Today's Tennessean.com website includes a story written by Belmont journalism student, Chansin Bird, "Mom's Love Knows No Borders". The story of Jenny Rogers and the KidSake Foundation is featured along with an expanded version of a post that you may have already read here.

Currently, a large team of 30+ MTSU students and faculty are working on a variety of projects in Honduras. You may follow along with their efforts at the MTSU Honduras Project. Please stop by their blog and wish them well.

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at May 05, 2006 08:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

At the student newspaper over here at Belmont, we just finished the online package about the Honduras Trip.

Besides kind of putting everything in one place, the new things added were a link to paul's teaser video, 12 photos from Chansin and a new article set by Chansin and I:

"Below are accounts of Chansin and Nathan as they enter the same home in Honduras for the first time. Chansin writes of the team’s first visit to the house. Nathan writes of the group’s second visit, when they return with a large mattress to complement the family’s broken cot:"

(Scroll Down past the visuals to get to the article part)

Posted by Nathan at Jan 25, 2006 03:03 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Flash Viewer 7 Required
for player below:

In just a few hours, the first Belmont Vision of the Spring 2006 semester will hit the campus. I haven't seen it yet but I understand that Chansin and Nate have written articles and published pictures from their Honduran experiences early this month. The Belmont Vision Online will also carry additional photos and a reference to video projects...sooooo, the 3 minute clip on this post is a sneak preview of our day at Clemintina's soup kitchen and one of the painting days at the nearby school.

The rough edits on this clip are compliments of Windows Movie Maker (not my favorite editing software but it is packaged with Windows XP and it works on my handy laptop)...and the background music is a free download by Tariq Harb playing a Handel Minuet on classical guitar. There is more video coming. This is just a sample from the raw video files that have been digitized thusfar. Enjoy.

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at Jan 24, 2006 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Music of the Big Band era surrounded my childhood. One of those old standards, Among My Souvenirs, has been stuck in my head for the last day or so, following the discovery of a handwriiten note from an orphan that I met named Areliah. We did not talk very long...I simply don't command enough Spanish to carry on a long conversation. She was quite curious as to what I was doing and I took a few minutes to let her record several seconds of video. After I played back the tape for her on the camera's small LCD screen she asked if I had a paper and pen. She sat next to me and penned the following note (in Spanish), and then handed my notebook back with a warm hug.

To Paul from Areliah,
Hello, how are you? I hope that when you go away that you will remember much about me. You are the first American friend that I have known in my life. May God bless you and be with you the rest of your life.
(signed)Areliah

It is probably a good thing that I did not know what she wrote at the time, I may have attempted to smuggle my small friend home in my luggage. Of all the things that I brought back from Honduras, Areliah's simple note has to be my favorite. It speaks volumes about the people we met and compels me to remember the importance of the little things we do.

And for those who are not familiar with Among My Souvenirs, the last verse goes like this:
"...And, as the teardrops start,
I find a broken heart
Among my souvenirs"

Now, where's the Kleenex when I need it.

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at Jan 18, 2006 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After reading Chansin's One Bed for Too Many Children post, Bill Hobbs asked the question: "What would it cost to build one decent house there?" At the core of the answer is a basic challenge of defining what 'decent' means to the people of Cane, La Paz Honduras...it would certainly be a startling answer for most Americans. From what we witnessed, decent means an open framed roof that doesn't leak too much, solid adobe walls, a sweepable floor, electricity for lighting, electricity for a couple of wall outlets, enough land for an outdoor toilet, and a water source (but not for consumption) within a hundred yards or so (preferably a well on the property). This is the way that many of the poor live, and to them it is 'decent'...a dramatic step up from living on the street or in a makeshift shelter along a stream, a hillside susceptible to mudslides, or a city dump. A step up from 'decent', is perhaps 'respectable'. Respectable housing would include reinforced, quake-resistant block walls, indoor plumbing with septic system, adequate electric in every room, a functioning kitchen, widows with operable glass sashes, scrubable tile floors, and a paintable, flat surfaced ceiling.

Continue reading "What does a decent home cost?" »

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at Jan 15, 2006 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The three-day weekend provided me my first good opportunity to organize digital stills into something that makes sense. Today, I posted 47 images to Flickr and added the Flickr Badge that you may view in the right-hand column of the page.

Matt has contact sheets from his black and white film, a set of 35mm color slides, and a handful of prints from his color print film...probably enough for a good show.

