Meeting Hilda

Hilda’s mom, younger sister Monika, Lydia, Hilda, Bethany

Aside from visiting four Guatemalan villages, we also had the opportunity to meet two of my family’s sponsored children as well as a little boy that my family’s church sponsors.

Our first full day staying in San Lucas Toliman, the children sponsored by the members of our group arrived right after breakfast. We met Hilda (17), Damaris (9) and Jose (5). Our family has sponsored Hilda for a number of years.

The center has a huge covered basketball court complete with a stage and bleacher-type seats along the the side. For this event, the court was set up nicely with tables—for the most part, each of the sponsors had one table, but with three kids, ours was the largest.

Each child (or elderly person, in some cases) arrived with at least one parent, a translator and a social worker that lives in the same area of the sponsored child. In some cases, the child would have both parents with them along with a younger sibling or two who were unable to stay back in their village. So, each sponsor/couple had  5 or more people to get to know at their immediate table to get to know throughout the day. Lydia and I had 14!

With that said, the first of our sponsored children to arrive was Hilda. She and her mom, sister Monika (age 7), social worker and translator traveled for seven hours, each way (on broken, twisty “roads”, mind you) only to spend about 8 hours with us. They left the night before, arrived in the early morning, and then traveled back to their oceanside village until late in the evening.

 

Hilda was very moved at meeting us, as was her mother. Hilda clung to me for a good five minutes, just sobbing and thanking me for coming to meet her.

Hilda enjoys drawing, so we were able to bring her some crayons, colored pencils, coloring pads, etc.

In between our drawing and planned entertainment, we had some time to jump rope, play soccer and ball games with all the kids. It was very neat to see sponsored kids from all over Guatemala come together and play!

  

We were able to talk to Hilda through her translator. She was surprised we live nowhere near an ocean (she’s mere minutes from one!). She’ll be graduating from high school next year any wants to become a nurse.

They had a presentation part of the afternoon, and each of our three kids had something prepared. Hilda read a poem about sponsors and their sponsored children friends.

With Monika, Hilda’s younger sister.

Until next time…