Learning to Give Back in Guatemala
March 1, 2016
Loving the Least of These in Guatemala
April 1, 2016
Computer classes for vulnerable children in Guatemala continue to improve.
At the beginning of February, we re-launched our vocational training center in Colonia Santa Fe. We have partnered with the Precious Moments School for many years to provide computer training and spiritual formation to the children who attend school there. Many come from extremely impoverished backgrounds and broken families.
Professor Eduardo, the 5th and 6th grade teacher from the school, who works for us in the afternoons teaching the computer classes and giving devotionals to the students who attend, helped me fix up the classroom. We painted murals on the walls, built desks and refurbished our computers, many of which are quite old and require a lot of love and attention to keep them functioning.
One change this year was to open up the classes to the local community. The response was incredible and our classroom was filled to overflowing for the orientation.
Many parents took time off from work to come enroll their children. Besides sharing with them the benefits computer skills can provide their children, we shared the higher calling we were there for, that of sharing the Gospel that Christ has come to liberate the captives, bring sight to the blind and cure the broken hearted.
We believe that God has called us to a holistic work, James 2:14-16 says “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled”, without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?”
Is our primary calling as missionaries spiritual? Yes, but we must also remember what Jesus tells us in John 10:17 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” So when Jesus’ sheep come to us to hear his voice, and they have other needs that we can meet, are we not then called to serve them in that way too? I think so.
So far our classes have been amazing; we have four groups of 15 children each. Every day they show up on times, have prayer, read a Bible verse and then receive their computer class.
Thanks to a donor paying the rent for 10 months, we had the extra funds to get internet service for the classroom. This will help us to improve the quality of our classes. Prof. Eduardo flipped out when he saw the www.khanadacemy.org website in Spanish and all that it has to offer and wants to use it in his regular school classes.
Students are learning touch typing, MS Office, Word and Windows. And we plan to start them on Duo-lingo for English.
This next month we plan to start a Saturday class for students who cannot make it during the week.
That which God has given freely to us, we now to give freely to others.
