If I have learned anything over this past 2 months here in Guatemala, I have learned it in this last week.
We spent the first couple of days helping paint a new building at a campus called "Casa Alleluya". This school houses 350 kids from age 0-18 who have been abused, neglected or court ordered to be away from their homes. This 25 acre campus has facilities to house all of the kids, educate them and give them skills to succeed and move off of the campus and be an asset to the community. They also have full time welders, carpenters, nurses and counselors to help with all kinds of needs.
The next days we spent time at a school for the mentally and physically handicapped children. This school is rooted in one of the poorest towns just outside of Antigua and thanks to many people's donations, God has blessed this school with even its own elevator (one of the few in all of Guatemala). Most kids who are handicapped are not educated and the Guatemalans don't necessarily feel they even need an education. This school is a light in the darkness.
Next, we stopped at an orphanage/school for a day and played games with these joyful and most polite kids. They were so thankful and appreciative for us being there just to play games with them in the street and tell them silly stories. Guatemalans are a very gracious people.
To finish out the week a few of us spent the afternoon at "Casa Jackson", a home to 14 malnourished kids, all under the age of 3. They have a full-time nurse, 24 hours a day and a great staff as well as a constant flow of volunteers. I learned today that Guatemala is the 4th most malnourished country in all of the world, 2nd on the western side of the hemisphere. 49% of the children are malnourished and part of the reason they are a small people group is due to generations of malnourishment. Parents are uneducated and too poor to provide new babies with proper nutrition. Women often drink pots of coffee and only corn all day long, in turn, the breast milk has no nutrients combined with excessive caffeine. Or, they boil corn to eat and think that there are nutrients in the "corn water" and only feed their babies water. Some of the kids struggled to suck on the bottles because they had never really been fed before and their bodies had a hard time even digesting real food.
Today we got to play a vital role in these new babies lives by getting to hold them, feed them and help change them. If only for a day, it was the best day ever. The staff said that these kids who come to "Casa Jackson" leave fairly quickly, to a now-educated family, because of all the physical affection and attention they get all day long. God has made us to be loved. Here are some photos from the week. Just to give you an idea...the little baby girl in the yellow was 4 months old and weighed only 5.6 lbs.
1 week from today we fly back to Montana. We are all pretty excited to finally get back home, share stories and see our friends and family.
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