Guatemala Final Expeditions, Thanksgiving and Christmas 2024:

Family Humanitarian efforts in Senahu and the surrounding Q'eqchi-speaking villages have come to a beautiful end. Although these communities continue to struggle with poverty, we are leaving them in a better place than we found them thirteen years ago. Understandably this news is disappointing to those who would like to continue to participate in the efforts in that region. We are exercising sound humanitarian principles of raising up, preparing local leaders to take over, and exiting.

These final expeditions continued the garden box and water filter programs servicing another 50 families in two different villages. Gardening programs now exist in about 15 villages and have served thousands. As we exit the region, the nutrition, gardening, and cooking expertise has been transferred to local health and congregational leaders, and the Stake for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will take over this important movement.

We leave the schools in a better place with five more schools receiving classroom desks and chairs this year. The most urgent classroom furniture needs in the region have been met. In addition to the two complete schools Family Humanitarian previously built, the Christmas expedition also funded and began a new classroom at a middle school in Senahu.

The building projects we have completed will service this region for many years. We have completed about one village medical clinic and training building each of the first ten years, and in the past two years, we have completed water projects that will provide more than 2500 people access to water at their homes. Several more community water projects will also be completed in the next 6 months as our final projects in the area. In total, we expect that FH will have provided over 7,000 villagers with access to clean water!

Our in-country coordinator, Guillermo, who many of you know and love, will continue his work for Family Humanitarian until the Fall - over one full year from the time the decision was made and he was notified of our exit. He has been given the opportunity to receive a formal college education while working for Family Humanitarian and is prepared to advance his career.

To learn more about the projects we have completed in Guatemala and the announcement to exit refer to our newsletter archive.

Uganda Christmas 2024:

With the end of our work in Guatemala, we will focus solely on the high-impact projects that have become our core mission in Africa. This Christmas, we sent one of the largest FH groups to Uganda. Not only were all 56 of their hearts expanded, but they also had a truly profound impact.

They had the opportunity of gifting 121 female goats on Christmas Day. This project becomes sustainable when the recipient gifts the first-born female to another. A single goat has the power to provide nutrition, tuition for education from the sale of milk and offspring, and to completely transform a life.

They witnessed and funded the opening of three boreholes, providing access to clean water for three entire villages. They also delivered 100 water filters to a village that we could not access to drill a borehole and trained the recipient families on sanitation and hygiene.

Their sacrifice was profound as they traveled across the world and spent countless hours in vans to make these projects a reality, but the impact is immeasurable. This is consecration, the giving of one's self.

They also did some classroom and desk construction, went White Water Rafting on the Nile, rappelled down a 300-foot waterfall, and ended their expedition in the Kenya Masai Mara on a Safari. What a Christmas!

Time to submit your registration for this summer! Who is going to join us for the experience of a lifetime?

Uganda 2025

Summer: Friday, June 27 - Sunday July 6

Thanksgiving: Friday, November 21 - Sunday, November 30

Christmas: Monday, December 22 - Wednesday, December 31

Ghana 2025

Summer: Monday, July 21 - Sunday, July 27 (The Excessive heat in Ghana allows us to offer only one expedition per year during the mildest temperatures.)

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