Richest blessings of the season to you and yours! Whether you’re reflecting on the freedoms wrought through the sacrifices of our military veterans and service personnel, preparing to celebrate American Thanksgiving, or gearing up for the advent of Christmas, we have so very
much to be thankful for!
The Class of 2019! Grads in front, next year’s returning students behind, all in outfits they made themselves.
What a wonderful year we have completed at Misión Verdad y Vida (Mission of Truth and Life) Training Centre in Trujillo! Our Graduation celebrations went off without a hitch. Over 200 guests, family members, friends and members of the community joined us at the local Christopher Columbus Hotel for a grand celebration of our staff and students’ success. The girls shared their faith in song, dance, drama, and dozens of memory verses as part of the program.
We even presented a fashion show of many of the clothes and accessories they learned to sew in our classes, progressing through aprons, skirts, blouses, pants, dresses, uniforms, costumes, bags, and even suits! You can see more of the graduation and all our activities on our Facebook page (below). We are so proud of all the girls have accomplished. In keeping with their grades and abilities, all of our six second-year graduates received sewing machines, material, and supplies to take home to their villages to help start home-based businesses.
Grads are seamstresses ready for business!
In our regular two-year residential program, students receive training in:
The Bible - Classes; Youth Group; daily Devotionals & Scripture memory
Christian Life - Purity & Sexuality; Rights & Value of a Woman; Leadership, etc.
Cooking - Nutrition; Hygiene; traditional and international Recipes
Computers - Programs incl: Word, Excel, Power Point, Movie Maker, Access
English - Vocabulary and basic Conversation
Entrepreneurship - Developing and Administering a home-based Business
Sewing - Pattern-making; Sewing custom Clothing and Accessories
Stewardship - Managing time, money, resources, etc.
In addition to this solid Christian foundation and important life skills, we are pleased to announce that, starting in 2020, we will be augmenting our program to include a very desirable, government-accredited, fully-transferable courses of Junior High – grades 7,8,9!
The “Educa Todos” (Educate Everyone) program will be facilitated by Nancy Figueroa, an evangelical Christian grandmother with 14 years of experience running the program. In order to facilitate the additional academic classes during our same two-year time frame, students will stay at the Centre full-time, including weekends, for three months at a time, returning to their homes for a week at the end of each term. To cover the weekends, we will bring in several extra support staff members in addition to Nancy. We plan to do all this within our same regular monthly budget, adding in a nominal charge to each family to cover the academic texts, and as an opportunity for the families to sow financially into their student’s future.
Since the Training Centre’s inception, we have existed to help equip girls who do not have the opportunity to study beyond the sixth grade. Now, we will not only be able to offer them an alternative to high school but they will be able to receive all of our vocational training and discipleship as well as public high school classes on weekends. Please pray for this new initiative, for all of our staff to be in place, and of course for the new and returning students that God has prepared to come. We especially want to reach girls from outlying communities who don’t have a high school in their area: those most desirous to learn and grow – spiritually, emotionally, and academically.
One super example of these students is Delmy Maritza. She started with us in 2016, coming from a single parent family, the eldest girl with very little family support. She had started 10th grade but wasn’t able to complete her studies for financial reasons and was so earnest in her desire to become a nurse. Delmy came to know the Lord through the Mission, and quickly grew in her faith and leadership. She began using our Bible class curriculum to teach Sunday School in her village, and later she taught her brother to sew. We often talked about her using her training to be a missionary in the rural areas of Honduras.
Once Delmy graduated from our training in 2017, she became one of our first ministry interns. She worked with us four days a week, carried on with her health care classes on weekends, and became the primary caregiver to her two teenage brothers. Next month Delmy, now 22, will graduate with honours in Community Health. She has asked me to attend as her “madrina”, saying I have been like a mother to her. We are delighted she will also “graduate” from being an intern to becoming a full-time leader and teacher with our ministry! At our Grad celebration Delmy expressed her gratitude to the ministry and all of our donors who made it possible for her to continue her education and in a spiritually nurturing environment. Delmy’s many talents, coupled with her commitment to the Lord and her dedication to her dreams and responsibilities make her a wonderful example and role model for our students and staff alike.
We are so grateful for all of our faithful supporters who invest in the lives of students like Delmy, hungry to learn and advance in life. Together we are making a difference for eternity. May God multiply His blessings to you and yours, and grant you a Merry Christmas!
With much love and thanks,
Kim and the CMCA Board
To donate towards Kim’s work at the Ministry Training Centre:
From Canada PAOC, 2450 Milltower Court, Mississauga, ON L5N 5Z6
From US or International "Choose Donate, Fund Global Workers, Sub Fund Hodgkiss, Kim" RPEC International, 27758 Santa Margarita Parkway #186, Mission Viejo, CA 9269
To directly donate online towards CMCA , use the DONATE link or simply mail in your contributions to the following address:
Christian Ministries to Central America - CMCA
17 - 3340B Tennyson Ave
Victoria, B.C. - V8Z 3P3
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