Archive for December, 2009
Simple training regimen prepares Hentzen for walk
How does one train to walk 8,000 miles?
Interval workouts? Altitude training? Squats, lunges and sprints?
None of the above for CFCA President Bob Hentzen, who plans to walk 20-25 miles a day for 16 months.
Consistency and perseverance are more important than sudden high-intensity, high-repetition workouts.
“My style and training is to calmly and tranquilly be prepared,” Hentzen said. “It’s kind of like in school. You can’t just cram for a test. You’ve got to be studying all along.”
For years, Hentzen has risen early every day to jog or walk, do Tai Chi and stretch. His weight training consists of exercising with the same weight he will carry on the road – about 10 to 15 pounds.
Hentzen is familiar with the physical demands he will face. He walked 4,000 miles from Kansas City to Guatemala in 1996. That was 13 years ago, when he was 60. Though this walk is twice the distance, Hentzen isn’t daunted.
“I feel very good, very energized by the solidarity of the staff and CFCA families,” he said.
1 comment December 31, 2009
Walking with hope
Henry Flores, director of the Communications Center in El Salvador, traveled to Guatemala for the start of Walk2gether. Below is his reflection of that first day.
About two years ago, Bob Hentzen, CFCA president and co-founder, announced his desire to walk from Guatemala to Chile. Dreams, plans, logistics, organization, hope and physical training started to be in the minds, souls and bodies of thousands of staff members and families around the world.
Time has gone fast and, yesterday, we began Walk2gether, a pilgrimage of 8,000 miles through 12 countries in Central and South America. At 2:30 a.m., hundreds of people were walking around the halls of the CFCA center in San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala, excited for the pilgrimage to start.
Waking up to the sound of the marimba, traditional music of Guatemala, was fantastic, the vibes of the music touched my heart. As Bob took his first step into the walk, fireworks, firecrackers, flowers, smiles and tears were merging all together into a sense of deep spirituality as sponsors, staff members and CFCA families were connecting to the road, connecting to Mother Nature.
What an inspirational message it was for me to see how the families were coming out of their homes or gathering along the highway to greet Bob and the pilgrims, some other ones were walking for miles and miles with us, and when I was looking at the road ahead of us, I only thought of how much more we need to do, of how many more people we need to reach out to.
The first 25 miles of the walk are finished. There are 7,975 more to go, lots of challenges to be faced on the road, thousands of families to meet, and the promise of the Hope for a Family sponsorship program is carrying us and calling all of us involved in CFCA to continue our mission to help create a path to out of poverty and self-sufficiency for our sponsored families, with dignity and love.
8 comments December 30, 2009
10-year-old gives up birthday gifts for sponsorship
For his 10th birthday on Nov. 28, Matthew Garr of Shawnee, Kan., asked his friends to bring unusual presents to his birthday party: money for a 10-year-old girl his family sponsors in Guatemala.
Matthew delivered the money he raised—$500 in cash—in person to Paco Wertin, CEO of CFCA. Matthew was accompanied by his mother, Debbie, and younger sister, Erin.
The Garr family has sponsored Magdalena for about four years. This is the second year Matthew has raised money for her at his birthday party. Last year he collected $303 and Magdalena’s family used the money to purchase a bed, a kitchen countertop and sink, and household supplies such as soap.
Matthew said helping Magdalena made him feel “great and awesome.”
Watch last year’s video of Matthew’s birthday gift.
2 comments December 30, 2009
Let’s all go for a Walk2gether
CFCA staff members in Kansas City took a symbolic walk of solidarity on Dec. 29, the same day that the 8,000-mile Walk2gether started in Guatemala.
Approximately 60 employees met in the community room at 9 a.m. to hear a report about the launch of Walk2gether, pray for the safety of the walkers and then make a short walk of solidarity.
Because a pre-Christmas blizzard left high snow drifts and dangerous ice on sidewalks, the walk was held inside instead of outdoors as originally planned. The Kansas City walkers followed a mile-long route marked by yellow boot prints inside the warehouse that is part of the CFCA headquarters.
The walk in Kansas City occurred at about the time the Guatemala walkers, led by CFCA President Bob Hentzen, were scheduled to make their first stop for breakfast. They began at about 4 a.m. and were due to walk 24 miles on the first day of the journey.
Other CFCA projects and employees held their own symbolic events for the Walk2gether kick-off.
At the Monrovia project in Liberia, staff and sponsored members spent the day volunteering at community hospitals.
In Ecuador, the Guayaquil project hosted solidarity walks 10 kilometers in length in areas where they have sponsored members.
The Bluefields subprojects in the northeast corner of Nicaragua will have a night vigil, where families, sponsored members and staff will join together in prayer. Throughout the duration of the walk, they will hold morning prayers and ask God to give both physical and spiritual strength to the walkers and to all of the families who will accompany them on this journey.