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at Jan 14, 2006 02:03 PM | Permalink

If I could only show you 40 of the 1,379 pictures I took on the trip, I would show you these:

My Top 40 Honduras Pictures

Posted by Nathan at Jan 12, 2006 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I’ve been told I would never be the same again. That’s what foreign mission trips do to you, they say.

“I’ve been changed” ... “I look at life differently.” People say these things when they come back home.

But how? In what way are they different? I don’t hear that answer quite as often.

Before I left for Honduras, I was worried I’d have nothing to say. I asked God to move in my heart so I could come back a more mature disciple of Christ.

Now it’s time for me to evaluate. How have I changed, and what has been accomplished?

Continue reading "How my life has been changed" »

Posted by Chansin at Jan 11, 2006 12:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

What a beautiful, fierce kiss my cheek received! It was a kiss that said, “I don’t want you to leave. Please don’t forget me.” The six-year-old girl waved with all her might as our van pulled out of the orphanage. I didn’t want to say goodbye.

During our last afternoon in Honduras, we visited five orphanages. There wasn’t much time to spend at each one, but the children welcomed us and opened up to us within minutes.

I could tell they longed for attention. I didn’t even have to seek them out. At one particular orphanage, as soon as I stepped inside the gates, little Maria in a ruffled purple blouse grabbed my hand. We were instant friends.

Continue reading "The Kiss of an Orphan" »

Posted by Chansin at Jan 11, 2006 12:41 AM | Permalink

All made it back to the US last night (some of our luggage opted for the extended stay in Miami...arghhh!). I believe it is safe to say that we can call the Honduras Mission a success. There are many, many options for projects and service in the region where we worked, and determining future involvement will be a challenge over the next several weeks and months.

Thanks again to all of you who prayed, added comments to the blog, and supported this team financially and otherwise. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You!

The MTSU faculty on the team were a joy to work with (and they are already scheduled for two more trips to the area). Jenny Rogers, the executive director of the KidSake Foundation, has a passion for the mission and ministry in Cane, Honduras that is contagious. As for the Chansin, Nate, and Matt...Belmont has every reason to be proud of the manner in which they represented their institution and their faith...to say that it was amazing to see them in action does no justice to the great things these young people did.

There will be some follow-up stories comming now that we have more accessible/reliable Internet access. Those of you who signed up for email notifications will receive an alert when more pictures, stories, and videos are uploaded.

We are weary. We are blessed. We are greatful. We are Home!

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at Jan 10, 2006 08:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

We have cleared our first hurdle to make it back to the US. After an early morning breakfast, a meeting or two, and packing the van, we headed down the highway for the two hour trip to Tegucigalpa. I have an official 'Driving Rules of Honduras' t-shirt to honor the event and the week of driving like a Honduran (something that I am certain that therapy will take care of).

Anyway, all of us made it through Houndras immigration and are resting at the American Airlines gate awaiting our departing flight. If we have access in Miami, we'll drop you a note...if not, we'll see you in Nashville (or Dallas).

Adios!

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at Jan 09, 2006 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When I was younger, I made plans to save the world. Why don’t the rich people just give a percent of their money to the poor throughout the world, I’d ask a friend at school.

He replied with lofty words and political jargon.

I nodded slowly, pretending he made sense. I hated the fact that life was not simple. I was drawn to my friend’s knowledge.

What I didn’t realize was that I was one of those rich people in the world. I should have asked myself: Why don’t you give a percent of your wealth to the poor, Nate?

Continue reading "Got a pill to make it all simple?" »

Posted by Chansin at Jan 09, 2006 09:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The letters weren’t even written to her, but they changed her life forever.

Jenny Rogers, a single mother of three, read letters from her best friend’s brother. Chief Jones was in the Air Force and based in Honduras. He wrote home about the Honduran people and his experiences.

Jones’s stories made their way into Jenny’s hands. They were stories of desperate Hondurans accosting the airmen as they threw their trash and spoiled food in the dump... Stories of villages in the mountains where the poor Hondurans generously shared the little they had with the visiting airmen... Stories of shoeless children who waited for visitors at the airport to carry luggage and raise 10 cents to buy food.

“They were letters that would make you cry, and you would feel such compassion for the people,” Jenny said.

Four months after reading the first letter, she traveled to Honduras herself to see how she could help.

