Village Updates August 2013 - For Want of a Bus

came at the expense of this precious child. Through it all little Oscar has become my mentor. Oscar lives a two hour walk from his school. Our bus is the only reason Oscar is able to go to school at all. He has no bicycle. His family has no money to pay the $40 a month it would cost him to take public transportation. Oscar is a good student. He loves every subject and makes good grades. Initially when the bus broke down he was able to borrow a bike or to hitch a ride with a passerby. But as the transportation saga wore on, Oscar ran out of options. More days than not, he had to trek four hours a day on foot. He is small for his age, as so many malnourished Hondurans are. Certainly he is too small to contain the heart that he has been given. Oscar (not his real name) is 11 years old and lives in one of the villages we serve. I have been snapping pictures of him for years. Above is a picture of him from 2008, and right, taken in July. Oscar doesnt look like he has grown a whole lot since then. I know 6-year-olds larger than he is. And while his demeanor may be reserved, Oscar is in no way shy. Oscar is a very positive little guy. Of his own doing, he probably would never have volunteered what happened to him several weeks ago, but his mother told one of our mentors and it got back to us. While it killed me to hear it, it must be passed on because I pray never to hear about this happening to any of our kids again. Since the recession hit things have been tough for many of us. But up until now, miraculously, our little organization struggled many times but we got by. Last month it looked like the sky was going to fall and finally it did. One of our buses broke down and we had no funds to repair it. Donations that were promised, or counted on, did not arrive. When our kids need something and finally obtain it only to lose it again, often it is worse than never having the need met in the first place. Because now they know the difference and there isnt a thing they can do to remedy their situation. Perhaps we needed to sound the alarm earlier. Yet, when all is said and done there was a lesson here that we all needed to learn. I am sorry it The sun beats down mercilessly on the dusty road that has a little mountain in the middle of the climb each way. The temperature was in the 90s. Oscar arrived at school most days dehydrated, exhausted, and starved. How much would you learn in those circumstances? When I asked Oscar to describe his ordeal to me he looked straight at me with his big brown puppy dog eyes and prefaced his story with these words, Before I tell you what happened I want you to know how thankful I am to God, and to you and to our friends who help us. My mother and father do everything to support me. They sacrifice so much for my sisters and for me; and I know that many who dont even know me sacrifice for me to have the bus and be a part of this work. His words and the sincerity with which he spoke them brought me to tears. This is unusual talk for an 11-year-old boy. Oscars mother is an exceptional woman, who with her husband has raised a fine family, three daughters and one son. She never gets used to seeing her children suffer and would do anything she could to prevent it. Witnessing this extra misery her little boy had to endure as he came home in a state of near despair each day, was taking a toll on her as well. She prayed and prayed. She told me she often cried but made sure her son did not see her because she did not want him to lose faith. At the end of two weeks Oscar was at the breaking point. The final straw was the day he walked all the way home and there was no food in the house. On top of all the other hardships, Oscars father had been looking for work without success. When he saw the bare kitchen and his sisters and his mothers face, he went to his room and threw himself on the bed. He was completely despondent. Oscars mother came in and quietly sat with him for a while. Finally, she asked if he would pray with her.

Oscar, who seemed like he did not have the energy to even speak, finally began to cry out. His mother had never heard anything like the groans and the fervency with which he prayed to God. Oh, Dios, mi Dios! I cannot do this anymore. It is too much. I am too small. We are all hungry. Why should I go to school at all? I need to go to work. God, if you dont do something soon I am going to have to quit school and go to work. I cannot take this another day. Oscar told me during this prayer he was sweating profusely and he thought his heart would beat out of his chest the palpitations were so strong. Truly, this was a prayer of desperation. His agony of spirit broke the dam; his mother could no longer hold back her tears in front of

public bus to transport our Road Scholars we would be able to send only 50 kids to school. As it is, our fleet of buses (all two of them) haul over three times that many kids. Each year we graduate more kids. In a few years those buses will be filled to capacity. Transportation to school gives us a lot of Street Cred in Honduras. This is one of the main reasons we have well over 150 Road Scholars who give us 10 hours a week of volunteer time. The buses are the reason the parents are willing to make the sacrifice of sending their kids to school rather than working in the bean fields. They see a brighter future for their children now that they did not begin to understand a few years ago. But make no mistake, all of these parents are paying a big fat price. The bus disaster reminds me of a famous poem titled For Want of a Nail. It is a