One employee, Jerry Gladbach of the Child Services department in Kansas City, made his own show of support for Walk2gether. He strapped cleats onto winter boots and walked 1-1/2 miles to work over snow and ice.
“I’m trying to be in solidarity with the walkers,” Gladbach said.
During the community meeting in Kansas City, CEO Paco Wertin led a prayer of blessing for the walk and its participants.
“Bob’s walk of unity unites all cultures, genders and creeds,” Wertin said. “It’s a way that helps us hear the cry of those living in poverty. He is carrying a message that you are not alone. Because they walk, we walk.”
Visit Walk2gether.org to learn more about why Bob is walking.
You can also send messages of support and encouragement that Bob will share with the families of sponsored members and the CFCA staff in the communities he visits.
1 comment December 29, 2009
Walk2gether begins in one week
The walking begins in one week!
On Dec. 29, CFCA President Bob Hentzen will embark on Walk2gether, an 8,000-mile, 16-month journey through 12 countries in Latin America.
Excitement and anticipation are building as families and CFCA staff in Guatemala prepare to bid Bob and his fellow travelers “Buen Viaje.” More than 65 sponsors participating in the mission awareness trip will also be on hand for the launch.
Meanwhile, CFCA staff in Kansas gave Bob an official send-off when he visited the headquarters in late November. Read more here.
Check out the new Walk2gether website, where you can follow Bob on an interactive map, and explore links to his electronic journals and to videos, slideshows and stories about the realities, people and activities in the countries he visits. You can also send messages of support and encouragement that Bob will share with the families of sponsored members and the CFCA staff in the communities he visits.
Walk2gether is a way to help counterbalance the isolation of people living in poverty, and show them that someone cares. The walk will help build community and strengthen the bonds of unity between CFCA’s sponsored members, sponsors and staff. It will also symbolize and promote the unity of countries, races, languages, genders and creeds. Visit Walk2gether.org to learn more.
1 comment December 23, 2009
Preparing for the Mayon volcano eruption
As you may have read on our Web site, it is likely that the Mayon volcano in the Philippines will erupt very soon. This endangers many CFCA sponsored families, but the CFCA projects in the area have been preparing for this type of disaster long before it became a reality.
Chris Palmer, CFCA project specialist, was in the Philippines last month. While there, he attended a disaster preparedness seminar for sponsored families devoted to this very threat – volcano eruption.
The following are his photos and experiences from the training:
Provincial agencies team up with aid agencies to conduct seminars on how to prepare for disasters such as typhoons, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The presenter used Google Earth to show the mothers and fathers the different areas that could be affected by volcanic eruptions.
Mothers and fathers from a CFCA project in the Philippines learn about disaster preparedness.
A photo of the Mayon volcano from Legazpi City (taken near the 8 KM danger zone).
Close-up of the Mayon Volcano (taken from the airport in Legazpi City). You can clearly see smoke being emitted from the crater at the top of the volcano.
The CFCA Legazpi project has been organizing and conducting these types of disaster preparedness seminars in many of the subprojects around the city and in the province of Albay as a way to be proactive in an area of the world where natural disasters are unfortunately common place.
Read more about how CFCA is helping these families prepare on the CFCA Web site.
Add comment December 23, 2009
The Happy Truck
Photos and story by the Cali project team in Colombia
Juan Pablo is an 8-year-old sponsored boy from the Cali project in Colombia. He attends a public school near his house.
Juan and his family live in a difficult financial situation in which they lack of many things, and one of them is toys. He is a very creative child who, with the help of his creative and handy mother, builds some improvised toys with recycled materials. Juan spends lots of time making toys and playing with them.
For his father, who is unemployed at the moment, Juan’s creativity has been a blessing, because when he wants toys and his father can’t afford them, they both find creative ways to make them.
We found Juan making a new cardboard toy truck, which he calls his “Happy Truck.” This is the process he uses to make this Happy Truck.
He finds cardboard of different sizes, colors and textures, usually these are used cardboard boxes he finds at the local dairy stores.
Here we present, step-by-step, the process to build a “Happy Truck.”
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He uses a disposable plastic cup to draw the tires of the truck which will be painted black later in the process.
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He cuts other pieces that will be used as the body of the truck. Once he finishes that, he paints the pieces red.
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The tires he drew and cut earlier are now being painted – black, of course!
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Another little box is needed to build the cabin of the truck, then all the pieces are glued together.
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Windows are very important in his truck. Square pieces of white paper are used as windows.
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Truck is ready and the fun begins.
The coloring material, glue and scissors are part of the school supplies that CFCA offers them every year, at the same time. Juan’s neighbors also give him material for his toys. This truck will last for a couple of weeks, so Juan already has more boxes to make another one of his Happy Creations.