Continue reading "Why The KidSAKE Foundation Exists" »

Posted by Chansin at Jan 09, 2006 08:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Two days ago I wrote about a family of six that had only one broken bed. It was more of a cot than a bed. Their house was utterly bare. The 11-year-old sister, Dania, took care of the younger siblings all day while their mother worked in the fields. The little girl had no more than a first grade education.

We left their house promising ourselves to do something about it. Beds are expensive, we were at the edge of our budget and we didn’t even know where to find a bed for sale. But we wanted to give those children a place to rest their heads. The cold, dirty floor and crowded, broken bed were not sufficient.

Continue reading "“I Know God is Watching”" »

Posted by Chansin at Jan 09, 2006 08:56 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

I have shot over a thousand pictures in Honduras with my digital camera. Each night I upload my memory cards to my computer and scroll through the shots.

There are always one or two pictures that stick out each night.

At the public school in the small town of Cane, close to the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, a shot came to me.

Continue reading "Who are these people in my pictures?" »

Posted by Nathan at Jan 07, 2006 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There are numerous poverty-stricken families in Cane, Honduras. In a particular family of seven, only one of the little ones goes to school. He is seven years old. In a year or two he will have to drop out of school and begin working.

For them, childhood is over, Jenny Rogers, executive director of The KidSAKE Foundation said. They hope to be fed and to be warm and to get a pair of shoes if they’re lucky.

“They play, but they bear a burden that shouldn’t be the burden of a 7-year-old child,” Jenny said. “These children don’t have time to wonder and to imagine. They are hungry.”

Clementina, a 74-year-old woman who lives on a teacher’s pension in this third world country, runs a soup kitchen in her village for the poor children up to age 10. She used to feed 90 children two meals a day, but now she can’t afford it.

Continue reading "10 Cent Meals" »

Posted by Chansin at Jan 07, 2006 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The six children had nothing, and all I could give them were candy canes. I felt stupid for giving them candy when I could see their poverty and see they needed so much more.

Earlier in the day, I had met all the children of the soup kitchen, and I knew they were poor. It looked like their clothes had never been washed. Half of them didn’t wear shoes. Their skin was covered in dirt splotches. The girls’ hair was in a tangled mess, and leaves were stuck in some of them.

I could see their skinny bodies and the way they stuffed the sandwiches in their mouths. None of them complained about the taste. For many of them, the soup kitchen provided their only food each day.`

It didn’t quite sink in, though, how poorly the children lived until I entered one of their houses. The six brothers and sisters and their mother possessed only one small cot for a bed. That bed was broken. There was nowhere else to sleep. All the children had was the empty, dirt floor in which to curl up.

Continue reading "One broken bed for too many children" »

Posted by Chansin at Jan 07, 2006 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

Every member of our team has a camera. Not every member of our team has a degree in photography or the professional equipment to go with it...but one person has both. Matt Chenoweth's assignment on this trip is to capture the people, the places, and the mission efforts of the rest of the team. There are print production and presentation needs for the KidSake Foundation that will benefit from high quality film. Matt would be the first to tell you that he is much more comfortable with traditional film than he is with a file from a digital camera. The bad news for readers of Reporting from Honduras is that none of the images that Matt shot this week will appear electronically until he returns to the US for a marathon session of film processing and digitizing.

Continue reading "Stealth Photography" »

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at Jan 07, 2006 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I missed the sign at the immigration desk when we arrived at Tegucigalpa. I am sure that it read: Check your type A personalities here, you may have them back when you leave Honduras.'

One basic tenet in Honduran society is that the person is always more important than the event. In the US, a 30 minute trip to the hardware store for a gallon of paint means parking close as possible to the front door, running in, perhaps asking a clerk for a particular color formula, waiting as patiently as an american can, and then leaving just as soon as the bill is paid and the paint is loaded into the vehicle. In Honduras, the same scenario might include a 15-20 minute drive on the Honduran version of a public NASCAR roadway (including farm animal obstacles). You park somewhere near the city square and greet the locals as you stroll through the market place passing a couple of hardware stores closed for no apparent reason. The owners of the open store give the americans a quizzical look and break the ice with a typical Honduran welcome, of 'hello and how are you?'

Continue reading "American have 'the clock', Hondurans have the time" »

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at Jan 07, 2006 08:51 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

He lived in a box of a home in a Honduran mountain village. He slept in a room partitioned by wood and plastic just like his brothers and sisters.

