CFCA Project Warangal
The Warangal project has started to form mothers groups and at present, there are 65 groups. They have monthly meetings to discuss topics like health, cleanliness, livelihood programs, developing kitchen gardens, children’s education and community activities. Each mother deposits 50 rupees (about $1) into an account every month and CFCA matches that amount. The buildup of these funds will allow the mothers to obtain micro-credit loans from the group in the future.
Gratitude
I’m looking forward now to our board formation day and regular October board meeting. Following the board meeting, I will meet my wife, Cristina, in Guatemala, and we will head for the mission awareness trip in Chile. Before signing off, I want to say that I am deeply grateful to have shared parts of this India trip with Ilene and Sara from CFCA’s International Department in Kansas City.
God’s blessings,
Bob Hentzen
1 comment October 19, 2009
World Poetry Day
Today is World Poetry Day. We thought it would be fun to celebrate this day with some poems from CFCA staff members and Marlon, a 15-year-old young man served by the Managua project in Nicaragua. Enjoy!
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La esperanza y el amor Por Marlon En todo el mundo Las personas se Deben tener entre Sí un amor profundo En su corazón siempre En la vida para crear Un mundo donde día a día Si todos practicamos |
Hope and love (translated into English) By Marlon In all the world The people Ought to have between them A deep profound love In your heart always In life in order to create A world where day after day If we practice |
Sponsorship Haikus
By Sheila Myers, Communications Department
Mission Awareness Trip
Getting off the bus
I look for you in the crowd.
Our eyes meet. Smiles. Hugs.
Relationship
Your letter arrives,
Telling me of the mudslide.
I send you a prayer.
The Letter By Larry Livingston, U.S. Outreach Department
Today the mailman brought to me a gift as good as gold.
A letter from my sponsored friend, a wonder to behold.
Her hopes and dreams she shares with me, and what is this surprise?
A brand new picture! Grace and joy are captured in those eyes.
I never thought I’d care so much for one I’ve never met,
Or that in giving I would come to owe a happy debt.
I thought myself quite blessed, and so it seemed to me quite odd
When a child that lived in poverty revealed the face of God.
A CFCA Limerick By Larry Livingston
If God’s love is always in fashion,
Acts of kindness are nothing to ration.
So what do you say?
Join CFCA,
And help us build a world of compassion!
1 comment October 15, 2009
The story of Rachel
By Malou Navio, CFCA Antipolo project coordinator
 Rachel and her parents describe how the family was impacted by Typhoon Ketsana. Rachel’s older brother died while saving children in a day-care facility. |
Sponsored girl Rachel is one of the many survivors struggling from the severe impact of Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng (Ketsana and Parma). She and her family are in deep pain and in severe difficulty. After saving little children from the day-care center of their neighborhood, her 19-year-old brother, Roy, was killed by the mudslides with big boulders.
Six people in their neighborhood were killed. Three were rescuers. Their bodies, including Roy’s, drowned in the horrible flood and could not be found. The flood washed away Rachel’s home and many homes in their neighborhood.
“I’m praying to God to help us and strengthen us to surpass this difficulty,” Rachel said.
Rachel is a third-year high school student. She is the youngest among the six children. Three siblings each have their own family. They live in the same neighborhood. A brother is working as an on-call helper in another province.
Her father, Ricardo, used to earn a living as a contractual construction worker or on-call driver. Her mother, Corazon, as well as her married siblings, used to earn money from accepting laundry work. Both sources of livelihood are impossible. Her father lost his carpentry tools, identification and license to flooding. Her mother could not accept laundry because of the cloudy river water.
They cannot be accommodated in the evacuation centers because the centers are already full. They must live with Rachel’s sister and her family in a small makeshift abode. They are very congested. They take turns sleeping on a wooden cot. Water is rationed. No comfort rooms. Her mother is becoming thin and sickly.
Their community is called Labahan, a place known for people whose livelihood is doing laundry by hand at the nearby river. Their previous livelihood was scavenging from the garbage dumpsite.
“We have a good neighborhood,” Corazon said, while crying. “We help each other. However, at present, all of us have nothing. We are equally affected by Typhoon Ondoy.”
Ricardo, though very sad, is hopeful to start over again.
“We are praying for Divine assistance and to the people not affected by the typhoon to help us rise,” he said.
“Thanks to the presence of the CFCA staff,” Corazon added. “They lighten our heavy feelings.”
“Thanks for being concerned and for helping,” Rachel said.
Related links
Donate to the Disaster Assistance Fund to help families like Rachel’s
My experience with Typhoon Ondoy
View pictures of the disaster and CFCA’s relief efforts
Stranded for 11 hours
Add comment October 14, 2009
