Fill a Backpack -and Send a Child in Honduras to School- without even putting on a mask or leaving your home!

Filling a backpack for Sowers4Pastors just got easier than ever before. The term “virtual backpacks” has been bandied about, but that’s not entirely accurate. The very real backpacks containing necessary school supplies and hygiene items will be delivered to very real children in Western Honduras. It’s not the backpacks that are virtual, it’s the process of filling them! With just a few clicks on the Sowers4Pastors website, you can virtually fill a backpack without ever leaving your home.

Click here to Fill a Backpack Online! 

If you clicked on the handy-dandy link, you saw that you can choose from four options. Your $25 donation will allow you to virtually fill a backpack for a little boy, little girl, older boy, or older girl. Potentially changing a child’s entire future doesn’t get any easier than that! Your donation covers the cost of the school supplies (as required by the Honduran schools), hygiene items, and some fun items like a doll or soccer ball. (Sowers4Pastors covers the cost of the backpack and transportation.) Oh, and all of this do-goodery is also tax-deductible. 

Every year, Sowers4Pastors delivers backpacks to approximately 3500 children who are registered in the sponsorship programs. That number includes both sponsored and unsponsored children. Part of the $15 a month sponsorship fee promises that each sponsored child will receive a backpack whether or not the sponsor chooses to fill one specifically for their child. 

Additionally, backpacks are given to the children of pastors in the area. Backpacks are provided for the children registered at many of the feeding centers that aren’t part of the sponsorship program. And backpacks are given to children in the local communities without any of these other connections, simply because many of those children wouldn't be able to attend school otherwise. 

If you are a child sponsor, you continue to have the option to physically fill a backpack for your sponsored child. You can also just fill a large Ziplock bag with the extra “fun” items you want your child to receive and let someone with Sowers4Pastors or Manna put the items in a backpack along with school supplies. And remember that your sponsorship already means that your child will receive a backpack if you are unable to fill one. 

Each year, some generous people take on the project of packing backpacks for non-sponsored children and children who aren't in a sponsorship program. This year it has been much more difficult for individuals and groups to go out and purchase school supplies. With social distancing, people are less likely to run from store to store scooping up the back-to-school items. Virtually filling a backpack will take away the hassle of shopping in this era of Covid-19. You can still fill backpacks the old-fashioned way if you choose to, but this is going to be a great option for those who are unable to get to the store. You might say that it’s virtually painless!

If a sponsor wants to send a backpack to their sponsored child through this system on the website, there is a way to do that, too. To ensure that the backpack is allocated correctly, simply give the name and sponsorship number of your child in the section for notes on the payment page. 

Last year, Sowers4Pastors collected 8000 backpacks. If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Hopefully, Allen and his rented Penske truck will be traveling across the U.S. in a couple of months, collecting a multitude of backpacks. But no matter what happens, plans are in place to get as many backpacks as possible into the hands of Honduran children. 

Click here to Fill a Backpack Online! 

Would you like to know more about why the backpacks are needed in Honduras? Then here's a helpful video for you.

Sowers4Pastors - Backpack Distribution Impact 

 - posted by Christi

New Video!

Sometimes we find that people only learn about one part of the Sowers4Pastors ministry, and don't know about other things we do . . . or they don't know how it all fits together. Because of this, I created this video, which I hope will fill in any information you might be missing.

If you're seeing this post by email, you will need to click on the link, to view the video at the Vimeo site.

I'd love to hear what you think about the new video!

Sowers4Pastors - Empowering Pastors from Trish Sowers on Vimeo.
A brief explanation of our ministry work

 - posted by Trish

Far From Flashy, But Doing Important Work - the Montanita Feeding Center

Almost two years ago, we published this blog post with a handy-dandy list of some of the smaller feeding centers that people could sponsor for a year. Ian and Jan Westcott did just that. They sponsored the feeding center in Montanita, run by Pastor Felipe, which feeds more than 50 children a nutritious meal once a week. We don't normally share the names of donors and their donations, but the Westcotts gave me permission to use their name (because it's in the video, below), in the hope that this might encourage others to give. The cost to our ministry, to supply and oversee the feeding center in Montanita, is just over $50 per year.

Recently, the Sowers’s videographer headed to Montanita to create a video update of that feeding center.

The center is far from flashy! It’s in a small, remote area, and, in contrast to the sponsorship centers in the Manna 4 Lempira program, it has few bells and whistles. Feeding centers are chosen to become sponsorship centers partly because they are closer to the Sowers’s home, making it possible for them to oversee their operations. While Trish knows to never say, “Never,” she said it is unlikely that a place as small and remote as Montanita would ever become a sponsorship center.

