That's a Great Place to Start!

Preface from Trish: There may be a tendency, when one has the task of choosing just a few photos (from the huge pile of photos of children receiving their shoes and backpacks) to choose the cutest, tiniest children. However, the real measure of success in our program is the older children who are able to continue through their education! For this post, I intentionally chose photos of older boys, who are still able to attend school because they have school shoes and backpacks! YAY for the older boys!

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If Sowers4Pastors has taught me anything, it’s that there are more seasons than I ever imagined. Let’s see… naturally, there’s winter, spring, summer, and fall - but those are US seasons. In Honduras there are rainy and dry seasons, plus flying termite season, coffee harvest season, VBS, church roof construction, bridge building, and backpack seasons. Sometimes, there’s some overlap in these lesser-known seasons, but today we’re focusing strictly on backpack season.

Backpack season is a really big deal in Western Honduras. Of course, the general idea is to distribute backpacks full of school supplies, with the help of people in North America. Some of the children receive a backpack from their sponsor. Unsponsored children receive backpacks, too. Now, this may not sound like a life-changing event to you, but to a child who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend school, a backpack means the world. Allen recently read a news story that said 1.2 million school-age kids in Honduras are not attending school. I’ll let that sink in.

In Allen and Trish’s early years in Honduras, they encountered a village with 500 kids and no school. They looked for a donor to help them build a school. That particular donor agreed to build a Christian school. There was just one not-so-little problem. There were no adults living in that community with enough education to teach at or administrate a private school. Allen was able to make a deal with the Honduran government and the donor, that the school would be run as a public school, but local pastors would be allowed to come in and teach Bible lessons at the school.

Even when Sowers4Pastors started the sponsorship program, they didn’t fully grasp what a big deal it was to give children shoes and backpacks filled with school supplies. For the typical North American, it’s not a big investment. For the typical Honduran, the price is beyond their reach.

Last year, Kim Hall took one little boy shopping in Honduras to get an estimate of how much the necessary supplies cost. School supplies cost approximately four times as much in Honduras, even when you consider Allen and Trish’s travel expenses and shipping costs. (The video, below, shows the costs to purchase items locally, in Gracias.) Some people have worried that the backpack program (involving shipping in backpacks, rather than purchasing them locally) might be damaging the Honduran economy. That isn’t the case. The children who receive backpacks would not be purchasing supplies from a local store. They simply wouldn’t be attending school.

Do The Math from Manna4Lempira on Vimeo.

Sometimes the world’s problems seem so great that you may feel there’s nothing one person can do. Well, one person can provide the supplies to enable a child to receive an education. And one person can do it for less than the cost of a large pizza!

The backpacks are being distributed now because the Honduran school year begins in February. Schools at higher elevations begin their school year slightly later, since the coffee harvesting season ends a bit later. Those children are still working the coffee harvest, alongside their parents. So, the backpack distribution is scheduled in lower lying areas first.

In case you’re thinking it’s too late for you to get involved, I have a personal challenge for you. (This is in no way sanctioned by Allen, Russell, or Trish, but I’m pretty sure they’ll approve. If not, we’ll see how well they proof my blog posts!) What would happen if you spent the coming months setting your spare change aside to purchase school supplies? Will it change the world? Well, no. But it will change one life and that’s a great place to start.








- posted by Christi (and approved by Trish )

Okay, I couldn't resist adding one of the
adorable younger boys, too. LOL