Sponsors and children at CFCA

I am in Guatemala on a mission awareness trip for the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (http://www.cfcausa.org), a 25-year-old charity started by Catholic laypeople in Kansas City, Kan (in 1981, actually). It's an amazingly organized charity that helps lift people out of abject poverty through education and financial opportunities.

Monday was the day when Guatemalan children who are sponsored made their way to CFCA's headquarters in San Lucas Toliman to meet their sponsors. It would be logistically impossible for a group of 30 or so sponsors to travel to every child around the country. Yet children and their families traveled great distances to get here.

The compound sits on land that was donated by members of the parish in San Lucas Toliman. CFCA began building on it in 1996.

David Asher from Minneapolis, Minn., has sponsored a girl for seven years and was able to meet her on Monday. She travelled two hours from her home to get to a shuttle bus. Then it was another seven-hour trip to CFCA's headquarters. Sponsors also came from far away, but none farther than Father Jose Maria Gonzalez Casado, from a city near Madrid in Spain. He has sponsored a 16-year-old boy for nine years whom he met yesterday, and Father Maria Gonzalez planned to make a six-hour round trip from the Guatemalan highlands to the coast to see where his sponsored child lives.

Children and their families arranged these travel plans on two-weeks' notice, and it was an emotionally visceral experience for some.

"My sponsored child is 20-years-old. Yet when I met him, he just collapsed in my arms," said Mary Dwyer of Granbury, Texas.

Some took a playful approach to meeting their children. Steve Dziadik from Seymour, Conn., is on his third trip to Guatemala. Dziadik, who only said he has been sponsoring children for "a very long time," taught children the "Hokey Pokey."

After spending time getting to know their sponsors, children showed their skills with a pageant that included singing and dancing. This little girl displayed a Guatemalan folk dance.

One more thing: Here's the view out of the back of the building where I'm staying.