Credit where credit is due

For the next couple blogs I want to highlight some of the amazing volunteers that have been to visit us in Guatemala.  

In April we had Pan el la Boca come visit.  This amazing group from CA has been helping us for the past 5-6 years.  Because of this group we were able to build our clinic, beautify the grounds and so much more.  This time they came for just a few day but left having touched the lives of many.

Pan en la Boca headed to Chuiti-Estancia.  First, they built cement floors for 4 homes so the residents no longer have dirt floors

They built a roof on the building where we hold the Mother and Tots program.  They also, brought 56 more sheets of tin to change out/repair/build roofs on some of the homes.

Seven lucky recipients received ONIL Stoves, now they and their children can breath safely in their homes.

They build 9 beds and put them in the houses that needed them the most.

Thank you Pan en la Boca, please come back soon!

Meet Onoria Yoxon Locon

We met this special little girl at our Mother and Tot's Feeding Program this week.  Her name is Onoria Yoxon Locon.  She is 16 years old.  We do not know what she has, but she is not able to walk or talk.  We do not know where her parents are, she has been left is the care of another.  Her caregiver have been taking her to therapy appointment carrying Onoria on her back.  She says that Onoria has grown to big to carry (the women I meet in Guatemala are amazing, I don't know how they carry what they do on their backs) and now she needs to take transportation.  The problem is that this women lives in poverty and cannot afford transportation, she is begging for help.  She is also asking for help to buy the diapers that Onoria needs.

She is asking for 450Q/mth (approximately $60) to help pay for transportation to therapy appointments and diapers.  If you would like to help her take care of  Onoria please donate today and send me an email to let me know--I will give you updates on how Onoria is doing.

Onoria (and her caregiver) enjoyed the wheelchair at Casa de Sion

Froom Sex Trafficked Child To Child Advocate: Blog no. 2 "The Indian Summer"

Here is part two. So hard to send this out. But down in TX today some of my friends who work in child sex trafficking rescued a little girl today who is now in a safe house . If this can save even one little girl like the 5 year old beautiful birracial girl from NC who died while being traffcked , it is worth it.

The Indian Summer

The year was 1988. Vicki had turned 39 years old that spring and I was a year and a half behind her.  Our youngest, number eight, was a year old.  And we were incredibly excited because we were moving into the house I had been building for the past four years. 

Prematurely pushed out of a small rental house, we were half camping in our dream home.  With no kitchen Vicki was cooking all of our meals outside on an open campfire while I put in a few hours of carpentry work into our new house each night after a long day at our drapery workroom.  We had moved in with only an upstairs bathroom and a couple bedrooms; gradually I finished our bedroom and then the living room—dining room area.  We both have fond memories of sharing and decompressing after those incredibly long days, days of dreams coming true, days of camaraderie and cooperation.  We talked around the outdoor fire into the night, relished the Indian summer and enjoyed the kids, equally excited, racing around the flotsam of a house under construction. 

The weather cooperated enough to get the kitchen in and we settled into a house that was 90% finished.  But it was soon obvious that something was wrong as we sat down to eat dinner each evening at our new harvest table.  Vicki sat at one end and I at the other, but to save her life, my wife could not find the right spot for our oldest daughter who was eleven.  There wasn’t a right spot.  If I would look in that daughter’s direction, Vicki was certain it was with a lecherous eye.  In our brand new house, with the first table that fit our entire family, dinner often erupted with accusations and heated arguments.  Our poor daughter was humiliated and sometimes ran from the table while Vicki and I slung recriminations back and forth ruining the meal we had so long looked forward to having as a family.

I, Vicki, did not understand my own behavior.  I am not really sure what I was feeling other than a compelling need to protect my daughter.  When I would try and be rational with myself, it did not help. I did not believe Jody was or would molest our daughter.  I knew my behavior was bizarre, but I had a physical, overpowering need to jump between him and them any time he got physically close.   And that is what I would do especially with the oldest.   I was protecting my daughter, which my mother had not done for me—I was the oldest daughter in my family.  To save my life I couldn’t explain my behavior but the compulsion was powerful.  As it would turn out my body was already remembering things that my mind was not ready to accept.  Even though I did not remember any details I knew the word “molested” applied to me.  I knew that my father had molested me when I was eleven years old. 

The information about Vicki’s childhood was not new.  From the beginning Vicki had let me know that it came with her—a kind of package deal.  She felt in some way that she was damaged goods and that I needed to know that.  But the truth was that we both came from dysfunctional families and there had been an undertone of discord in our relationship from the beginning that occasionally erupted into scrimmages.  Getting along was often difficult and we suspected it was, at least, partially due to our childhoods.  We did way too much fighting and we knew it; we just didn’t know what to do about it even after several years of professional therapy.  For her part, Vicki had started incest therapy that spring, but with all we had to do moving into the house it was only half-hearted.   What we didn’t know was that her strange behavior regarding our daughter was merely the visible tip of a huge iceberg that we would yet learn about.

