Meet Evelio

At this time of year, we spend a lot of time on administrative tasks. They are long and tedious, but also necessary—tasks like officially enrolling new children, making child profiles, updating the website, processing sponsorship requests, or numbering thousands of photos.

It is a joy for us when we can close the laptop or put down our pencils to go out into the field and spend time with the wonderful little humans whose details we are spending days processing. For example, I’d like you to meet Evelio.

I remember him well from the day of enrollment. His mother came in, waited all day until the very end, hoping to have a chance to register her son. Because of his age, he had not been attending classes, but his mother promised to bring him. We know that this is taking a risk, but the Sunday School teachers agreed and wanted to give the family a chance. Fast forward 6 weeks. We walked into the church in Jicaro, Quelacasque after class had already started. The children were seated in neat rows, with boys on one side and girls on the other, attentively listening to the Bible lesson. We took a place in a quiet corner to be as respectful as possible, and I began to scan the rows of faces, exchanging smiles and giggles and furtive glances with our excited friends. When the lesson was over, I began to move through the rows, snapping photos and receiving lots of hugs. When I got to the end of a row of boys, to my great surprise, a young mother was sitting, and beside her, racing cars up and down the chair arms, was Evelio! You can learn a lot about Evelio from his profile. He is charmingly chubby with adorable curls. His favorite color is green, and he was wearing green this morning. His favorite hobby is playing with cars. Like most kids who are new to the program, he did NOT want his photo taken. I sat down for a moment and asked him about his cars—one blue and one green, Lightning McQueen style with faces—and Evelio lit up! He started talking about them and smiling happily, encouraged by his mother, who is obviously proud of her son. I eventually snapped my photo, glad for the moment I had shared with these new members of the Manna family.

It made my heart rejoice to see that this mother has kept her promise and is faithfully bringing her son to church—and at the same time, is now attending herself. It is wonderful to see how families are being reached with the good news of Jesus through their children and participation in the Manna Program.

Evelio is just one of more than 200 children who joined the Manna Program in February. That is 200 opportunities for a child and their family to grow in their knowledge of Christ and in fellowship with their local church. We are looking forward to releasing those children for sponsorship this month—and seeing them encouraged in their process of faith by loving sponsors!

- posted by Kim