Guatemalans Receive Gifts of Love

Tereso Gonzalez is eight years old and lives in Chiquimulilla. His family is very poor. Tereso's father is a farmer and his mother washes clothes for wealthier households. They only eat what they can grow. One day the boy became really sick. His parents couldn't pay for a doctor's visit or medicine. Thankfully, one of Operation Blessing's clinics wasn't too far away.

Much to the dismay of Tereso's parent's, their son was diagnosed with bronchial pneumonia, malaria and anemia. He had quite a bit of recovering to do! The doctor gave the young patient antibiotics to treat the first two ailments and liquid vitamins to build up the nutrients in his body.

Tereso is unfortunately one of the many Guatemalan boys and girls that experience chronic malnutrition. Forty-four percent of the country's children are unhealthy; this is one of the highest percentages in the world! Operation Blessing Guatemala is striving to break the cycle of malnutrition one family at a time. In our centers across the country, we fight malnutrition by teaching and equipping adults how to become employed through a micro-enterprise program. This way they can afford to buy healthy food on a consistent basis. We also have fully equipped medical clinics, frequent vitamin distributions, pharmacies as well as place MedEx Kits in rural villages that typically don't have basic first aid supplies or over-the-counter medicine.

Delivering The Basics
Mr. Gabino Tuj couldn't afford to buy new clothes for his daughter Silvia. Her sleeves were too short for her arms and the shirts were becoming high and tight around the middle. Gabino became excited when he heard Operation Blessing Guatemala recently had had a new shipment of humanitarian aid come in. When the family got to the center, sure enough, there were new clothes for Silvia!

Operation Blessing ships 40-foot containers of basic hygiene items, clothes, nonperishable food and medicine to Guatemala on a regular basis. It's amazing how what seems like small items can change an entire area. Recently an allotment of cough syrup helped the entire agricultural community of Santo Domingo combat an outbreak of respiratory illness. Most of these families couldn't afford medicine because of cutbacks on the coffee plantations.

Thank you for helping us bring food, clothes, medical care and education to the wonderful people of Guatemala. You have made an eternal impact on so many of their lives! Remember, there's so much more to do.

You can break the cycle of suffering!