With our house flaring up almost every night at dinner, Vicki and I both saw the need to get serious about her therapy.  And that turned out to be like opening a door and walking into a world that neither of us had known existed.  In our wildest imagination we could never have dreamed it.  We would go from the sordid further into darkness to raw evil and beyond into another world that strained credibility. It was hard to believe that Vicki could not remember some of the things that had happened to her as a child, but then upon further reflection, it easy to see why she would not want to remember her childhood.  Who would want to live in that kind of world? 

This chapter of my life is a really hard one for me.  I have always loved kids partly because my mom did and partly because I saw so many hurt when I was growing up (but I didn’t know this at the time).  I considered babysitting as a teen to be an honor, much better than dating.  So it was not surprising that Jody and I had 5 kids in 6 years.  That made 6 kids with my oldest from a previous marriage. 

I did not recognize how much my oldest daughter looked just like me at age 11 until I began probing my inexplicable behavior.  With only the vaguest memory of being molested at that age, I had promised myself growing up that the same thing would not happen to my daughters.  At all costs, I was going to do it right this time; I was going to protect my daughter. 

Maria del Carmen

We were lucky enough to receive a years supply of meals from Kids Against Hunger (http://www.kidsagainsthunger.org/).  They provide pre-packaged meals stocked full of vitamins and everything else good for kids's bodies.  They are packaged here in the US and shipped down.  Usually to get these meals money is raised and good people get together and package them.  But, we begged and now we have meals for Nueva Victoria and a new community, Maria del Carmen.

We started the feeding program in Maria del Carmen two weeks ago.  We have 160 kids in our program.  We have this feeding program set up like the ones in Los Robles and Nueva Victoria; we feed the kids lunch 3x/week (we still supplement the meals with extra veggies and some chicken).

The moms in the community take turns cooking and serving the kids.  And of course the kids help with the clean-up. 

With the feeding program we were able to start a the tutorial program as well.  We love our teachers from Nueva Victoria and now they will be teaching the students in Maria del Carmen as well--this now provides both men with much needed full-time employment (Nueva Victoria is just part time).  And because we received a years supply of meals for Nueva Victoria we were able to take the money we were using to feed Nueva Victoria kids to pay for the teacher's salary and to start the Mother's and Toddlers program in Chuti-Estancia.  We are so excited about this growth and ability to help more people.

If anyone is looking for a project, we still have 23 more communities that are baldly in need of these feeding programs.  Kids Against Hunger has packing facilities all over the United States.  It would make a great Eagle Scout, youth or family project to raise the money and then go pack the meals.  Check out their website and please let me know if you have any questions. 

From Sex Trafficked Child To Child Advocate; Introduction

I promised this story would be told. I have waited to tell it my whole life, but fear has kept it inside. At first it was fear that my traffickers would find out and punish me for telling like they had promised. Then it was fear that J.Q. Public would not want to hear it and punish me for telling. But it is my story and for the safety of our children, it needs to be told. Trafficking of children does exist. It existed 60 years ago when I was a child. Here is the first blog. There will be a new published here each Tuesday until the story is told. My husband wrote it, but my words are in italics.

This story has been a long time coming, primarily because we have had to mature and gain perspective on something so out of the ordinary that it boggles the mind.    This is a synopsis of a struggle it has taken years to digest and then comprehend and finally gain the understanding that we presently have.   And this perspective, too, may change further over time.

To be used as a child prostitute at the tender age of 9 and 10 and in kiddie porn throughout your childhood does something to the brain that is hard to undo.  I, Vicki, thought the rest of the world was living a “Brady Bunch” type life while I was caught in a hell that was mostly “how am I going to survive this next hour?”  My parents presented as normal functioning people. They were both college educated and my dad was a military man.  We lived in middle to upper middle class homes and spent summer afternoons at the pool. I was a Girl Scout and an honor roll student by day, but at night and on many weekends I was taken by my father to his little “parties” with his friends.  The PTSD I suffer now from what I went thru is difficult on a day to day basis.  For instance, most pictures of me show the haunted, terrified look in my eye of the little child who is being photographed in a porn show.

I hope by telling this story that three things will be accomplished.  One, I know it will help my personal healing to speak out to a general audience.  This produces a certain kind of validation that is cleansing.    Two, I want to help people, who live in the USA, understand that between 200,000 and 300,000 children domestically are being used in the commercial child sex trade each year.  This is a national tragedy and sadly not a well-known one.  We all lose when this amount of innocence is robbed from our children.  And I can’t help but think that we are all accountable—if only by our ignorance or inaction. And third, I would like for my own children to better understand what’s behind my PTSD and to more graciously accept it and forgive the lack of normalcy it created in their lives.  And maybe—just maybe—they might even understand that they, like myself, have developed a greater capacity for compassion because of their experience.

This is “Human Trafficking Awareness” month.  Our story is meant to aid in understanding the dynamics of this kind of child abuse—both victim and perpetrator—and especially to give insight into the violence of this particular kind of abuse.  In the process of writing this—as you will see—it became obvious that sexual trafficking is one of the most violence of crimes against children.  It creates shame and darkens the soul more than almost any other type of human desecration. 

It should be understood that I, Jody, am telling the bulk of this story from my perspective.    Vicki is actively engaged with the writing and you will see her hand in italics.  She is much more of a talker than writer.  We both think the story is more understandable when narrated by someone with one foot inside her world and the other in everyone else’s world.  And I have one additional purpose:  to tell the story for its own sake.  It’s an incredible and fascinating story that I entitle “The Long Shadow of Darkness” because it invites you into an understanding of evil and its effects that I am sure is beyond your present ken.

