Progress

I’m grateful for brothers and sisters who work together for Jesus, without concern for organizations, money, or who gets the credit. People like this are rare. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Donovan and Chelsey, who live here in Danlí with their two children. They bring members of their Honduran team into the community school to help the kids there, and their heart for this community is deeply appreciated. Here’s recent newsletter from Donovan about their work in the school, which they call Carbonera. This is the work of the Kingdom of God — the King’s concern reaching these communities, with results not measured by the world’s standards. Enjoy.

Our center in Carbonera has become a literacy workshop where we serve about 15 to 20 of the lowest performing students. We can speculate as to why there seems to be more learning disabilities in this area, but the fact remains there are ten-year-olds who cannot recall the names of letters, or even colors.

Estefany teaches reading in Carbonera

“It’s very sad,” shared Estefany. “The children we are teaching have a really hard time learning. We teach them something, but the next day they forget. Patience is key because they have almost no confidence. They don’t think they can learn.”

There are many strategies for teaching children with learning disabilities but, regardless of technique, the primary indicator of success is time. It requires intense, daily effort. The team is hitting this gap.

Lis teaches in Carbonera.

Estefany shared a story with the team last week that moved us deeply. She’d been working with an eleven-year-old girl who was not close to reading. Letters were a mystery. Words, an impossibility.

“But we kept pushing forward with her,” Estefany shared. “We did not quit. Every day, the same letters, but with different teaching strategies. Nothing really worked. But we kept going because this girl really wanted to read.”

“About two weeks ago, I wrote the word ‘casa’ on the board. She could remember the sound the ‘s’ makes, but never the ‘c’ or the ‘a’. Normally we would read it for her, prompt her to try and sound it out. But an amazing thing happened. She did it herself. She actually broke it apart phonetically and read it to us perfectly. I couldn’t believe it, my heart soared! She read a word!”

As Estefany told this story she began to cry. The power of it overwhelmed her. “It was like she was my child,” Estefany sobbed. “She learned two letters!”

This moment is pregnant with glory, but to see it required a kind of heavenly perseverance to push forward through near constant failure. This is the kind of perseverance that Paul claims leads to hope, but this hope is not set in the distant future. It is hope in the here and now, a hope that moves human beings to do the will of God.

The significance of two letters is small, almost invisible. But to Estefany and all that witnessed, when that girl uttered the word “casa,” the impossibility of it pierced their hearts with power. It was a miracle. It was the consummation of their hope. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏

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