Copan Ruinas, Copan, Honduras – where Casita Copan Children’s Home is located.
A couple weeks ago I received an email from Karina Sibrian Zepeda. She’s the new Director of Development for Casita Copan in Honduras. The subject of her email was “Why do you support Dulce Maria and Leydi?” This is part of her email:
My name is Karina and I am the new Director of Development for Casita Copan. I hope this email finds you well! First, I want to thank you for sponsoring Dulce Maria and Leydi. Dulce Maria is very mild-mannered and a bit shy, but will never deny a smile! Leydi is a very hard worker and likes to keep busy. They are both so lucky to have you as a sponsor; you are ensuring them with the consistency and support they need to grow.
This spring, our goal is to get sponsors for all the Casita Copan children, and what better way to persuade new sponsors to sign up than by showing them the benefits of sponsorship from our current sponsors, like yourself? This is why I am writing today to ask: what is your favorite part about sponsoring Dulce Maria and Leydi?
I took a few days to think about her request before responding to it. I’ll show you my response at the end of this blog post. But first, let me provide a little background – both about myself and about Casita Copan.
Mom and Dad in their retirement years. Here they’re watching two grandchildren compete in a high school cross country meet.
I grew up in a family where the biggest disagreement between my parents was over how much money they should donate to missions. My mom was much more generous than my dad. They eventually worked out their differences when they retired and had separate checking accounts. They each had their own social security checks deposited in their own checking account, and they agreed who would pay which bills. What was left over they could each use as they pleased. In 1986, when my mom died, one of my jobs was to write to each of the missions and non-profit causes she regularly supported to let them know her monthly support of $5 or $10 would end. I sent over a dozen letters. The one letter I couldn’t send was to World Vision. Instead I wrote them a different letter – to change the sponsorship of a little girl in India from my mom to me. Mim and I continued her support until she became an adult.
A few years ago, Liz, the daughter of one of our assisted living residents, told us about Ellen, a woman in Honduras who was raising money to give Christmas baskets of food and clothing to poor families in rural Honduras. Liz knew Ellen personally, and she told us how much Ellen was able to put into a basket for a mere $25. We sent a donation of $100 to Ellen to cover the cost of four baskets. Through email, we still hear from Ellen occasionally, and we continue to donate Christmas baskets every year. It was through Ellen (another piece in God’s puzzle – to continue the metaphor I used in this blog a couple weeks ago) that we learned about Casita Copan.
Ellen emailed people who had provided money for gift baskets to tell them about Emily, a teacher she knew in a rural area of Honduras who wanted to help poor children in her community have a more stable childhood. Emily founded Casita Copan Children’s Home. This is Casita Copan’s Mission and Vision:
Our mission is to reduce child abandonment by nurturing orphaned and vulnerable children and supporting single mothers.
Our vision is to break the cycle of child abandonment by providing essential childcare services to working families whose economic situation puts their children at risk of abandonment and creating real homes for orphaned and abandoned children. We believe that all children deserve to grow up in caring, nurturing environments where they are supported and empowered to achieve their dreams.
In 2012, Emily started a daycare program for children so that single mothers could drop off their children on their way to work, and their children would be well taken care of during the day while their mothers were at work. The organization adopted a sponsorship model to raise ongoing funds to support the program.
When you choose to become a sponsor, you guarantee that a special child in Honduras will grow up with the nutrition, education, medical care, emotional support, and love that they need to achieve their dreams for a better future.
Dulce Maria – the little second-grader Mim and I sponsor
That’s where Mim and I came into the picture. After reading Ellen’s email, we found out more about Casita Copan, and we decided to become a sponsor. Dulce Maria is the little 5-year-old girl – now 7 – that we are sponsoring.
A couple years later, a nearby orphanage was forced by the government to close because of providing inadequate care for their children. Casita Copan agreed to take in all 13 children from the orphanage. They have set up three “casitas” – individual homes where 4 or 5 children and a foster mother live. They have created a much more home-like model than an institutional orphanage, and the results have been amazing. These children know they have become part of a real family. (At the time these casitas were being furnished Mim and I had another practical opportunity to provide something useful – the funds to buy a refrigerator for the kitchen of one of the homes.)
Leydi – eager to start high school
Several months ago we learned through an email newsletter from Casita Copan that another need they would like to address is that some of their older children are not able to go to high school because their families cannot afford it. They wanted to set up an internship and scholarship program for these children. Casita Copan was seeking sponsors to provide scholarships. The young people awarded the scholarships would make a commitment to go to high school, keep up their grades, and work at Casita Copan after school in an internship program where they would learn practical job skills. Mim and I decided to sponsor one scholarship, and that’s where we were matched up with Leydi, a delightful, smart, and hard-working young woman.
Mim and I are quite excited about being a part of Casita Copan. You can learn more about the organization on their website https://www.casitacopan.org/mission-vision/.
Emily, the founder of Casita Copan, is in the back row, second from left.
This is how I responded to Karina’s email.
Poverty. Suffering. Injustice. These problems are all around us. Is there anything at all that we can do to help solve these universal problems? The problems seem so daunting.
Through Casita Copan, Mim and I have found a way that we can help a couple children live a better life. Nothing can make us happier than that.
We’re so thankful that Casita Copan matched us up a couple years ago with Dulce Maria, a little girl who is now seven years old. We enjoy occasionally receiving letters and pictures from her.
A few months ago Casita Copan matched us up with another girl, Leydi, and invited us to provide a full scholarship for her so that she can go to high school. We’re delighted to be able to sponsor her to allow her the opportunity to pursue further education and to continue to develop her God-given talents.
There will always be poverty, suffering, and injustice in the world. But Casita Copan has found a way to apply the meager resources Mim and I can provide to help two little girls have a better life. That’s amazing. We’re so thankful for what Casita Copan can do.
Marian Korth & Mim Jacobson
If you want to be a piece of this part of God’s puzzle, check out www.CasitaCopan.org for more information. Or, feel free to contact me directly. I’ll be happy to tell you more about “the joy of being a piece of the puzzle.”
A thank you note we received from Dulce after we sent a little extra money to Emily to buy her a birthday present last year.
When I was a little girl growing up on a Wisconsin farm, I thought of four families as being our neighbors: the farmers across the road just west of us – the Henry Henderson family; the farmers who lived on the farm immediately south of us – The Mulcaheys; the farmers just east of us – the Scotts; and Ruth and Merrill Kenseth, a brother and sister who were double cousins of my mom (their moms were sisters and their dads were brothers) – and they lived on the farm across the road north of us. I didn’t really know any of the neighbors very well, except the cousins. Sometimes, on a nice summer evening, I would walk over to the Kenseth farm to play with their barn cats while Merrill was milking the cows, especially when there was a brand new litter of kittens to play with.
Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.
