Part 1

Part 2

The 12 refugee camps in Eastern Chad are without a secondary education. The children want and desire a school, but there is none. This leaves the children uneducated and often puts the young men in a position where there only option is to go and fight for the cause. A school, a hope, a possible future would keep them in school and prepare them for an University.

We are grateful to announce our trip to Africa in January 2008. This video is some information about Abundant News and our trip to Eastern Chad. We hope that enjoy and we hope that all of you can feel like you are part of this, because you are. Thank you so much for visiting Abundant News and for your support.

The families we helped live in extremely poor conditions and struggle to survive daily life. As many as 35 people (25 children) occupy an 1800-square-foot house made of make-shift walls and dirt floors. They have no running water or electricity, and very little food. Their lack of money comes from the fact that the local farms they have been working have not been offering work due to an early frost that wiped out some of the crops.

For those of you who adopted a child, your gifts were met with wide eyes and smiling faces. Many thanks for the thoughts and intentions you focused toward Mexico. We gave the gifts to the children individually, and told them who the gifts came from. We then asked many of them what their dreams were. Their answers were similar to children from any other part of the world. Some wanted to play soccer, one young woman wanted to be a doctor, another boy a teacher, and so on. These children are not yet aware of any limitations in their lives. Their innocence sees only a world of amazing opportunities. Their visions were inspiring to hear.

For this trip, we brought clothing, food and toys. In the future, World Abundance will play a part in helping their dreams coming true.

Secondly, I’d like to acknowledge Raymond, Carlos, Mike Hernandez and the churches that have consistently served these people for the past nine years. It’s inspiring to see how much happiness can be created by sharing a small amount of the enormous wealth we have. By simply sharing what would end up in our local landfill, our old possessions bring on new life for those that have so little. Our clothes provide warmth for cold winters and shoes for bare feet. The notion of “one man’s trash is another man’s the treasure” brings on a whole new perspective.

Mahatma Gandhi has been a hero of mine for a long time, and I’m taken with his perspective on finding oneself.

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

While I’ve always believed in the principle of this quote, I know for certain I’ve never felt it more powerfully than during this trip.

While being in the presence of these people in Mexico, who appear to have so little, I discovered they aren’t poor at all. Rather they’re a happy people who are wealthy in family, culture and the manner in which they appreciate things I’ve taken for granted all my life. Spending a weekend with them makes my own problems seem not only insignificant, but down right laughable. I can only imagine telling the two adorable twins how stressed I am about the trivial challenges I face as I live in Orange County when they haven’t eaten in two days.

However, these people do have challenges not all that different from those we face in the U.S.—most of which deal with how they view the world around them and the limitations they feel.

They’re farmers. Many of them left their homes to work for corporate farms, earning money doing what they could do for themselves. When the corporate farms lay them off, they forget they can farm for themselves. They’re over-leveraged in debt and have no money because the corporate farms don’t employ them.

Not 50 yards from these farmers’ homes are fields of green, full of food and abundance as far as the eye can see. Yet it goes untouched, untilled and unharvested. These farmers could undoubtedly grow their own food and sell the extra to others. Yet they go hungry. All it would take to break them out of their situation is a shift in understanding, some organization and a boost of capital.

This trip made it very clear to me how big a difference we can permanently make harnessing the wealth and knowledge of the United States.

This trip has also created the possibility that in the near future, World Abundance will reach out and create self-sustaining communities for people just like these who live in farm camps—communities allowing people to own their own farms, grow their own food, provide education and live in the warmth and safety of a clean home. It takes very little to create these communities and with your continued support and commitment to creating value in the world, we can begin to create long-standing abundance by assisting them to live sufficiently for themselves.

It was definitely a life-defining trip in which I discovered myself and what’s possible in the world through being in the service of others. For this lesson alone, I’m incredibly grateful.

Joshua Tree

I first want to recognize and thank Daniel De Leon of Grand Capital. None of this would have happened without his kind heart and giving spirit. Daniel adopted a school-building project a few years ago and has made personal donations and sacrifices to it. When he started this project, the schoolhouse was mostly made up of tin walls and tin roofs. The children had no bathrooms. They sat on boxes. Daniel donated the desks the children now use. And now, together, we’re finishing the project he started. We’ll be adding classrooms, bathrooms and a playground.

The school name is Panima’bey in Comalapa, a small town about 60 miles outside of Guatemala City. The 36-year civil war that recently raged through Guatemala highly affected these people. During this war, many Guatemalans were killed, including many men from this small town. This tragedy left mothers without sons, wives without husbands, and children without fathers.

The school we’re building will help support some of these mothers and children. Not only will it serve as a school for educating the children, workshops will also be held in the evenings to help the mothers develop artistic skills and trades.

The school principal said something to me that made me realize how important this school really is for these children, and how important a school is for every child. She said that if it wasn’t for this school, the young boys would be working in the fields (at the age of five or six) and completely missing their education. The young girls would stay home and learn to take care of the family. A child’s education is so important, and there are so many in this world that need help to gain one.

I also want to take a moment to thank Francesca and her brother, Carlos Roberto. Francesca and Carlos have been working a lot during these last few years with Fundemi. Because of their hard work, we were able to participate with a huge toy drive involving thousands of toys and children in many places. Also, with Francesca and Carlos, we had the opportunity to meet the mayor of Guatemala City and his wife, Patricia. Not only is Alvaro Arzu the mayor, he is also the former president of Guatemala. Patricia started an amazing project when she was the first lady and continues that project today.

Her major focus has been the children of Guatemala and she has done many amazing things to help them. One of the major problems has been the number of children begging for money in the streets. If things couldn’t get any worse, they also have the problem of children working in dumps. I know that’s hard to comprehend. It’s even harder to see. Many men and families have no choice but to search the dumps for salable items. Instead of going to school, the children work the dumps with their parents. Patricia has made a major leap in developing day cares for these children. It’s not perfect, but it’s a major improvement.

The trip to Guatemala was such a blessing for me. I am so grateful for this opportunity and so grateful to be a part of such an amazing organization.

Jeremiah