If you would like to see the work we are involved with in Guatemala, visit our website at www.safehomesforchildren.org .  Our child advocacy work there is designed to keep families together which is the foremost deterrent to exploitation of children.   Vicki does public speaking on child trafficking in the States, and if you would like to you can make donations to Safe Homes and note its purpose.

Why there have been no blgos

We have been home from Guatemala now for 6 weeks. While down there I was sick most of the time. If it wasn't a major stomach issue, then it was bronchitis for a month and finally an allergy to the pine trees blooming in our new neighborhood. My eyes and head stayed swollen. And during the last month, we had teams almost constantly and it was a lot of work as well as fun. The people were great and I loved them, but it took a toll on my already fragile health.
When we get back to the states, my house needed attention.  I had paid it none for the last 3 months. Two daughters and a Dil were pregnant and needed attention and my grandkids needed to see their Granma. I had to go to Raleigh twice to pick up hugh amounts of donated clothes that we send to Guatemala [ thanks Karen ] and pay attention to our for-profit business that allows us not to take money from Safe Homes and gives a lot of money to the projects in Guatemala. We also have had to send daily emails to our staff in Guatemala and review the ones they send to us. A new budget had to be drawn up since we had added 2 more communities for feeding programs, but Kids Against Hunger was providing a good chunk of the food. So no blogs.
But I think the main thing going on is that I need to get more involved in the fight to stop child sex-trafficking.  Not all of you know that part of my background.  My childhood is so much of why I do the work I do in Guatemala. I know my story needs to be told:  a story of horrific abuse, but also as one of wonderful healing. So I have determined that even though fearful, I wll publish it here--in addition to the regular blogs of Guatemala. Because every time we save a child from Child Sex Trafficking, we give them a Safer Home. Least you think it does not happen in the USA: three hundred children a year are trafficked domestically. I am sure it is worse in Guatemala.

Interesting read

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/livingthelanguage/2012/04/20124161358285740.html

Also. remember today is the last day that your donations will count towards the Feinstein Foundation giveaway, so please donate today.

Help Us Start Feeding Programs in Maria del Carmen

I discovered such need during my visit to Maria del Carmen on Wedsnesday that I took my husband and kids up there on Friday. I want to start our programs up there asap [ that means when the money miraculously arrives] and I needed him to see it so he would agree. There are 110 families that live in this community. Our two teachers for Nueva Victoria live here. Alfredo [ our head teacher ]  wanted me to see where he lived so we went to his house. That is his little girl standing in front of his house and his wife, mother and nursing baby and someone else standing inside cooking on the wood stove. Alfredo is a certified teacher. I asked how he paid for school and he said he did a student loan and is still paying it back. He only works part-time for us, but if we start a lunch program in M del C he can work there in the morning and at Nueva Victoria in the afternoon and have a full-time salary. He is a really good teacher and goes the extra mile.
I saw the two bottom houses at Maria del Carmen and asked where their owners worked. All the other houses looked like Alfredo's except these two. He said the owners worked in the United Staes and had sent the money back to build the houses.
Now I am against illegal immigration and know children in Los Robles whose parents went illigally to the USA and left their young children alone to raise themselves. But after seeing the difference in these houses I can understand why they go to the USA.
The last two pictures are the real reason I went back to M del C. We took hats made by the daughter on a pediatrician who comes and wanted to pass them out to the kids. But I wanted my husband to see the kids and the need they had for nutritious food. I knew he would be as moved as I was. The bottom picture has a 3 year old who has never walked. His brother is holding him. He has one ear the is hugh compared to the other. The kids had the gold snot running down ther faces of kids who never get the right nutriton. Both in the bottom picture and the next one up. We have a USA medical team that will spend two days here next week.
Please help us to help these kids and start some feeding programs here.
http://www.safehomesforchildren/
20.vicki@gmail.com

