Saturday, February 19, 2011

Children and malnutrition


What I deal with a lot in my clinic is a chronic state of malnutrition. The children in the village have access to very little healthy food. The typical day is rice, beans and tortillas. Almost no vegetables, and the only fruit are the random fruit that kids can climb trees and acquire. Here is an article about this:

About 800,000 Honduran children suffer from chronic malnutrition, according to the UN World Food Program (WFP).

The WFP described as alarming the number of families without access to basic foods in this Central American nation, where seven of every 10 people live in poverty.

"A country in which 27 percent of its children suffer chronic malnutrition is not only a problem of development but also of security," said WFP representative Miguel Barreto in statements published in the newspaper El Heraldo.

Barreto explained that malnourished children have physical and intellectual development problems that then makes their active incorporation in society difficult.

Peruvian expert Enrique Vargas, suggested implementing a nutritional program for children and adolescents similar to others implemented elsewhere on the continent.

The Honduran government declared 2011 as a year of food and nutrition security, and announced a strategy to guarantee the right to food.

"We have land that can produce, a proper climate for some crops but must work to teach the population that the land can be used for something," said President Porfirio Lobo.

However, campesino organizations such as Plataforma Agraria warned that the problems in Honduras have their roots in the unfair distribution of wealth.

In this country one percent of producers control one-third of the best land, while 375 small farmers have no place to plant.

http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2011/february/12/centralamerica11021202.htm

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Honduras visit, Residency Cards, and a team

In four days we leave for Honduras. No, we aren't leaving for good....not yet...we have to go renew our Residency Cards. All this means is we go to immigration, hand our old ones to them, and return in a few days to get our new ones. Unfortunately, this MUST be done in person, or we have to start the entire residency process all over from scratch. Hence the trip. While there we will find out if Madison will get her braces off. She was due to get them off a month after we left Honduras - but we certainly weren't going to fly back to Honduras to get them removed, so her braces have been acting as a retainer. We already have an appointment with the orthodontist, it will just be a matter if she can get a retainer made before we come back to the States. And...while we are there we are hosting a team. They actually arrive before us, but will be staying in our house, so we will arrive with a house full of guests :-)

Monday, February 14, 2011

Busy...busy...busy

The Pettengill's have been busy. I know...since when has this changed? But we've had an awesome time visiting with everyone - and we want to take advantage of being in The States, as our time is quickly coming to an end, and it will be quite some time before we get back here. So, we've been off to several churches this weekend, and Madison and I taught in Sunday School this last weekend. Madison really has a blast telling about her experiences as a missionary kid (or - as a Kid Missionary).

Today we have the day off - yes, we actually have to schedule those and put them on the calendar - as every day off the week would be filled with things to do, and our batteries would run low. How interesting that in our lives we schedule everything from grocery shopping, to work time, to errand time - but we never schedule "off" time. Well, we've been running ragged for so long, we finally decided we needed to do that - so today is our schedule day off :-)

This Sunday we head back to Honduras for a week. We have to renew our residency cards. It was going to cost us more to pay our lawyer, and give her power of attorney then it would cost us to all fly back. So - for a few days we will be back in Honduras - same time a team is there - to renew our residence cards - then back to The States for our remaining time.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

School Supplies For 400 Honduran Kids

With the generosity of supporters from the U.S. our team provided all the needed school supplies for over 400 kids in the poor community of Armenia Bonito. This made school a reality for many kids who would otherwise not been able to afford school this year.

Watch this 3 minute video to see the kids getting their school supplies:

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Homeschooling

This year we are homeschooling Madison. I homeschooled Madison for 4 years before we went on the mission field, and most of what I did was a mish-mash of different curriculum's that are out there. This year we decided since it was her Freshmen year of High School, and all her grades from here on out are going to be looked at by colleges we decided to do things a little differently. This is an accredited school. Her report card will be recognized by any college. It's challenging, difficult at times, but Madison really enjoys it. She finished up her second grading quarter last week with:

English A+
Writing A++
Science A-
Math A
History A-
Spanish B+

Awesome job girl! And for that - FIELD TRIP this week to the Arizona Science Museum! Can't WAIT!

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Celebrating 700

My 700th post was 2 posts ago, and I failed to mention anything. Funny thing - this blog. When we started our support raising and training oh so many moons ago - Mike was the primary person who wrote our family blog. He is a serious kind of guy. I really enjoy his blog - it's informative, educational, and always keeps everyone up on what's going on with our family. One day I asked Mike if I could guest write on his blog. He asked what I was going to write on - and I said I wanted to write on our geocaching experience while we were in New York City. He looked at me like I had horns protruding through my head and said...um honey...I knew what that meant. He didn't think it went with the "theme" of our blog. So, I started my own. And through that experience - I've found it more of an on-line journal than anything else. It's just pretty cool that people actually read it. Sometimes it's about my frustrations, other times it's about the ministry, and sometimes it's even about what I've tried to create in my kitchen. Overall it has a flavor of "Erin" to it. So thanks for coming along for the ride - I look forward to many more blogs to come :-)

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Scholarship Kids

We have the privilege of being able to send 5 kids to High School through the generous support of folks in the United States. The government pays for education up to 6th grade - after that - to get quality education, you have to pay for it. Because of this, almost no children in Armenia Bonito, the village we work in, go to school past 6th grade. We saw the huge need for education, and so were committed to see how we could get some kids to High School. That's when we started the scholarship program. We had a number of folks in the US jump right in and commit themselves to pay for the kids! The school year is from February through November and the kids will be starting school in a week! Here our their beautiful faces:

George. This is his second year in our scholarship program. He is now in 8th grade!

This is Gracie - this is her first year in our program.

This is Carlos. He is new to our scholarship program.

Nancy is a second year recipient of our scholarship program.

And finally - Alicia - this is also her second year in the program.