I've just shared in an amazing meal prepared by a Guatemalan private chef who works primarily for wealthy visitors to Guatemala. He prepares delicious food for their private dinner parties. He wears his monogrammed apron and moves about the kitchen with ease. The meal was comprised of several courses of tapas, all highlighting Guatemalan flavours. It was delicious!
What is more amazing is that this young private chef was a sponsored student at the Arms of Jesus (AOJ) Children’s Mission in Parramos. He was actually sponsored by the Sunday School from my parish in Canada – the Anglican Church of the Good Samaritan. I first met Christian when he was five years old, he was a bright, but shy kindergarten student at the school, and I was being introduced to him as the pastor from the church where the Sunday School was sponsoring him.
Over the past 15 years I have had the great privilege of visiting with Christian in Guatemala several times. I watched him grow up and excel at school. When he finished at the AOJ school, he went to study tourism in Antigua. From there he went to culinary school and presently he works as a private chef.
Christian, his mother, and his sister Gloria prepared for our Guatemala team an extraordinary feast of Guatemalan delights. I was bursting with joy as I watched Christian prepare the meal and described the dishes in detail. Perhaps one day Christian will be the master chef of Guatemala! Certainly, the accomplishments that he has already made are extraordinary and beyond what he could have asked or imagined.
I have met his mother several times and, on each occasion, she has thanked the Church of the Good Samaritan for providing for Christian what she could not provide herself (despite long hours working in the fields everyday). He is a deeply committed Christian, who is gracious, kind, articulate, and intelligent. His formation as a Christian, is in part, due to the prayers of his mother and the Christian education he received at the AOJ school.
Christian and his mom pray for the Good Samaritan church family, as the church family pray for them – we are one family in the Lord. Christian thanked me and the Church for funding his education, which has allowed him to have the measure of success which he now enjoys. I was beaming with pride. His mother was beaming with pride. The whole team was beaming with pride at the amazing young man that Christian has become. This is the impact which child sponsorship has through the Arms of Jesus Children's Mission
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