Sick Children [ Blog nos.44,45,46,47

The week of Feb. 20 brought many sick children into our lives. Monday started off sad for our immediate family. My adopted daughter Alisa, who just celebrated her 12th birthday, has a twin, a full sib sister, and 3 half sib brothers that all live with Alisa's birthmom. Her 16 year old bio brother has had a diagnosed severe case of muscular dystrophy since he was 4. Hence the reason, the bio mom did an adoption. She could not care for him and infant twins. So we have had an open adoption from the beginning. The twin has stayed with us before and Alisa has visited Davon in TX. I was going to take her back to see him this summer as he is totally bedridden and I knew he could die in the next 5 years. We thought we had time tho. Davon died Feb. 9 and we had a call from the bio mom on the 20th. Really hard to deal with esp. for me who felt guilty that I had not taken her to see him in time.
The next day I took a catch up with things at home and appreciate my kids day.
Then I got a call from Mario saying he was having to go with Jose Cali, the in country head of the nutributter team and the doctor who treats the severely malnourished  nutributter kids. They were going to Nueva Victoria and Maria del Carmen to see 11 kids the next day. I decided to tag along. The first 3 pics are of the nutributter kids and their moms. Many are well below weight or have fevers that won't go away or have constant diarrhea. Nine were from Maria del Carmen, a very poor community I had never visited before. It is next to Nueva Victoria. It is one we will start working in as soon as the money presents itself. They have 160 kids in the elementary program that would love a lunch/tutorial program and 110 families with many tots and infants who need a feeding/nutritional program
The last two pictures are of Maria at Nueva Victoria, the little spina bifida girl some of you helped have a foot operation. We had taken meds and bandages for her mom to wash and bandage her foot each day. This was not being done. She was sitting in a wheelchair instead of crawling on the floor like she used to and she had a sock on to cover her feet. The last picture tho is what her foot looks like. We worked it out that the 3 kids who are getting scholarships for middle school in NV will take turns coming by and cleaning and bandaging her foot each day. Everyone in NV has to walk [ I kid you not] 4 miles with 5 gallon cans and walk 4 miles back up with the 5 gallon can full of water. That is all their water: drinking, cleaning clothes washing. Anyway we take 5 gallons a week up for the cleaning and provide the plastic gloves and meds and bandages. Maria refuses to go to school or our tutorials even if we buy her pullups to wear so we got her a desk to fit over her wheelchair and crutches and some books to look at . Otherwise she sits in her wheelcahir and picks her skirt or crawls on a dirty cement floor.
The next day I caught up with emails , helped with the kids homeschooling and in the afternoon had massages and dinner with my husband.
We had decided to go back to Maria del Carmen with some food for the really bad kids the next day.

You can donate to any of these programs by going to http://www.casadesion.blogspot.com/ and pushing the donate button. If it doesn't work, write me at 20.vicki@gmail.com. 100% goes to our programs. We support ourselves with our for-profit business.

Feinstein Foundation

Have you ever heard of the Feinstein Foundation?  We hadn't, until now...but this is something worth hearing about.  Mr. Feinstein is a normal guy from RI--normal with lots of money.  And every year he gives away $1 million dollars to agencies that are feeding the poor. That's us!!!  ALL money/formula that is donated to Safe Homes for Children/Casa de Sion in March and April will be counted towards this, and he will give us some of his million in proportion to the amount we have raised in these two months.

So how can you help?
DONATE!
If you are a monthly supporter who hasn't donated in a while--please now is the time to donate again.
If you were planning on donating at some point this year--please do it during March and April.
If you donated last year but haven't given any in 2012--give during the next two months.
Or, if you have formula laying around--get it to me during March or April--I can count $1/lb (meaning if you were going to buy formula full-price, don't, just donate the amount that you where going to spent, it will count as more in this campaign and we will buy formula in Guatemala with your money.)

So use the donate button on the blog or send me a check (made out to Safe Homes for Children) 3001 Clemson Ave, Charlotte, NC 28205

Please pass this around to your friends, and asked them to get involved.  We will keep you up to date on our progress.

See below a letter that Mr Feinstein has written for participating charities to distribute.
http://www.feinsteinfoundation.org/




Shawn Feinstein
37 Alhambra Circle
Cranston, RI 02905
Please use MY money to help your neighbors in need!
My name is Alan Shawn Feinstein. For the past 13 years, I have been giving away $1 million each year to anti-hunger agencies throughout the country.
This year, I am doing it again…
WHATEVER YOU DONATE TO THIS AGENCY,
I WILL ADD MONEY TO IT. THE MORE
YOU GIVE, THE MORE OF MY $1 MILLION
THEY’LL GET—THANKS TO YOU!
Why am I doing this? Because I believe each of us was put here on earth to do what we can to help those in need. You got this letter because we feel that YOU believe that, too.
This has become the greatest grass roots campaign ever to fight hunger in our country. Your donation makes you a partner in it with me!
My money started this campaign but it is YOU who will help decide how many needy people in your city or town will be fed this year. All that will matter to us someday is what we did while we were here to help those who needed us.
We Are Needed Now!
Please give whatever you can - I will gladly add some of my money to yours. (My $1 million will be divided in full proportionately among the agencies receiving donations toward my offer.)
Thank you for sharing my heart, and the hope that—someday—no one will ever go hungry.
Sincerely Yours,
Alan Shawn Feinstein

Birthdays and Clinics [ blog nos. 40,41,42,43,44,45,46}

We had a great team of Naturapathic doctors here for a week of clinics in Los Robles. I took advantage of the opportunity and had all seven of my children and myself get physicals. They did a very thorough jobs. One of the perks of running a mssion. Here is a pic of my daughter Emmie who wants to be a doctor herself.

It is something of a challenge to celebrate the birthdays of two of our adopted kids that still live with us and my birthday while living down here. We all kind of feel ripped off that we are not in the states with our big family and can not have the big family party. So this week, Feb.13 and feb. 17th we took off Weds., feb. 15th and took the kids to a nice hotel for breakfast buffet and swimming in the pool. Tony pictured here, was 10. and Alisa , in the above picture,was 12. The kids loved it and already are making plans for their next year's birthday here. We also had two birthdays in the states. My oldest son Matt was 44 and my sil Chris was 30.

