Village of Hope-Guatemala is a ministry of Lifesong for Orphans in partnership with Project HOPEFUL. Village of Hope (VOH) will be caring for special needs orphans in San Lucas, Guatemala and teaching them about the love of Jesus Christ. The vision for Village of Hope was born out the knowledge that God has a heart for the least of these. Scripture reveals a God who is passionate about the sick, the widow, the orphan, the alien and the poor.
Our purpose is to provide family, faith and a future to the least of these by providing holistic orphan care to special needs orphans, primarily focused on those living with HIV/AIDS. To avoid an institutional living atmosphere and provide an family style setting. Our hope is to create a family unit as God intended: to provide life-long support and to teach children Christian life values. We are also working on providing a medical mobile clinic to serve families.
Because international adoptions from Guatemala are closed, there is little hope of the children ever begin adopted into forever families. One part of our vision is to develop relationships with the Guatemalan Evangelical churches, to come along side of them, and to educate them on God’s heart for the orphan.
“You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate” (Luke 6:36).
The purpose of Village of Hope is to provide family, faith and a future to children in need. We will do this by providing care for children in need in a family style setting. Each family style unit will consist of house parents as well as 6-8 children in the home. Our hope is to create as close as possible a family for the child- as God intended. A family that will provide support as well as teach the children to have life values. The goal is to avoid institutional living and prevent children from being without a family setting.
Family style care is best to promote healthy relationships and social development. Institutional care is much like warehouses- large rooms with several beds lined up and high number of children per caregiver ratio. The main goal of institutional care seems to be to keep the children under control- not develop them as individuals. Having a home and everything that goes along with that- is something we all too often take for granted. Just like you and I, individual children have different needs that need to be met in order to succeed. Each child will have different strengths, weaknesses, and gifts that we will work to develop. Children were made to be in families. God intended it that way and we will model our vision after His. God sets the lonely in families … Psalms 68:6. By providing Guatemalan house parents- a married couple who provide care for the child, there are more ways to help that child feel like they belong and that someone is investing in their life and their future. They will have a mother and father figure to pray with them, help them with their homework and help them develop as they grow.
In the family style homes kids receive a lot of attention and also get to see how a husband and wife should interact with and respect each other. In addition, they are able to see how responsibilities are taken care of and shared between a husband and wife. This modeling witnessed during their youth is not only beneficial to their development now, but will also serve them as a reference for when they want to form their own families in the future.