By Kamar Chafi, Project Hope Manager, Amor Ministries

This guy is excited to be heading back to school!

Project Hope: Back to School is in full swing and we are so excited to be helping children in Mexico afford to go to school.  In Mexico, public education is not free.  Many families not only have to pay a school fee and purchase uniforms, but are also required to provide all the necessary school supplies for each of their children.  This is often a burden on a family who only earns roughly $30 a week.

The Project Hope: Back to School Program was established to help relieve this financial burden.  Last year, many children in our Pastors’ churches and communities were able to start their school year off well with a back pack full of school supplies.  We want to give our Pastors the same opportunity this year to minister and invest in the future of children in need.  Help these children receive the education they deserve by donating to purchase a back to school kit that includes the required materials: backpacks, notebooks, glue, boxes of pencils, pens, crayons, and markers, sharpeners, scissors, rulers, calculators, erasers, folders, three ring binders, lined paper, and graph paper.  By making a donation and partnering with our Pastors, you will empower these children to have a brighter future.

For more information on Project Hope, visit www.amor.org/give/projecthope.

Last week, a group of highly energetic young soccer players came all the way from Washington State to build a house together.  This group of 10-12 year olds worked to build a dining hall for one of our Pastors, Pastor Ezekiel.  Pastor Ezekiel uses food bank money from Project Hope: Hunger No More to supplement a breakfast program that he runs for kids going to school in the morning – so that those kids do not have to go to school hungry.

The soccer team from Washington had a chance to play and enjoy life alongside the kids that are most impacted by the dining hall as they were building.  It was so cool to see the kids from two different countries interacting and playing as if they were old friends.  The language barrier was no problem for them.  It could not stop their fun.  It is so great to see how those relationships are so easily formed in such a short time.  All it takes is a love and the desire to have some fun!

As part of our 30th Anniversary celebration, we have been asking Amor Mission Trip participants to share their stories of how Amor has had an impact on their lives.  Submit your Amor story today! www.amor.org/MyAmorStory

Here is Kamar Chafi’s “My Amor Story”.

Kamar was previously a member of Amor’s Project Nexus intern team in 2007, a member of Amor’s Project Barnabas volunteer team in 2007, and is currently an Amor Field Specialist.

I was changed forever by my work with Amor on my very first Amor Mission Trip to volunteer in Mexico.  I still remember the first house I ever worked on in Tijuana.   Throughout the week, I became closely connected with the group I worked with as well as the couple we built for, Carlitos and Rufina.  It was like we became a family that week, and that was a paradigm shift for me.   This definition of family was totally new to me and something only the Holy Spirit could have opened me to.   A very important part of who I am considers family, and specifically, God’s family amongst my top priorities in life and this feeling can be attributed to my experience with Amor in Mexico.  I consider Carlitos, Rufina, and every family I help build for a part of my family.  God gave everything for His family in the form of Jesus Christ on the cross.  Trying to be like Him means doing the same for my family.  I don’t just serve the poor, I care for my family.

This photo was taken on a recent trip to Puerto Peñasco, where Amor works with local pastors to provide resources for families in need. It is a tent city made up of families who lost homes in the recent earthquake that shook Baja and California. Aid is slow in coming to these people and they have little to nothing to eat or drink. Pastors from our Baja Ministry Planning Board took a trip to the Mexicali area and brought with them 14 water filters to give to churches in the area. The churches are now able to make sure people have clean drinking water.