Some of the docs eating the lunch that Casa de Sion prepared for them.

We saw many men at this clinic and many families

next to the top are Lillian's adopted twins. She was able to adopt them because Casa de Sion provided the formula and clothing. They were treated also. Each doc brought down a suitcase full of meds.
In addition to the clinic, we had our mama/tot program with any mamas and tots and we moved out of our house for 3 days while new tile was laid. We moved back in on Thurs. and spent Sat. and Sun. resting and getting resettled.

Vicki
20.vicki@gmail.com

trying to catch up With the Blogs [ 31,32,33,34,35,36, 37,38,39]

Lots and lots going on. The reason I have not written. Plus my computer is not working and it has all the pictures. So this is an informational blog on my husband's computer catching up with my commitment.
We have started a Friday business meeting with Mario and Juan. Each week it gets longer and longer as there is more and more going on. [While I am writing this I am trying to shut out the screaming that my two teenage daughters are doing at each other; the joys of family life] .  This week there was a lot of talk about our responsibilities with the nutributter program. Basically Mario has to deliver it to all 24 communities and make sure that the two community leaders in each community know their role: giving it out to the families, showing them how to get the babies to eat it and making sure it is not given to the other starving children in the family. The nutributter arrived on Sat. so the work begins on Monday.
Sunday i tried to catch up with family stuff, like organizing myself to be the perfect long distance mom and grandma for the 7 birthdays happening in Feb.
Monday I met Carlos, the head on a naturopathic NGO that is bringing a team of naturopathic docs down the next week. I need to show him the clinic in Los Robles. he likes it and is excited about helping the people in Los Robles. I am excited about this team as I have used naturopathic meds for years and am a true believer. Also called to find out what was happening with the birthday parties of my two grandchildren that had birthdays that week.
Tuesday was running errands in town getting food and money in the house. Then returning emails, etc.
Wednesday's top priority was calling and wishing Cohen a happy 4th Birthday. Then homeschooling the kids here and then to Los Robles. Jody needs to check the construction on the guardian house and I need to talk to Dominga. I found out that Jeremias, the downs twin whose life we saved, has had his operation and it was successful.  I also find out that Maria in Nueva Victoria is having more trouble with her foot and it is infected again. We decide to take medicine and bandages to her mom and train her mom in how to wash it and then bandage it and put a sock on it to protect it. I work with Erin to contact our supporters and new people to try and get money in for scholarships and more feeding programs. We are hoping that Kids Against Hunger can be a help in letting us open up more feeding programs.
Thursday is spent working with my daughters who run our for-profit business in the states and our computer person. We do a lot.... of advertising in the phone books for the for-profit and are now starting our internet advertising. First thing will be a mobile website. This business is our biggest donor to the projects down here so it is very important to keep it growing. Each day takes some of my time and a lot of my husband's time doing homeschooling with the 5 youngest. Three of them are special ed and the other two hyper so it gets frustrating at times.
Friday is another business meeting with the staff. Plans are made for the 5 days of clinics we will have next week. Juan will be one of the translators so his jobs need to be delegated to other employees. Our kids here at home get a big surprise. One of our new volunteers teaches judo and he arrives for their class. Daniel is from Germany.
Saturday's priority is wishing bay lee a happy 5th Birthday. She and Cohen are having a Chuck Cheese party together. She has a princess cake and Cohen a cars cake. bay lee's mom and Bryan, my son who is his kids single parent, make cupcakes. Bryan's were double chocolate and homemade. he is turning into a good single dad. Takes the two kids to church every Sunday. My worries over leaving this situation are turning to pride over my kids doing so good a job. His sisters and sister-in-law help him with babysitting when needed.
Well that's is all for now.
The next blogs require pictures and I am hoping to get my computer fixed on Monday.

Nutributter extravaganza and Blog Days 25,26,27,28 29, 30

Here are the pictures from the Saturday meeting of the nutributter people. We had 35 members from our community workers show up. We had to pay transport which added up to $70.00 , but they are distributing the nutributter for free and never get to enjoy this kind of hoopderah so any that wanted to come came.

Dominga and Mario are in the picture with Peter Rololf, the pediatrician from Boston. MA who got the USAID grant for the program. Mario and Dominga surveyed and are working the most communities of any of the NGOs who participated and did the most thorough surveys. We did 24 communities. It was Dominga's first claim to fame and she was so excited. 

The program consisted of lots of nutritional info comparing nutributter to mother's milk and incaparina. Of course mother's milk is the best, but if it is not available it is not available. Nutributter won out over incaprina with the vitamin and mineral and calorie count. Plus it requires no water so eliminates the poison water factor.

Then the community workers were showed how to train the parents in giving the butter to their babies.

Then the heads of the NGOs all signed a contract agreeing to certain things. So there is a pciture of me signing and then Dominga and then Mario.

Finally we got to eat lunch in a beautiful location overlooking Lake Atitlan. There were probably 250 to 300 people there. 

 our table

 

 our view of the Lake from our table.

All in all i think everyone enjoyed themselves and got motivated to do a good job. We received the first of our nutributter last week and started distributing it this week. Mario is having to go with all the community workers in each pueblo and show them exactly what to do so it is still a lot of work and a lot of gas money.