parable describing how something that seems so small can significantly impact the future and while these machines are a tad more significant than a nail, the result you will see, is the same. Kids like Oscar are the future of this nation. And our bus is key in keeping Oscar on track toward a productive life. For Want of a Nail For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the message was lost. For want of a message the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail. Without our buses we would have lost not only Oscar, but all of our Road Scholars. Oscar wants to grow up to be a leader in this work to help other children. With the faith of this child and 1000 more like him, we could win the hearts of this nation in no time flat. Please pray with our kids and little Oscar that we never suffer the want of a bus again.

him. Together they begged God to intervene and provide the funds necessary to fix the bus. That very day we learned a generous partner donated $10,000.00 and we were able to do the repairs needed. After this answer to his cry for mercy, Oscar was put in charge of praying for the bus. Each day when the last student is on board, Oscar leads his friends in prayer that the bus will function and that we will have the funds for the gasoline. It costs us $2000 a month in gas to keep our two buses moving. If we paid the

KIDS NEEDS & THE 720 CAMPAIGN - Help us find 700 new sponsors to donate $20 per month!
Our last newsletter showed that in less than ten years we could reach a tipping point in Honduras with children and their families, creating leaders that could turn the tide of rampamt crime and poverty. What happens today is key to obtaining this goal. This year we have sponsors for our top tier mentor team and we had a Rotary Grant to cover many of the Road Scholars expenses. The next grant will not begin until 2014. We have a MATCHING GRANT of $10,000. This is a critical need to replace funds that failed to materialize and to cover our Road Scholars, bus repairs and many medical/dental emergencies. A pressing need is to cover the burgeoning number of youngsters from grades K-5 that feed our Road Scholars and MITs of the future. We have 700 of these kids on our roster today, and that number is growing! The difference between our work and other non-profit/humanitarian agencies is that we offer real services to the children that attack the roots of poverty rather than managing symptoms. Our goal is to sponsor all 700 kids at $20 per month. With this we will provide services such as tutoring, nutrition, uniforms & supplies, arts and crafts, sports, as well as many other services like our leadership training program and keeping them in school. Our Road Scholars do visitations in each home on a regular basis and will be in charge of the sponsorship program. Each sponsor will be paired up with an individual child that he/she can follow through graduation of High School or beyond. Remember that it is most unusual for Hondurans, especially those in rural areas, to attend High School. After 6th grade the dropout rate is 85%. Once a class has been sponsored, we will fill the next group until all of our younger students have sponsors. To fight poverty we must keep children in school. If your sponsored child drops out for any reason you will be given another child. You will receive pictures and periodic updates on your child and class from our Road Scholars. This teaches them to assume responsibility and to pass on interesting information to our sponsors. At the same time it teaches the young ones how to step into the shoes of their older brothers and sisters as they move up through the ranks of Road Scholars, to MITs, to Mentors, and finally Directors. We hope that through our partners and social media we can raise awareness of our need and find 700 sponsors for the children we have now before the end of this year. As we add villages, we can add new children to sponsor. If you can help us by passing this and any other newsletter along (especially the last one that talks about our potential growth) it would be a great help in moving us closer to our goal. Your $20 is tax deductible and anything above that will be used where our Board deems the need is the greatest. We have less than 10 years to turn the tide, after that, Honduras goes the way of Somalia and Egypt. For such a small investment in such incredibly gifted youth, we can win this war. Thank you all for partnering with us in this most worthwhile endeavor.

Donations to Janet Cunningham: C/O World Resources Group 8688 Yearling Drive Lake Worth, FL 33467 Email: jmcselah@aol.com Correspondence to Nelle Smith: World Resources Group 509 Flamingo Drive West Palm Beach, FL 33401 Email: npsmith@bellsouth.net Phone: 561.758.2198 Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/World-Resources-Group/112743942141365