Casa de Sion

I am forwarding this newsletter I get from a friend of mine in Guatemala so everyone can see how great the need is. Dick does such wonderful work. Our little community of Los Robles where our facility is located has all these same needs. We need help with the malnutrition, but the only way I see to help is to leave the child in the family and provide the help directly to them. We need to help with the domastic violence. It is rampant. Many men have multiple common law wives and can be very abusive to both them and the children. There is much need for medical care. We can have teams of doctors and dentists come to our facility and set up clinics there. We can keep you busy for however long you want to work. Last January, we had a team of two dentists and their organizer come down. They did dental work for the whole orphanage [ 40 kids ], staff members families [ another 20 kids ] and the families of the church we were operating out of. They worked hard for 2 days and what a difference they made. We have the fields to grow food for the community as we have 17 acres of farmland. We need another well and a road put in to be able to grow year round. Now we can only grow during the rainy season. But we also need farmers and workers. Our feeding program starts Feb. 15th and we need volunteers with it. We have hired a cook and a school teacher, but I was unable to get the mothers of the children we are feeding to donate even 2 hours a week to chop veggies and pat tortillas. I don't know why; they are excited about the program. They said they have to work doing what their husbands tell them to do and work in the fields. Anyway I am doing this for the children so we will proceed. So I need volnteers. I need someone to do computer work and update our website so it shows the social welfare programs we are starting. We continue to need your materials donations and money donations. One volunteer has started a Change for Children and will be collecting change to contribute. We can also use grant writers. Well you can tell Dick inspires me. I, like Dick, have seen all those same needs [ a little different faces ] up close and personal. The starving child, the mother and children with no place to live, the funereals of infants who died from lack of milk or medical care, the families who live in one room with dirt floors, no bathroom, parasite infested water, etc. We believe strongly that the real way out of all this is education for all and education of the girls. The boys take priority with the family money, but it is the educated girl who feeds her family correctly, who avoids living in an abusive situation and improves hygiene and practices preventive medical care for the family. Our four children who need sponsorship areJose's two children, one boy, one girl. They are in first grade and need $20.00 each for school supplies, $15.00 each for black shoes, and a bookbag.Anselmo's two children Claudia who is starting 9th grade. Her total expenses are $850.00 for the year. This includes tuition at the private school [ they only have private schools for middle school and high school ], books, uniform, shoes, school supplies and transportation. Her brother Alex is in 8th grade and his total yearly expenses are $750.00 and goes for all the same things. Their expenses do not have to all be paid upfront.things.Anselmo has 5 younger children who need $20.00 each for school supplies and $15.00 each for black shoes.We will have Pedro pay all the fees for the children as we do not want to have to put the fathers in the postion of choosing food for his family over their educational fees.
Thanks for reading this and Thank you to all the families who give money so faithfully even in this tight economy.VickiDonations can be mailed to me and I will take them down. Write for the address20.vicki@gmail.com Pedro and our attorney contiue to work to free our orphanage kids and bring them home to us. The attorney turned in more paperwork last week and hopes to have a good report this week.