The next day Sunday  was our usual, church in Spanish, teach the kids at home in English, rest, go for a walk and watch Ben-Hur.

Monday, Jan. 30 turned out to be pretty exciting. I drove my 17 dau. and 15 year old son to Pana. I dropped the son at school and took the daughter to the Thai rest. where she is doing a culinary arts internship. I wanted to be there when she started because the owner was not going to be and my daughter does not speak Spanish and the regular cooks do not speak English. Soon after we arrived and I had ordered fresh orange juice and blue corn pancakes my son called. All the schools in Pana were canceled as the vigilantes and the police were in a battle. The main bridge was blocked by vigilantes with hugh rocks and fires and they were there with their machetes and what guns they had and the police were there with their guns drawn. I told Caleb to get to where I was asap and Scotia that we would start her internship another day, called the owner, collected the two kids and headed home. We were nervous they had closed off the yellow bridge we have to cross to get home as they had closed of the road from Pana to Solola. There were no cars on  the roads and the kids and I were speeding as fast as the Mitsubishi would go. The yellow bridge was being kept open by 35 police officers ready to fight. We made it across and raced home. We heard later that they were fighting because the vigilantes wanted to partol their own neighborhoods at night as the police were not arresting the criminals. The police were instead arresting the patroling vigilantes and the vigilantes were at the end of their tolerance.

Tuesday was calm and we worked all day with our homeschooling kids and getting the 38 student scholarships straightened out. It is a lot of work.

Wednesday Scotia started her internship and and she loves it and the Mayan women love her. She does the waiting on the gringoes and prepares liquidos and breakfasts and everyone is happy.

Thurs. Jan. 30 , was our day off and after much work with the programs[ getting the scholarships worked out and paid for 38 kids is a lot of work.] and the kids we were ready for it.

Life in a third world country with 7 kids still at home.Blog Days 17, 18, 19, 20,21,22, 23, 24

Trying today to get caught up with my blogs. Everything except yesterday's nutributter program. Last Fri. I mostly caught up with emails and paperwork in the am and took a Friday date with my husband. By the time we have both done all this "mission" work all week [ mostly my responsibility } and homeschooled the 5 youngest kids [ mostly his repsonsibility ] , we feel we deeply deserve time off starting Fri. afternnon. So we left around 2, Juana had cooking kid's dinner [ and then leaving until Tues. am ], and we headed for the weekly hour massage. It is also a medical massage as I have neck and shoulder issues and Jody has back issues. Afterwards we enjoyed dinner at an Italian Bistro that  makes it 's own noodles.  Then we came home, waved at the kids and went back in our bedroom , made a fire in the fireplace and watched a movie. Friday Date nights are usually pretty much the same down here excpet the restaurant changes and sometimes we can take in a music show. The best part is having time alone and away from the stress.
The next day is Sat. cleanup. It is mostly a hugh trial of my patience as I struggle to get work done and not yell at the kids who try hard to not get work done. Having a new IPOD that has my favorite songs on it and drowns out the kids help a lot. Sunday is a walk into San Andres for church. The 3 pictures of kids above are my kids ready for church. Alisa and Tony will soon be 10 and 12 and feel ripped off they have to celebrate their birthdays in a third world country with crappy plastic toys. This time I remembered to bring them each a second hand but working DSI [ think that is right}. They each want one really bad and I think we found a decent hotel, economical hotel on the lake with swimming pool and trampoline to spend a night at sometime between the 13th and 17th. Then we can rent a video and have a dinner and ice cream. They will think that is pretty special. Church is in Spanish so we stay for the first part and then go home and have a family Sunday School lesson.
Monday, Jody and I and kids go to Los Robles while Jody meets the new carpenter who will finish the guardian house and get it ready for the new family to move into. I go with Dominga to get a picture of the kids in the elementary school next door that will be in our feeding program this year. That is the bottom picture.
Tuesday, I go into town to get Scotia set up to do a culinary arts internship. She is in culinary arts in 11th grade in the states and has brought her book with her to study, but needed some practical cooking experience. So she starts tomorrow at our favorite Thai rest. Ling, the owner, cooks the lunches for the 20 kids at the private school Scotia and Caleb go to. Scotia will help cook the lunches. We are all excited for her to learn and cook at home. With Bethany an Italian cook expert from her 1.5 year mission there and now Scotia with Thai food, things are looking better and better for family reunions.
Wednesday we are back up to Los Robles for me to have a meeting with Mario and Dominga to discuss many things concerning future operations. I have Roy translating and it goes well. Jody checks the progress of the guardian house.
Thurs. is more of the same. Everyday we have emails and phone calls to do concerning the family and the for-profit business. Much time is taken with blogs and meetings with staff. Juan comes everyday to receive translations to give Mario and Dominga and to continue work on the never ending problems dealing with student sponsorships, medically fragile kids and nutritionally deprived kids. And did I mention budget that never seems to be enough. I can't download pictures here at the house so picture blogs require I got into San Andres, sip a liminoda and write blogs at the pizza rest.
Finally Fri. is here again. I am sick again with my first Guatemalan cold and a horrible cough and fever. The massage I am hoping with get me well enough to make the nutributter extravaganza the next day and Jody is plain exhausted. He is a wonderful teacher, but 3 of the kids he teaches are special ed and he is 61. We leave at 2 excited agian to have a few hours of free time and stress relief.. I do not sleep well that night due to 2 hours of coughing, but make Peter's nutributter program. I will wirte about it the next time I go to the pizzeria as I have a bunch of pictures. I come home exhausted and sleep from 8 pm to 8 am. Today Sun. is a rest day. Alisa is making a pasta dish she learned from her sister Bethany .TTL.
Vicki
20.vicki@gmail.com
http://www.safehomesforchildren.org/
http://www.casadesion.blogspot.com/

