PARTNERS IN DEVELOPMENT
Christ Church Pomfret is a proud supporter of Partners in Development (PID) and the work they are doing to partner with individuals and communities living in extreme poverty in Haiti, Guatemala, Peru and Mississippi.
For many years Christ Church has participated in numerous service trips to Guatemala, providing essential medical care, and assisting with construction projects such as building stoves for cooking.
Please visit the Partners in Development website to learn more about this amazing organization and the vital work they are doing.
GUATEMALA SERVICE TRIPS
Since 2016, members of Christ Church have made yearly trips to the southwest Pacific area of Guatemala. We work through a non-denomination, faith-based organization called Partners in Development (PID), located in Ipswich Mass. PID has been working with the poorest of the poor in Haiti since 1990, in Guatemala since 2005, the Mississippi Delta since 2014, and in Peru since 2018. The development process involves sponsorship of children who receive a monthly stipend for food and schooling; microbusiness loans for people to start a business to feed their families; construction of simple but sound homes; and free medical and dental care. PID is a very frugal organization that spends 93% of donated dollars on services to the poor.
Various teams from around the US travel during most months of the year to work on construction, as well as medical and dental care. Each country has a year-round field director, a social worker to keep track of the sponsored children, nurses, pharmacy and lab services, and a native doctor. Volunteer teams supplement the work of PID so that when the teams are not there, the work goes on. During the Covid years, donations kept the medical clinics going in Haiti and Guatemala. PID’s medical clinic in Haiti is still operational despite the years of gang violence.
Christ Church team members have provided outpatient primary care in the PID clinics for all ages by doctors and nurses, and have installed more than 330 cooking stoves in Guatemalan homes. Our teams have varied from 8–17 volunteers. and often include non-parishioners. We may see 500 patients in a week, and install more than 50 cooking stoves.
Medical problems encountered vary from minor illness to hypertension and diabetes, and are often related to poverty, such as anemia from parasites and malnutrition.
We work in two different villages—Ixtacapa on the coastal, cane-growing plains, and in Xojola on a mountain slope. Because PID has been assisting with development since 2005, we can visibly see the PID served people look healthier than in surrounding unserved villages. The medical team has translators for Spanish to English in Ixtacapa and Quiche to Spanish to English in Xojola. It can take quite a while to get the story straight!
After a morning of installing many stoves, the "stovers" also do crafts and play soccer with the sponsored children of the villages in the afternoons. The older sponsored children are trained in leadership skills and help with activities. We often wrap up the week by sponsoring soccer time on an enclosed field. Many volunteers say the time with the kids is what they remember most about their time in Guatemala.
Christ Church also sponsors a child in Guatemala (plus a child in Haiti and one in the US). Several of team members sponsor many children in Guatemala. While we ae in Guatemala, we also enjoy visits with our sponsored children and their family members. We can see first-hand that because of our sponsorships our children look healthier and better fed. For us, our trips to Guatemala are our faith in action.
If you would like to support this worthy cause, the most useful thing you can do with your donation is to sponsor a child. For $40/month, you improve that child’s life and their entire family’s lives.
Contact info: Mitzi Davis www.pidonline.org
