Hello everyone, our apologies for such a long silence since you last heard from the foundation. Everyone has been absurdly busy; Christa is working on a new book, Janeece has a new job, Birgit’s been off traveling the Southwest, and everyone’s jobs are keeping us pretty occupied. But now that fall has settled in and things are slowing down a bit, and before the holiday season ramps up, it seems like a good time to update you on the news of—if not the world—at least, our students!

All of these pages have been updated, so please make sure you go visit their individual pages to learn more and see photos.

In Haiti, Bencille has been accepted for a post-secondary scholarship for a two year vocational program in Administrative Sciences. This is essentially a program for learning how to become an administrative assistant that would allow her to find work in businesses, banks, etc. She’ll learn some accounting, bookkeeping, organizational skills, etc. that we hope will help her find work either in Haiti or in another country if she emigrates. We’re very proud of the fact that she keeps trying and dreaming despite the everyday horrors of the city around her and we want to support her in any way we can.

In Nepal, Amrita, Bharosha, Khusbu, and Sumira are doing wonderfully. They all sent us letters which you can find on their pages. Bharosha will be graduating from 12th grade next April and heading to university! She’s grown up so much; she’s a lovely woman now. And Amrita is in 10th grade, which means she’ll be taking her state exam at the end of the year to determine where she can go and what she can study for her next levels. Right now they’re all celebrating Dashain (or Dashani), the Festival of Light, so they are out of school for that.

Beautiful Bharosha (on the right) with a classmate at a cultural dance performance

Linda Maria in Honduras is now in 7th grade! It’s hard to believe the little teensy thing that we met so many years ago is in middle school. She’s a teenager, and loving school, her friends, and her cats (oh, and K-Pop and anime). When she sends us recorded messages, her English is so good that it’s hard to tell that she isn’t just a normal USian teenager.

Already a teenager!

In Nicaragua, Raquel and Emili are killing it in secondary school! Emili got an 86% GPA at the semester and was honored with being a cumplidora in the annual parade for the Fiesta de la Patria. Raquel got a 93% GPA and was a bandadera (a flag bearer), an honor only reserved for those with the highest GPAs.

Excellent students!

Michel has finished her university and will be graduating very soon. We thought is was going to be in December, then it changed to October, and now it’s back to December again. So maybe when Christa and Meghan visit we’ll actually able to attend her ceremony. Fingers crossed. But if not, we will most definitely celebrate with her and all the other students. Way to go, Michel! Tatiana is graduating from the program she took at the local vocational school to learn computer skills when she had to drop out of the university for health reasons. She is at the top of her class and was honored specially for her achievement. She’s very proud, as are we! We’ll update her and Michel’s pages when we have photos.

In Guatemala, Loyda, Thalia, and Valentina are all doing well. On Loyda’s page is a Facebook link to a concert that she and her classmates did, singing a Spanish language version of Ode to Joy. It’s quite lovely and we recommend watching it. You don’t have to sign in to Facebook to see it. Valentina continues to be the second teacher in her classroom, helping all her classmates with their work, and Thalia is thriving at her school, where she is learning to lip read as well as sign language.

Loyda playing the marimba at a school performance

Finally, we have a new student! As soon as we have all her information collected we’ll publish a blog about her, so stay tuned. We’re very glad to be able to support this young woman; she’s been through a lot.

Thank you all for your continued support! You’ll hear from us again soon when we publish our new student’s page. But in case it doesn’t happen before Thanksgiving, we hope you have a wonderful holiday!

All the best, Birgit, Christa, Janeece, Leslie, and Meghan