The children in Montanita and other remote feeding centers aren’t receiving the extra goodies that go to the kids in sponsorship centers. Allen, Trish, and Russell are gradually working to incorporate better Sunday school material to these remote centers. One major problem with that is that the smaller churches don’t always have the necessary facilities and teachers to separate the children into age groups, for age-appropriate lessons.

Still, these children - and the children at all of the other feeding centers - are receiving nutritious food to prevent the scourge of malnutrition. They also have pastor led Bible lessons each week. This is made possible through donations to our general fund, donations to the general feeding center program, donations earmarked for specific centers (such as the Westcott’s donation), and through the sponsorship program itself (funds donated to the sponsorship program, above and beyond the cost to run that program, go into funding for the general feeding center program).

If you are currently sponsoring a child or donating to feeding centers, thank you! If you’re not, perhaps providing an annual sponsorship for a remote feeding center is something you would like to consider. The cost is minimal and the return is MAGNIFICENT!

 - posted by Christi

Trish adds: if you're interested in helping us feed children, the "To Donate" button is located at the top of this page, just below the title photo. Thanks so much for helping!

Manna 4 Lempira - VIDEOS

This summer we have three, back-to-back-to-back weeks of Manna 4 Lempira teams! And there's plenty of work to keep them all busy. Here are videos of the work the teams did while here . . . I will add more as they are created.




Working at the Tablon sponsorship center





Working at the Betania sponsorship center





Working at the Mercedes sponsorship center

Bridge at Crucitas!

The guys are busy building a bridge over the river at the village of Crucitas! This will be a vehicle bridge, which is why the very high towers are required at each end.

Russell took the video above, showing how the cement gets into the forms they've built, to create the concrete towers. Bucket by bucket, heavy loads of wet concrete are passed along the bucket line which goes from the cement mixer to the tower, and then on up to the top of the tower, where the concrete is emptied into the form and the bucket is tossed back to the ground to repeat the process.

 - posted by Trish
 - video by Russell

Introducing our New Video Collection!

We have a new page linked at the top of the blog: VIDEOS! This summer, videographer Jenny Oetting spent a month in Honduras, filming the ministry work. Since then, she's been organizing all of that material to create this set of videos. We're so excited to share them with you . . . and we hope that you will find them useful in sharing this ministry with others! The link to the videos, in the link bar above, will make them easily accessible, when you need them.


Here's the complete video collection:
To get a picture of the entire ministry first, before gathering more details, check out the “Ministry Overview” video to hear Trish give a tour of Sowers4Pastors’ many worthwhile efforts.
Sowers4Pastors Series: Ministry Overview from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

Meet Kim and Jonathan Hall and learn how Manna 4 Lempira feeds children, provides backpacks and school supplies, and shares the Gospel message. It’s like a loaves and fishes story to see how resources are being multiplied to touch so many lives.

Sowers4Pastors Series | Manna 4 Lempira from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

Watch as Russell shows what the yearly MK Camp means to the missionary kids in Honduras. (Be sure and keep an eye out for Allen, who also grew up as a missionary kid!)
Sowers4Pastors Series: Missionary Kids Camp from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

Russell also takes you on a tour of Sowers4Pastors’ coffee farm and explains why Sowers4Pastors is growing coffee as a means of helping sustain their ministry.

Sowers4Pastors Series: Coffee Farm from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

Speaking of coffee, watch “A Cup of Coffee” to learn what you could provide by forgoing just one cup of a designer coffee drink.
Sowers4Pastors Series | A Cup Of Coffee from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

If you’re contemplating a short term mission trip through Sowers4Pastors, you won’t want to miss the “Travel” video. You will learn what to expect from the airport, lodging, food, transportation, and potential team projects. It’s like a one stop travel guide!
Sowers4Pastors Series | Travel from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

In the “Pastors Training School” video, you will see how indigenous pastors are being trained to plant churches in some of the estimated 2000 villages in Western Honduras, which do not have a Bible based church.
Sowers4Pastors Series: Pastors Training School from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

You can also see what happens when Sowers4Pastors joins forces with a short-term missions team from the U.S. and a team of local volunteers to build a pedestrian foot bridge in a week.
Sowers4Pastors Series | Bridge In A Week from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

Why bridges? Watch the “Why Bridges?” video and see what the bridge in a week projects mean to local communities.
Sowers4Pastors Series: Why Bridges? from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

 - posted by Christi

The Fruits of their Labors

Remember when we told you we had a videographer staying with us, to make videos of our ministry to share with others? (It's okay if you've forgotten. You can go and read that post now, HERE.)

Today I'm excited to share with you a bit of what Jenny Oetting is creating, from all the material she shot during her month in Honduras. This video documents a particular team who came down to do a Bridge-in-a-Week project.

I think you'll be impressed with what the team accomplished - and what Jenny has accomplished here, too! Please comment and let us know what you think!