May was a pretty quiet month; with not a lot of extra things going on for Embrace. Our weather has been very hot in Guatemala and we are awaiting the rainy season to begin so that the people can plant. The big item in May was giving each family their “Garden in a Bag”. Every family received seeds to plant eggplant, radishes, lettuce, cucumbers, cilantro, onions, squash and beets. They received their training last month on preparing an area for their home gardens and guidelines on taking care of it. I really like doing special projects like this that require the participation and input of the families; but also rewards them for their diligence. These gardens have the potential to provide a lot of vegetables for their families; providing very healthy food sources for the family’s usage. The families that have come into the Embrace program over the last year received the shading fabric that filters out some of the sun and also keeps hard rain from washing away the plants. The rest of the families have this cloth; they can get about 3 years of usage out of them. Most of the expense of this project came in from extra fundraising efforts.
The devotional was from 2 Corinthians 12:9 and the health topic was dealing with the importance of learning to properly dispose of their garbage and not contribute to the huge problem in Guatemala of littering. It is hard to break bad habits within a culture but it starts with education and we do what we can to address such issues.
The other big item that is going on with Embrace is our MYB (Middle of the Year Blessing) that was offered to sponsors to allow them to buy a pair of new shoes for their sponsored child(ren). We have had a little slower uptake on this annual outreach this year but am hoping to see what is lacking come in so that we can provide every Embrace child with new shoes this year. They will choose the “style” of shoe that they want at the June meetings and we will measure their feet so that we can place an exact order that will be distributed at our July meetings.
