Projects and children

We visited 4 Toybox projects today around the city of Guatemala. It feels like we covered lots of miles over bumpy roads, and the most vicious speed bumps you can imagine in the city, how our van squeaked as we went over them.

The projects were all very diverse, and some seemed quite rural, rather than in the built up areas. We visited one home for 36 children called Vida Ilimitada (Life Unlimited), the children lived and learnt school at the home. Their ages ranged from 0 to 18 – these older ones went off to high school each day. We were told that 7 of the babies had entered the home with HIV and been healed, and that the local doctors were advising that children be taken to the home to be healed from HIV! Here’s some of the children from this home on their morning break, the flowers that they are holding we had brought from Toybox supporters in the UK.  

The most moving visit for me today was to a girls home which looks after 11 girls, and is simply a family that have opened their home to these girls who had experienced sexual abuse and violence in their homes. The girls sang 3 lovely songs for us, and 2 of them told us their very moving stories of the situations that they had been living in, and how God had changed their lives. They spoke of parents hitting and abusing them, feeling suicidal, just wanting to be part of a normal family where they felt loved. One of the girls was most upset to see her sister hit violently too. These girls were lovely and warm to us, giving us lots of hugs when we arrived and left, and watching them worship I could see how much they loved God and trusted him. The house parents were amazing people with such grace and love for the girls. The girls proudly showed us their bedroom, 2 of these girls below were those who gave their testimony, their smiles today cover up a very sad past, but thankfully they now have freedom and hope.

Another project was run by a local church, for children who would be left alone all day because their parents were working on the local farms. The project volunteers and the pastor and his family provided them with help with homework, play, love and care. They had arranged a game of football for us this afternoon, Roger built up quite a sweat!

Finally we visited a huge project, a home for up to 400 children. This was on a huge site and had many buildings – schools, medical centre, library, workshops where the students learnt trades such as dressmaking, carpentry, baking. They have their own farm and try to grow most of their products. We met 2 children living there who Viva had recently rescued from the streets, and the team with us were keen to hear how these children were adapting to life in the home.