Your gifts have allowed families to survive during a pandemic
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Greetings!
We are writing once gain with
good news about your donation and the remote village of Chajmaic, Guatemala.
In response to the
Mother's Day groceries delivery (one-time, to last for two weeks) to 8 hungry families, more of our friends and family contributed so that we had enough in funds to send to Chajmaic to
help another 8 hungry families.
This grocerty run was complicated by the fact that, in response to additional cases of COVID-19,
for the 2
nd
weekend in a row, Guatemala is shutting down all travel – even for groceries – from Friday at 5:00 p.m. through Monday a.m. So, everything had to be purchased during the week.
Our key contact in the village, Lety, and her daughter Wendy, paid a driver to take them to nearby Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, where they received your donation and traveled to the markets to get groceries.
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9 Additional Hungry Families Receive Two Weeks of Groceries
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This was
another wonderful story, added to by yet another blessing:
Our partner Ricardo’s wife, Evita, is in a mothers’ group in Antigua, Guatemala with a single mom who recently lost her job. She and her children were hungry, and she was desperate. There was just enough money donated to also
provide groceries to this 9
th
hungry family.
Thus, 9 families were fed on U.S. Memorial Day weekend, and 8 on Mother’s Day. When you add in the
donations for Maya’s family (biological mom, brother, sister, aunt, uncle and cousins), 18 families were cared for through these generous donations.
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In Judaism,
18 is a holy number. 10 represents the letter chet and 8 represents the letter yod. Together they spell “chai,” which means “life.” In Judaism, gifts are generally given in increments of 18, to
affirm life. This is a guiding practice in Judaism when making a gift.
This indicates that
our gifts support life, and those lives are upheld and protected. This is indeed a miracle.
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The Groceries Arrive and are Stored Overnight
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In both of the grocery runs, these 15 items were given to each of the 8 families:
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It is an extraordinary
blessing to be able to
deliver groceries to 18 hungry families – 17 families in a remote Guatemalan village
during a pandemic time - despite the pandemic - and in a time of such need because of the pandemic.
The benefits of providing groceries, in addition to helping the people, is the demonstration of the measurable goals that Sowing Opportunities is able to achieve and developing
good relations and establishing a presence in the village of Chajmaic.
For this, we are immensely grateful and see the hand of God at work.
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The shared effort is very inspiring.
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We are in the process of setting up
a strategic plan for when this pandemic and the country shut-down are over. We plan to send Ricardo and our agricultural engineer, Antonio, to the village to conduct an
needs assessment
to determine the families’ interests for future self-determined sustenance.
It’s so exciting to
see village leadership at work.
Love,
Fern and Ginny
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Sowing Opportunities, Inc.
21 Ivy Road
Malden, MA 02148
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