Congratulations! It's a Boy! - by Lisa

Well, that certainly will catch your attention! We all know that additions to the family are some of the happiest times in our lives. And that’s why we are so excited to share with you the addition to our family, a young man named Kevin Estuardo. Kevin happens to live in the village of Santa Maria de Jesus, the village that we have been working in and will return to in just a few weeks. He is just one of the several hundred children who is enrolled in the GIFTS program, a child sponsorship program organized and run by one of our own mission team members, Robin McMillen. But, I am getting ahead of myself.

Five years ago, during our first mission to Guatemala, we were experiencing what so many people experience during short-term mission work. We were struggling with our emotions as we were preparing to leave these beautiful people, and attempting to return to our “normal” lives. News Flash – our lives would NEVER be normal again. We were torn with the thoughts of returning home, to our ever-comfortable lifestyles, into our safe, warm homes and communities. We wanted to be able to give more and help more, even when we were not in Guatemala. It was during that week that we decided to sponsor a beautiful young lady from the school in which we had worked. Last summer, we learned that Bernarda was no longer able to attend school due to her mother’s failing health, and we were asked to select a different child for sponsorship. Because we had spent so much time in Santa Maria de Jesus, we decided to select a child from that village to invite into our lives. That was a very hard decision to make. We looked at the hundreds and hundreds of photos of children. Did we want to sponsor a boy or a girl? What age should we pick? How can I choose one child from all of those beautiful faces? And then, it hit me. I remembered that my sponsorship enables me to have a personal connection with one child in the village, but my donation actually benefits every single child in the program. From nutritious meals, to health care, to school tuition, and school supplies, I cannot even begin to explain all of the benefits of sponsoring just one child from the village.

Someone commented, “It’s kind of expensive.” Well, I can understand how the thought of $360 a year seems expensive in one payment. But it is $1/day. That’s one can of soda from the pop machine at work. And I am the soda machine’s best customer. One dinner out for our family… that’s entire month’s sponsorship for a child. Remember: food, medicine, school tuition, school supplies. It seems like such a win-win situation. But, the hard part wasn’t deciding whether to sponsor, but just picking the child.

It took weeks. We would look, and remember certain kids we met from the village. Then we would search through the photos, looking for that child. No matter how many times we scrolled through the photos, we kept coming back to the photo of Kevin. He seemed a little older than some of the other kids. I ended up calling Robin to find out a little more about Kevin. He is 14 years old, and from what we can tell, he has one brother, and they live with their mother. There was no information about Kevin’s father, so we can guess that he probably does not have one. If he is the “man” of the house, it would be easy for him to drop out of school and go to work. We hope and pray that our sponsorship will enable him to continue his education, and provide enough help for his family so that they can begin to break the cycle of poverty.

So, in three weeks, we will meet each other. I can hardly wait. We hope that he is as excited to meet his American family as we are to meet our Guatemalan family, too! Interested in adding onto your family? Check out these beautiful children at http://giftsprogram.org/. Warning: #133 Cristian Israel will steal your heart! See for yourself!