His father farmed beans and corn. His mother was the only teacher in the roadless village of Plazuelas. It took over two hours to hike up the mountain from the nearest bus stop.

He grew up around ten families scattered half a mile between each other.
It was uncommon to make it to sixth grade in his village, Hermes Machado said.

His mother did, and so did Machado.

Continue reading "Born of a village teacher" »

Posted by Nathan at Jan 06, 2006 04:51 PM | Permalink

We thought we had little in common.

The Honduran children sat close to me on the school grounds as they waited for other children to arrive. In 45 minutes we would begin Jenny’s research project. They were excited about the opportunity to take pictures from their own, new cameras, but they were quiet as they waited.

I didn’t know what to say to them, and they didn’t know what to say to me. At least, we didn’t know how to say it to each other. The language barrier was quite frustrating.

Balloons solved our problem. Out of my backpack I pulled balloons and passed one to each child. I quickly realized the kids were no different than my little friends in the United States.

Continue reading "Balloons burst barriers" »

Posted by Chansin at Jan 06, 2006 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

By Nathan Baker and Chansin Bird

Through thin metal bars prisoners can see their work on display. Woven bags, hammocks and bracelets sway in the Honduran wind to entice customers.

Some items have little marks of tape displaying a price and a prisoner’s name. Working with their hands is a means to support their families and their livelihood, and it passes the time.

“Even though we are here, our families are still outside,” Leyonidas Garcia Carillo said in Spanish. “Somehow we have to support our families too.”

Continue reading "Weaving behind Honduran bars" »

Posted by Chansin at Jan 06, 2006 04:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday was one of those mission adventure days when the schedule flies out the window just as soon as the ink dries on the paper. It was a day of finishing up the service project for the school library, for launching a photography project with the MTSU team, for working through lunch, and for a generally hectic race to return to our lodging before the dining facilities closed. Every one is doing well and each member of the team is working hard. The number of influential contacts in the area continues to grow and the list of projects and mission opportunies seems to increase exponentially with every turn in the road. Thanks to one and all for your prayer support!

Obviously, our schedule yesterday prevented us from getting Internet access...remember, there is one Internet access point in the entire town of Cane. Today, the owner decided to rewire the four computers hooked up with the satellite and unforunately, that means that we are down to one coputer for now. Chansin and Nate have stories ready to load in, so I am outa´here!

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at Jan 06, 2006 04:01 PM | Permalink

Prayer requests –

·Many of us in the group have been feeling ill. Please pray for our health. Especially pray for Jenny´s health. As our leader, she has the most taxing job and it is essential for her to feel well.
·We are painting the school´s library. It has turned out to be a big job. Please pray that we finish in good time tomorrow and that we do a satisfactory job.
·Tomorrow we begin Jenny´s research project with the children. Please pray that the kids understand what to do, get excited about it, and take photographs that are meaningful and give us a better idea of their lives.

Posted by Chansin at Jan 04, 2006 05:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In Honduras I drank Coke from a straw inserted into a tied off bag. I have bought a half liter of water for a dime and half a penny, or 2 lempiras. The water was in a bag.

I didn’t know the proper way to drink this bag of water. Matt and I discovered the bags at a hardware store in Comayagua.

We learned you tear the corner and consume.

Continue reading "Similarities Trump Differences" »

Posted by Nathan at Jan 04, 2006 05:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The 10-year-old Honduran boy smiled shyly as the Americans admired his artwork. Anytime villagers or visitors walked into his family’s carniceria, or meat shop, they could view three of his canvas-stretched paintings on the wall. Two were of colorful Honduran village scenes with people and animals walking along the streets. The last one was of a fruit bowl.

“I’ve never seen a 10 year old paint so well before,” one of the Americans said.

Juan Carlos Salinas Bustillo has enjoyed drawing for as long as he can remember. Last year, when he was 9, he enrolled in an art school in Cane, his village. An interpreter helped him tell his story to the Americans.

“Usually my mom sends me to the store to buy things,” Juan Carlos said. “One day I passed through the art school.”

Continue reading "Little boy’s paintings capture Americans’ attention" »

Posted by Chansin at Jan 04, 2006 04:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I have never been so comfortable around prisoners before.

Perhaps the bars that separated us put me at ease, or perhaps I’ve just never been around many prisoners in my life to know how they make me feel. I do know that the Honduran men in the jail we visited yesterday seemed like normal, easygoing guys.

