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"I'll be back." That's the way Leslie Lahndt of Alaska summarizes her volunteer effort for the Asociación Nuestros Ahijados in Antigua, Guatemala. A civil engineer who will soon relocate to a new job in Washington State, she was a key worker on a ServiceTeam building homes for indigent families in the slums of San Felipe. These very poor families are participants of a special GOD'S CHILD Project-sponsored program called the Asociación Nuestros Ahijados, which finances the education of orphans, runaway and other native children too poor to obtain an education on their own. The home-building project, part of the ServiceTeam Experience program that The GOD´S CHILD Project promotes, depends on volunteers like Leslie. A low-budget effort, it could not accomplish what it does without the help of willing workers who donate their time and talent. The work is hard but rewarding -- enough so that Leslie is considering putting together her own ServiceTeam. "God has surely taken a special interest in His Latin American people." |
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| "Leslie Lahndt's engineering
training helped her not only mix cement, but lay out and "square
up" new homes for native families. Her volunteering efforts were so rewarding she hopes to return. She says that she enjoyed the cultural differences the most." |
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"I realized what an important piece of work we had done when I saw the appreciation of the homeowners," recalls Evan Beauchamp of his experience building homes for native people in Guatemala. Beauchamp, from North Dakota, was part of a ServiceTeam which built three homes, a bathroom and added a concrete floor to a fourth while volunteering in the slums of San Felipe. His team donated their time to improving living conditions for families whose children are enrolled in an educational program financed by the GOD'S CHILD Project of Antigua, Guatemala. Beauchamp realized more than that. During his two weeks of donated effort he recognized that "this whole project is about kids. And everyone of them is special." Which is what both The GOD'S CHILD Project and the Asociación Nuestros Ahijados are all about. The program pays the way for some 725 poor children from all over Guatemala to get an education. They go to 78 different schools. And, as Evan says, "Every child is special". |
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| "Evan Beauchamp, on the ladder nailing on a roof board, was part of a ServiceTeam which finished this home by nightfall. These small, simple homes are a vast improvement over the dirt-floored shacks they replace." | |
| "Volunteers come from all places
and all careers.
Mandy Schaaf left a lucrative business career to be Office
Manager for The GOD'S CHILD Project in Bismarck, North Dakota. |
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