Projects Guatemala Blessings Abound at AMG Guatemala
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Blessings Abound at AMG Guatemala Print E-mail
Saturday, 12 June 2010 08:05
By Rick Postma

On a recent trip to Guatemala, I had the privilege of meeting Brian Dennett, the Director of AMG (Advancing the Ministries of the Gospel) Guatemala, and members of his team. AMG Guatemala has 550 employees with numerous projects, including Christian schools, daycares, a year-round camp, two clinics, and a rural hospital.

Many employees at AMG Guatemala are graduates from their own Christian schools and daycares. Once they were impoverished children facing numerous, almost insurmountable, barriers, and today they serve the Lord by bringing hope into the lives of children just like they once were. Many of them are now in leadership positions at AMG Guatemala. This alone is a strong indicator of the success that AMG Guatemala has had over the years under God’s gracious provision and blessing.

AMG Guatemala representatives and the board of La Palabra Christian School

According to AMG Guatemala, of the 40 million indigenous peoples in Latin America, 90% live in poverty and the majority of these (Mayans) live in Guatemala. In addition, 50% of the population in Guatemala is under the age of 16. Many children are forced to work to support their families. As we drive along the roads of Guatemala, for example, it is not uncommon to see young children pulling large rocks and hammering them into piles of gravel which can be sold to passersby.

After a three-and-a-half hour drive from Guatemala City, we arrive in Monjas (mon-HAAS) to visit the La Palabra Christian School. (La Palabra is Spanish for “The Word.”) In the AMG van with us are Brian Dennett, Ruth Rodriguez (Director of Education) and Estuardo Diaz (Area Supervisor for rural projects and Driver). Joining me on the trip are Pastor Pieter VanderMeyden, Nico Kattenberg, and Ken VanMinnen, who are involved in Free Reformed Missions projects in another part of Guatemala.

During the drive to Monjas, Brian tells us that AMG Guatemala has undergone an organizational capacity assessment at Word & Deed Holland’s request (its major donor) from experts at US AID. This involved a visit from US AID analysts lasting several weeks and a lot of work. While the average organizational score is 2.4 out of 4, AMG Guatemala scored an excellent 3.5 out of 4. Areas covered included staff capacity, financial tracking, and project planning. This is encouraging news, reinforcing our impression of AMG Guatemala as not only a Gospel-focused partner, but also a very professional one. (CDA, our partner in Colombia, has achieved the same rating!)
Students making a presentation

The La Palabra school building is located in a rundown building next to an evangelical church. This church began the school to equip its children with a Christian worldview, and to reach out to poor children living just outside of town. The school has 270 elementary students and 70 high school students. Of these, 20% are from the church and the remainder from the community. Word & Deed provides funding for 140 of the children in elementary school – these are children from the poor communities outside of town. Of these, 123 have been sponsored. Please help us sponsor the remaining 17 (see pictures accompanying this article)! The rest of the children are supported by their parents or members of the community. The sponsor children and non-sponsor children get along very well. The children of the church are very supportive of the vision of the church and do their best to encourage and befriend the children from the poorer areas.

We tour the classrooms, which are rundown, and interact with the students a little. They are well-behaved and study the normal range of subjects. We then gather in the church, where we hear the students sing, are thanked by the Pastor, and receive a small gift. A mother comes to the front with her daughter (see picture) and tearfully tells us how the school has not only provided a Christian education for her daughter but how they also helped save her daughter’s life from pneumonia. The school provided medical assistance, friendship, and counsel. (We learn later that the girl is the sponsor child of Pastor VanderMeyden’s daughter and son-in-law. Clearly the Lord is here – out of 110 children sponsored, the only one linked to our group has come forward to speak to us.)

Mother and child who addressed us

I tell the teachers and students of the sponsors’ prayers for them, that they not only grow in the knowledge of God’s creation but also in God Himself and that they may know Him as their Lord and Savior. What a privilege it is for me to be part of a ministry which impacts so many lives!

After lunch and a walk (which involves Ken and I clinging to a broken wire bridge 15 feet above a rocky stream), we meet the local leaders. Pastor Eduardo and the school’s leadership team – Alvaro Orellana (Director of Education for the school) and Claudia Contreras (Director of Administration) are clearly very motivated to bring the Gospel as well as a high quality education to their students. They inform us that they have been recently rated by the government as the number one school in their district (of 32 schools). Their vision is a hope to be instrumental in bringing many to Christ and to have a new school with 800 students in five years.

I explain that Word & Deed and AMG are impressed with their passion and self-motivation. The last thing we want to do is to take that away – this is their project. They need to continue to be the driving force with AMG/W&D supplementing. Over time, we hope to be able to withdraw so that they can stand on their own. They seem to understand and appreciate this.

The church and community support for the school is encouraging – two members of the community have donated land for a new school. In a few years, in partnership with the church and community, we hope to build a new Christian school in Monjas. For that to become a reality, we need God’s continued blessing on this project and his gracious provision for the future. Please pray with us that all these children will come to know their Lord as Father and that their faith will be strengthened so that they too will be able to be faithful mothers and fathers, husbands and wives. Perhaps they may even work for AMG Guatemala as instruments in the Redeemer’s hands to bring even more children to a loving and welcoming Savior.

Rick Postma is Director of Public relations for Word & Deed Ministries and Project Manager for Guatemala.
 
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