I don’t think I have ever met such artistic prisoners before either.

Our group went to the town of Marcala. We wanted to meet the men at the prison there, find out their stories, and buy some of their products. They weave purses, hammocks, and necklaces. And their work is quite pretty. I bought two purses for myself.

Continue reading "The Prisoners of Marcala" »

Posted by Chansin at Jan 04, 2006 04:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

File this under the "Oh, I forgot to warn you" category: Early moring milking in Cane, Honduras is a process that includes a 30+ minute hike across a rocky plane...without any light other than the sunrise peeking from behind a mountain range. Monday's award for moving way beyond the 'journalistic comfort zone' goes to Chansin who discovered that what dairy farmers do on the business end of a milk cow isn't as easy as farmers make it look. The answer to 'why were we up at 5:00AM to capture milking pictures?', is a story that is ends around dusk with a block of cheese. Part of today's adventure was filling in the story gaps between the pasture and the cheese press.

Continue reading "Monday Update" »

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at Jan 03, 2006 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (1)

What a party!

The village of Cane was crawling with people. Yellow, school-bus like, busses dropped off teenagers from surrounding towns. Mounds of speakers blared upbeat Spanish tunes. Two mechanical spinning rides gave children a thrill. Boys walked around selling necklaces that flashed blue and red lights.

Every New Years Day the people of Cane hold a huge festival. It actually reminded me of fairs similar to ones in the United States.

French fries, or “papas fritas”, were a popular food, just like they are at home. While we were walking past the food stands, Pedro, one of our two interpreters, stumped me with a question.

Continue reading "Hondurans Know How To Party" »

Posted by Chansin at Jan 03, 2006 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Roosters rule the night in Cane, Honduras.

By two a.m., the birds from all across the village were calling to each other.

And it didn’t stop. Bird after bird crowed to each other in succession. One was right outside our window.

Needless to say, it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to go milk a cow.

That’s right. For the first time in my life, I milked a cow. Senor Martinez and his 9-year-old helper, (Ramiro) wake up every morning before the sun rises to hike to the pasture and milk Martinez’s # cows. This milk is then delivered to another family member to be made into cheese.

Continue reading "Roosters Rule the Night" »

Posted by Chansin at Jan 03, 2006 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The pilot of the 757 has autopilot disengaged over these Honduras hills. He dips into a firm spiral above Tegucigalpa on New Year’s Day, 2006, then lands. A group from Belmont University and Middle Tennessee State University step off the plane. Their first few steps are down stairs, made mobile by a bright blue truck shinning from the heat.

“We are flexible and ready for adventure,” Jenny Rogers says just outside the airport to 27-year-old translator, Hermes Machado. Jenny knows Hermes from her trip last May. He wears frameless glasses and black and yellow Puma sneakers. His Razor phone is clipped to the right pocket of his jeans.

Continue reading "Connecting in the Honduran Hills" »

Posted by Nathan at Jan 03, 2006 07:30 AM | Permalink

After speaking with Jenny Rogers, The KidSAKE Foundation executive director, the following are some of the goals of this trip and the future of The KidSAKE Foundation, as I understand it:

Objectives for this trip:

* Help set up the Clementina Martinez Foundation
- Clementina runs the children’s soup kitchen
- We’ve already donated the required 50,000 lempira (about $2,650) to begin an official foundation.

* Encourage literacy
- We brought books from the U.S. and have funds to take the headmaster to buy some here.
- We will paint the library at school.
- We will assess the needs of the school for future projects.

Continue reading "The Goals of this Trip" »

Posted by Chansin at Jan 03, 2006 07:00 AM | Permalink

The full eight member teams and all the luggage arrived safely in Tegucigalpa. Somehow, that doesn't seem newsworthy but it is at least worthy of one large, collective, sigh of relief. We have been blessed with beautiful weather, a patient translator, people who seem to want to feed us at every turn, and reliable transportation. It would be easy to become overwhelmed with the crowds and unfamiliar surroundings, but all are handling things well. Nate and Chansin have taken notes all day and will post stories as soon as we have a little breathing room in the schedule.

