Day of the Child 2023, So Much Cake!

What’s better than having a blowout birthday celebration with all of your friends? If you’re a child growing up in Honduras, the answer is the Day of the Child–which is essentially a celebration of every child in the entire country!

Sowers4Pastors can’t celebrate with every Honduran child, but they are going all out to celebrate the children at all 23 sponsorship locations. That amounts to 20 school locations, 3 churches, around 75 piñatas, and 75 cakes, spread out over the course of 6 days. Since it would be impossible to celebrate all of the 2150 kids officially in the program (plus a few hundred extras expected to show up for the fun), staff is divided into two teams, with each team visiting two schools on Monday-Friday. Then on Saturday, the teams will visit the three church locations. Alejandro and Secia oversaw the planning, and Secia is the mind behind the logistics of this massive undertaking. 

Staff spent two weeks bagging candy for the 23 separate events! Those of you who have been a part of a team visit will appreciate the difficulty of transporting cakes to so many different locations. Staffers have been riding across the bumpy roads with cakes in their laps to prevent them from getting squished or excessively jostled.

When Alejandro and Secia joined S4P, they were told that the ministry would like to celebrate the children at least one time a year. Without hesitation, the couple said, “the Day of the Child.” Schools are out for Christmas, so it is much easier to plan events during the school year, plus Christmas is not as big a deal in Honduras. 

Prior to the recent candy-bagging-palooza, Alejandro and Secia spent time reaching out to the US sister churches, explaining the need and why the Day of the Child is so important. Then, as a way of finding resources beyond those normally used, Alejandro and Secia went to the mayor’s office and several larger local churches. They received some donations of piñatas and candy, turning this into a community effort. 

We’ve mentioned in the past that Christmas in Honduras isn’t typically celebrated with a pile of presents, especially in the rural villages. Children might receive a clothing item if their families can afford that. But anyone who ever received socks and underwear from a great aunt for Christmas probably didn’t find the experience to be magical. Celebrating birthdays isn’t really a thing, either. A lot of kids don’t know when they were born. For kids born in the mountain villages, there’s a chance their parents don’t know their exact birthday, either! 

While International Children’s Day is November 20th, Hondurans officially celebrate Día de los Niños on September 10th. The theme for Children’s Day is, “Inclusion, for every child,” which is a poignant reminder that every single child deserves to be celebrated. You might be interested in knowing that the holiday got its start through the Geneva Convention, though Honduras didn’t declare the Day of the Child as a national holiday until the 90s. It is about taking a stance against child trafficking and child labor by remembering that children are precious and that childhood is something to be protected. What a beautiful reason to buy a LOT of cake!

 - posted by Christi