Look For Us on the USA New With Our Nutributter Program

Last week I decided to follow Mario and Dominga around while they finished up the 24 communities we were assigned to assess for the new nutributter grant form UDAID. I met them in San Andres where they were working. They had a community worker who helped them find the 6 to 24 month olds from the Central Salud list. They had to walk a million miles to find the 48 babies in this community as no one knew where they lived. Once found, they explained the program and then measured the child's length on a board they carried with them and weighed her from a hanging scale they also carried with them. Baby was not too happy.
And first time I have ever seen Dominga in pants.
Sat. is the big.... meeting before we start distributing the nutributter and begin the program. Casa De Sion did the best of all the NGOs so they will train the others. There will be USA news reporters at the meeting. Then the next week these same reporters will go with Mario, Dominga and I to some of our communities to film. Praying it gives help to these communities and that my 62 year old body can keep up.
Vicki
20.vicki@gmail.com

Our New Pueblo: Chuti-Estancia

Last Weds., I went to Chuti-Estancia with Evelyn who is bringing a volunteer team here in April to do work. This is one of our new pueblos. Very large with many poor people. We already have about 25 mamas and their 75 tots in our feeding program and 35 students in our scholarship program from here. The top picture is of the inside of the first house we went to. Single mom with 2 little ones and her parents live here in one room and lots of smoke.

 

 

This is a picture is of the dad who is almost dead. Can not breathe, can not lift his head. I was going to pay for a doctor, but the daughter told me he was dying of alcohol poisoning and there was nothing anyone could do.

 

Here is the next family. Married mom whose husband works in the fields for about $100 a month when there is work. There are 4 children there [ the 4 month old is on her back ] and 3 more who were not there. One of them is a crippled boy [ sounds like clubfeet ] who works in the fields with his dad. They live in one room with a leaky roof and the kids looked so malnourished. Evelyn had blankets for the kids.

Here is another project. This is a kitchen for a commmunity of 5 or 6 families. It is falling down and the picture shows how bad the smoke is. How would you all like to cook your meals in this everyday. Just a little smokey.

 A family of 9 lives in this one room with the pink bed.. The kids all sleep on this bed. The parents sleep on a bed behind a nasty dirty ripped up tarp. I would be so claustrophobic if I slept there. My bedroom right now is not finished. The new quarry tile has not completely dried nor have the new plaster walls, but it is big with a lot of natural wood and skylights and a big bathtub. Every time I get upset about the wet stuff, I try to remember this place and how there but for fortune I could be sleeping here.

We went to other houses, too many to name. the last I will mention has a single mom and her 14 year old son in a small room in the middle of a cornfield. Dirt floor, leaky roof, one single bed. They take turns sleeping on the floor.

 

This last picture is of the elementary school here. 376 kids, all poor, all want us to start our after school feeding program. We also need to start our mama/tot program in this community as right now we spend $50 a month transporting the 25 mamas and their 75 tots who come twice a month. But if we did we would have 125 mamas and 400 tots. We need money or Kids Against Hunger meals to be able to help.
Write me at 20.vicki@gmail.com

TWO NEW EMPLOYEES AND GANGS AND HURRICANE STAN. Blog day 14

We recently hired two new employees. Mario and Juan. Mario will be in charge of the nutrition programs and Juan will be in charge of the educational programs. Both are growing by leaps and bounds. Both have an interesting history that is so Guatemalan.
Mario is close to 40 and grew up in Godinez. He is a very active evangelical. He has been woroking for a trucking company in Guatemala City and his job is to bargain with the gangs. In other words how large a bribe do we have to pay you to keep you from robbing us.? Talk about a stressful job. He wanted to move back to his homeplace and away from the big city stress. He is a friend of Domingas and they work well together. He is not afraid to be a boss.
Juan is 26 and grew up in Santiago on Lake Atitlan. He is a very active Latter Day Saint. We first heard about him back in 2005, right after Hurricane Stan. The mudslide outside Santiago took out his family home and all the money he had saved to go on a mission. His brother was head of the Mormon church in that area at the time. It had rained for 4 days straaight, not hard but steady. At 2am some mud slide. Juan's brother recruited everyone with a vehicle to go with him to this vulnerable area and get the people out. Juan and the rest of his family left then. His mom did not want to leave her belongings and the dad carried her to the car and put her in. Many people did not leave. At 5 am, the big mud slide and 54 of Juan's relatives died. No one knows how many died, but Juan thinks it was around 800 who were buried alive. He lost all his possessions. His brother asked us back in 2005 if we could help him with his missionary expenses. We agreed. Juan had graduated from diversicado by working and his parents selling some land. They lost the rest of their land in the mudslide. He went to Arisona on a mission and now speaks and writes perfect English as well as Spanish and 2 Indian dialects.  He came by last July to thank us for his mission support and let us know if we ever needed a bilingual employee he was available. He will work a lot with the teams.
Last Tuesday, my husband got started with the 5 youngest homeschooling. It is a lot of work and he is dedicated and I love him for it.