If our trip ended today, the people of Cane, Honduras would call it a success. Pictured on the left is the check presentation from the KidSake foundation's director, Jenny Rogers, to the Clemintina Martinez Foundation. The 50,000 Lempira (roughly $2,500) is one of the last hurdles to establishing an international non-profit organization that will continue the work that Clemintina has sustained over the last 30 years. For Clemintina, this is a dream come true.

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at Jan 02, 2006 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As my 5:45 6:45 a.m. Sunday flight looms, I’m a little stressed. Let’s hope it’s the “eustress” I learned about in high school health class--that happy stress that leads to getting things done.

I bought over $20 in stamps. Now I just have to write that letter. I have to do laundry, but first I need to pick the jeans up off the floor. Oh no, those granola bars need to be in neat rows in a Ziploc bag… It’s go time.

Lucy, my dog, helped reduce some of the butterflies. I was deflating a “Made in China” $5.95 soccer ball so it would pack better. I got distracted and later found the yellow ball on Lucy’s pillow. The soccer ball, meant for the youth of Honduras, had a love puncture.

Continue reading "Lucy eats Honduras soccer ball" »

Posted by Nathan at Dec 30, 2005 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Last spring, all I wanted to do was to go on a mission trip. I was about to graduate from high school, and I wanted to spend half the summer overseas serving the Lord.

What better way could there be of furthering His kingdom? I thought.

Hours of searching the Internet and praying to find the exact place God wanted me to go resulted in nothing. I had no peace about any of the trips I read about.

Not now, He told me.

It was heartbreaking, but I trusted God knew best. He could use me just as much in my hometown as He could in another country. The summer turned out wonderful. I had a fantastic internship with the local newspaper, I got to often do my favorite hobby (swing dancing!) and I grew in my relationship with Jesus. In the back of my heart, though, I still wanted to go on a mission trip.

Continue reading "Anticipating the New Year" »

Posted by Chansin at Dec 30, 2005 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Why does someone travel far away from home to do mission's work when there is so much need close to home? It is a fair question and one that I have asked in even greater depth: Why this particular Honduran village and not one of the many regions of the world suffering the after effects of a natural/political/health disaster? Take a look at the picture on the left. For next week's journey, my answer to these questions comes from the heart and prayers of this special woman.

Clemintina Martinez lives and works in the village of Cane (pronounced KAH-nay). When she first began teaching, she recognized that her students struggled to concentrate and learned that most arrived at school each morning hungry. A daily breakfast program evolved into a breakfast and lunch program...often, the only food that her students would receive during the day. Fast forward through 30 years of school-day meals for 90 children. Clemintina prays for help to sustain the soup kitchen. It is a struggle. The KidSake Foundation and the work of Jenny Rogers is an answered prayer for Clemintina. Clemintina calls Jenny her "angel".

Continue reading "Do Angels Need Our Help?" »

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at Dec 30, 2005 06:09 AM | Permalink

“He went out, not knowing where he was going” – Hebrews 11:8

This morning God told me the exact thing I needed to hear. Isn’t it exciting when, in one of His subtle ways, He reminds you that He knows all your anxious thoughts and that He’s ready to take care of them?

It was when I read an entry from Oswald Chambers’s “My Utmost for His Highest”. The title for the day was, “Will You Go Out Without Knowing?”, and it referenced Hebrews 11:8 which talks about Abraham leaving his home to go to a place he did not know. Abraham simply obeyed God even though he had no plans.

I’m a plans-oriented person. I make goals. I plan out the hours. I have to work it all out beforehand because I want to know what’s going to happen. I want to be in charge. It troubles me when things are unorganized or don’t end up how I planned.

Continue reading "Will You Go Out Without Knowing?" »

Posted by Chansin at Dec 16, 2005 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Chansin, Nate, Matt and I chatted for a couple of hours last night about our upcoming mission adventure to Honduras. Adventure seems to be an appropriate descriptor. There are many unknowns, a few concerns, and several things for which our preconceived notions may be completely erroneous.

We do know that there are stories to be told. I expect that Chansin, Nate, and Matt will carry the majority of the load when it comes to gathering notes, converting those notes to text, and tying images to copy. Some of those stories will appear here (we hope). Some of the stories may be reserved for future print production projects associated with the KidSake Foundation. My particular challenge is to capture these three creative students doing journalistic activity...some of which may be beyond the comfort zone of most journalists. But from all of that, there will be adventure and we expect to learn and grow from that adventure.

(Photo by Nathan T. Baker)

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at Dec 08, 2005 02:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)