Boy Howdy!

Are you old enough to remember looking through the Sears Christmas catalog, subtly earmarking pages of things you hoped to find under the tree? It wasn’t called the Wish Book for no reason! Today, we are asking you to take some time to look through a different kind of Wish Book-- the online pages containing photos of the 50 children currently available for sponsorship through Manna 4 Lempira. This time, instead of childishly dreaming about an Easy-Bake Oven or a Lite-Brite, you can help a child’s dream come true. 

It has been said before, and it will doubtlessly be said again...Sponsoring a child through Manna 4 Lempira is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways you can change a child’s life. As Trish recently posted on her Facebook page, “$15 per month (or $180 per year) provides the children with meals to fight off malnutrition, the school shoes and school supplies required for them to attend school, Biblical teaching through a local church, and more!” 

When you scroll through the pages of available children, you will notice that there is a glut of little boys. Of the 50 children in need of sponsors, a whopping 48 of them are boys. Boy, oh boy! Most of them seem to be between the ages of four and six-years-old. Why are so many boys available? Maybe it’s because sponsors want the chance to buy Barbies and sparkly things to fill backpacks. Maybe it’s because sponsors assume (sometimes correctly) that a little boy isn’t going to be excited about writing letters. But, boy howdy, whatever the reasons, it’s time to take a look into those faces and get them some sponsors. 

If you’re thinking that girls are less likely to receive educations without sponsors, Allen assures me that is not the case. According to him, boys in Honduras are less likely to be able to attend school because they are expected to do farm work. That makes sponsoring boys even more important. At this point in time, everyone is more likely to struggle in getting their children to school. Without sponsors, those little boys will probably not be in school next year.

A lot of kids dropped out of school for 2020 and lost an entire year of schooling. While many families in the States have been trying to maneuver online learning options, the options for most kids in Honduras were much more primitive. Teachers had to go door-to-door picking up and dropping off assignments. The system was less than ideal and some families just gave up.

Once a child is out of school for a year, it’s a lot easier for parents to say, “Okay. Your formal education is complete.” If that sounds harsh, remember that most parents never went beyond 3rd or 4th grade. They have no concept of what education might do for their child. 

Because of the pandemic and back-to-back hurricanes, once “poor” families now find themselves worse off than ever before. The majority of the children available for sponsorship were added when they entered school in 2020. That means they have been on the rolls since February or March. 2021 will bring its own batch of children in need of sponsors. 

Trish said, "We’re grateful that the sponsorship program has been holding steady. Very few people have stopped sponsoring children during 2020. But we’re about to add a bunch of new kids. It would be great to get some forward movement in that direction."

Even if you can't take on the financial responsibility of sponsoring a child (or another child, if you're already a sponsor), please pray with us that these children will get sponsored soon.

- posted by Christi.