International drawing contest
As every year, our kids participated in the drawing contest which was organised by „Food for the Poor“. The juniors (up to 12 years of age) had to follof the topic of “Christ has risen” and the seniors (13 and older) had to follow the topic of the Decalogue.
All the kids made huge efforts since the top prize of 500 USD was a great and very attractive incentive for everyone.
Luz Marina took the junior’s topic very seriously and tried to draw Matthew 28:6 „He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay“, which she managed to do really well. She was the winner of this international drawing contest.
Luz Marina wants to give the 500 USD to her mother. They are a total of 8 children (from 8 different fathers) and she wants to rent or buy a small room for her mother. Unfortunately, we cannot just give the money to her dipsomaniac mother, since she would squander it for different things.
In the senior’s group, Esteban made such an effort that the jury didn’t believe he had drawn it all by himself. He, too, wanted to give the 500 USD to his mother, who lives in dismal poverty.
Alden
Our 6-year old Alden broke his arm while playing and had to wear a cast for 2 ½ weeks. Initially, he felt some pain, but then he laughed away the fact that he had to wear a cast.
Our pets
We have several pets at the home: 2 dogs, 2 cats, 6 turtles, 1 cock and lots of hens with chicklets. The little ones‘ preferred animals are the cats. The kids run after them, play with them, and, surprisingly, the cats are very permissive with the little ones. Since our chicken-family gets bigger and bigger, our oldest boys, Edwing and Francisco built a „7-star-hotel“, as they call it, to function as a henhouse.
New hobbies
The new hobbies oft he kids are, besides football (which goes without saying), tennis, basketball, and ping-pong. The ping-pong table was created from an old table, which doesn’t bother the children, since they have lots of fun during the tournaments.
Security measures
In the August issue of DEZA-magazine called EINE WELT (‚ONE WORLD‘), it says that the majority of the Honduran citizens are scarcely 30 years old. Sociologists think that this is a unique chance for the development of a country. The reality in Honduras. However, looks different: the majority of the youth only knows a life in fragile circumstances, consisting in poverty, fear, insecurity and hopelessness. Furthermore, it is said that no place in the world has a homicide rate as high as Honduras: While the homicide rate amounted to 34 per 100 000 citizens in 2004, it had risen to 85.5 in 2012. Unfortunately, we, too, had to take precautions. We labelled our bus and the new house for everyone to see clearly that they belong to a children’s home. Thank God we have been spared from severe problems up to now and we hope that this is going to last.
Protest march
The month of August ist he month of the family, for which several organizations set up a protest march in San Pedro Sula, with which they wanted to stress the rescue of Honduran families. The march took about an hour and our older boys participated in it. Every organization presented a big poster with a family issue. Our poster of “yo quiero ser…“ said: "Politicians in Honduras: Stop the blah, blah, blah. The family needs your support. Let’s rescue them." This statement has received a lot of attention and even ended up being published as a family cry for help in the local daily.