Add comment December 22, 2009
When sponsors get creative
Marcia Willman is a painter and a CFCA sponsor and employee. Her love for her two sponsored friends is evident because she positively lights up when she talks about them. She is passionate about helping them so she used her creativity to extend beyond the canvas by selling her paintings to raise money to help her two friends. Marcia’s story was featured on KMBC-TV, a local Kansas City news station.
We applaud Marcia’s creative idea to raise money to help her sponsored friends. But Marcia’s not alone in using her hobbies to benefit those living in poverty. Here are some other sponsors who took a creative approach to raising awareness and funds for CFCA:
Hunter Hardin wore a CFCA jersey when he competed in an Ironman triathlon. He asked friends and family to support his effort and raised enough money to sponsor an older student.
Watercolor artist Joy Helfrich promotes CFCA at his art shows through various brochures and printed publications.
Ted Dauphin sets up displays at county fairs, city events and other similar activities.
Helen Stevens takes CFCA brochures with her during her frequent travels and drops them off at Catholic churches.
There are more inspiring stories and creative ideas like these in the Fall 2008 edition of Sacred Ground, and these are just some of the ones we know about! Thanks to all our CFCA fans who share this organization with others.
Leave a comment below with your own experiences — we’d love to hear your stories and ideas to help spread the word of CFCA.
2 comments December 8, 2009
Health care around the world
By Kelly Demo, CFCA preacher
As the health care debate in this country rages on, I began to wonder about insurance and government-run health programs in the countries in which CFCA works. Do they have insurance at all? What do government-run programs look like? Are they working, and is there anything that we can learn from them?
The British began large insurance companies in India back in the 1800s to cover their nationals living there. In 1870, Bombay Mutual Life was formed as the first native insurance provider. Since that time, the government-run programs have been by far the largest provider of health insurance. However, since 1999, government deregulation has allowed for more private companies to enter the market. Only .2 percent of Indians are covered by insurance.
According to Dan Pearson, CFCA director of program development and operations, “The cost of health care tends to be a lot lower in some countries. When we lived in India, we took my son to a private clinic for stitches. They put him under with anesthesia and everything, and the whole bill was under $40. Even those prices are way beyond what most of the CFCA families can afford, so they let injuries and illnesses go untreated, unless they are life threatening. Preventive health care is not even on the radar for most of the families.” However, CFCA mothers groups in India use their shared resources to respond to families’ medical needs.
In hearing from many of our families in various projects around the world, not only is insurance not an option for them, but the government-run hospitals and clinics where care is more affordable are of very poor quality.
This is certainly true in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. There is a mandated government-run health care system of which most CFCA employees are a part. However, the care provided is often sub-standard.
Surprisingly, one bright spot in the health care struggle is Madagascar. According to USAID, the agency gave a grant to the government of Madagascar who began five community-based insurance programs in five counties. This was started because often those living in rural communities will have an influx of cash during the harvest and have more ability to attend to health issues, but will be cash poor later in the growing season.
Members of the community make an annual contribution to the insurance fund that can be paid in cash or crops. All of their health care expenses are then covered for that year. In 2005, the child mortality rate in these areas dropped to an astonishing 5 percent because of access to preventive health care and immunizations. The program has been so successful the government is expanding the program across the country.
Clearly, without sponsorship money most of the CFCA families around the world would be without health care benefits. Fortunately, because of sponsorship and special funds like Healthy Communities Fund and Project Needs Fund, CFCA field staff are given the flexibility and resources to help families in times of medical emergencies.
1 comment December 4, 2009
Bob’s travel notes to Costa Rica
Mission awareness trip to Costa Rica
Nov. 7-14, 2009
CFCA has been working to build hope for families in Costa Rica since 1991 and as of November 2009, we have 6,099 children sponsored together with 436 aging. Currently, 716 children and aging are on the waiting list for sponsorship in Costa Rica.
Reality check
According to staff, there is a very high index of domestic violence in Costa Rica, including abuse of women and children. The country has excellent medical care but it’s heavily concentrated in the capital. Many rural areas have big challenges with dysentery and typhoid fever. In addition, residents here face a high cost of living and marginalization of immigrants.
Sunday, Nov. 8—Alajuela—Subproject Sabanilla
On Sunday, we visited Sabanilla. A strong earthquake in January 2009 destroyed crops and forced businesses to close. One year ago, CFCA began to support this community.
The trip through the coffee plantation was very pleasant. However, we ran into a terrific storm that made the path down the mountain very muddy and slippery. It became a great exercise in community, getting everyone down the mountain safely. We all survived, albeit wet and muddy.
Down the road in the community of Los Angeles, we enjoyed a wonderful lunch and show with all the families in this region. The mothers worked all day yesterday and from 3 a.m. to prepare all the food and the hall for this special occasion.
2 comments December 3, 2009