Days 10, 11, 12 and 13 of 2012 blog

Friday was such a fun day. Erin and husband Mark were visiting and we rented a boat and had 4 adults and 10 kids on the Lake for a beautiful, sunny, warm, peaceful day. I am going to let Erin do the blog with pictures of that day so I have a chance to catch up with the other days. Sat. was a Home Sweet Home Day. Erin and family left early that morning to fly back to the USA and I was sick. But it was our first day at our new house and so we tried to settle in. We unpacked and put things away and felt not quite so homesick at the end. We also were looking for a big terrible looking dog for safety issues for the kids, but also wanted him to be sweet and lovable. We found him in the Pensa Libre a cute black lab. Only problem was he was in the city, but our wonderful shuttle driver, Jorge, said he would bring him to us next trip out to the Lake.
Sunday we went to church and tried to pay attention to the Spanish sermons we did not understand. Then we came home and taught the kids some of our own church lessons. In English. Then rested and then more settling in. We have decided to only have a maid Tues thru Fri. so it will  not be such a shock having to do our own chores when we return to the states in April. So no maid, so we do our own cooking and cleaning.
Monday we spent time processing issues with our two new employees,. Also took our two oldest to Pana to start them in the private school they will attend while here. PCI. The teachers will help Scotia and Caleb with their books from the states. It worked well last year and the schools in the states were pleased. Our new employees are Mario and Juan. Mario will supervise the nutritional programs and Juan the educational. They both have interesting stories and I will tell them in hte next blog.

Jan. is Trafficking Prevention Month

A friend of mine who has a lot of blog exposure has asked me for a while to tell my story. So the first part of it came out today. Since this is trafficking prevention month and since safe homes for children is going to add a partner organization called safe homes for trafficked children, I thought I would do my story on this blog also. It is the reason I am down here: working to make safer homes for as many children as we can.

 

From Child Prostitute to Child Advocate:  Introduction

This story has been a long time coming, primarily because we have had to mature and gain perspective on something so out of the ordinary that it boggles the mind.    This is a synopsis of a struggle it has taken years to digest and then comprehend and finally gain the understanding that we presently have.   And this perspective, too, may change further over time.

To be used as a child prostitute at the tender age of 9 and 10 and in kiddie porn throughout your childhood does something to the brain that is hard to undo.  I, Vicki, thought the rest of the world was living a “Brady Bunch” type life while I was caught in a hell that was mostly “how am I going to survive this next hour?”  My parents presented as normal functioning people. They were both college educated and my dad was a military man.  We lived in middle to upper middle class homes and spent summer afternoons at the pool. I was a Girl Scout and an honor roll student by day, but at night and on many weekends I was taken by my father to his little “parties” with his friends.  The PTSD I suffer now from what I went thru is difficult on a day to day basis.  For instance, most pictures of me show the haunted, terrified look in my eye of the little child who is being photographed in a porn show.

I hope by telling this story that three things will be accomplished.  One, I know it will help my personal healing to speak out to a general audience.  This produces a certain kind of validation that is cleansing.    Two, I want to help people, who live in the USA, understand that between 200,000 and 300,000 children domestically are being used in the commercial child sex trade each year.  This is a national tragedy and sadly not a well-known one.  We all lose when this amount of innocence is robbed from our children.  And I can’t help but think that we are all accountable—if only by our ignorance or inaction. And third, I would like for my own children to better understand what’s behind my PTSD and to more graciously accept it and forgive the lack of normalcy it created in their lives.  And maybe—just maybe—they might even understand that they, like myself, have developed a greater capacity for compassion because of their experience.

This is “Human Trafficking Awareness” month.  Our story is meant to aid in understanding the dynamics of this kind of child abuse—both victim and perpetrator—and especially to give insight into the violence of this particular kind of abuse.  In the process of writing this—as you will see—it became obvious that sexual trafficking is one of the most violence of crimes against children.  It creates shame and darkens the soul more than almost any other type of human desecration. 

It should be understood that I, Jody, am telling the bulk of this story from my perspective.    Vicki is actively engaged with the writing and you will see her hand in italics.  She is much more of a talker than writer.  We both think the story is more understandable when narrated by someone with one foot inside her world and the other in everyone else’s world.  And I have one additional purpose:  to tell the story for its own sake.  It’s an incredible story that I entitle “The Long Shadow of Darkness” because it invites you into an understanding of evil and its effects that I am sure is beyond your present ken.

If you would like to see the work we are involved with in Guatemala, visit our website at www.safehomesforchildren.org .  Our child advocacy work there is designed to keep families together which is the foremost deterrent to exploitation of children.   Vicki does public speaking on child trafficking in the States, and if you would like to support that work, you can make donations to Safe Homes and note its purpose.