While abandoned and orphaned children have been found in almost all societies since antiquity, their scale today is unprecedented in human history. The number of orphaned children in the world today is estimated to be a staggering 143 million. That would equal to the eighth largest country in the world. The AIDS pandemic, along with other factors, is producing a wave of orphaned, abandoned and exploited children like the world has never known. In Honduras, the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere, the onslaught of HIV/AIDS during the last 10 years has no doubt resulted in sharply higher numbers of street children. The estimated 185,000 orphans is expected to rise to 250,000 by 2010.

Whose Needs are Being Met by La Providencia?

Orphans

If current trends in Honduras continue, Honduras will have 65,000 new orphans by the end of 2009 due to extreme poverty and the rapid spread of the AIDS virus. This devastating number alone conveys the tremendous need for love and care for these beautiful children of God. Unfortunately, that is just the beginning. Most of these children will end up selling drugs, prostituting themselves, joining gangs, and participating in other self-destructive behavior because it is all they know and they think that it is what they have to do to survive. And approximately 20-30 percent of the orphan population is infected with the same AIDS virus that killed one or both of their parents.

The vast majority of orphans live out their lives on the streets, simply surviving in loose bands with older children (i.e., “street children”). According to the U.S. State Department’s 1997 Human Rights Report on Honduras:

Honduras will have 65,000 new orphans by the end of 2009

There were an estimated 4,000 street children, of whom only half reportedly have shelter on any given day. Many street children have been sexually molested, and about 40 percent regularly engaged in prostitution; approximately 30 percent of the street children in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, the two popu- lation centers, were HIV positive. At least 40 percent were addicted to sniffing glue. Over 75 percent of the street children found their way to the streets because of severe family problems; 30 percent were simply abandoned.

It is our prayer that La Providencia will serve as a hope for some of these children, where they can receive the love, care, education, medical care, and encouragement that every child needs. Not only do we expect to love and care for these children, but we know that they will be integral parts of their families, graduate from high school and college, and be leaders in Honduran society who continue to live out James 1:27 as adults with their own families. By loving and caring for the fatherless, oppressed, sick, and poor today, we pray that renewal and revival of Honduras will happen tomorrow.

Community Children

In addition to the orphans, La Providencia will serve 96 children from the local Aguas del Padre community, who are in tremendous need of nourishment, medical care, and education. All of these children suffer from the effects of extreme poverty, such as poor health, malnourishment, and neglect. As an example, one of these children was 11 pounds, sick and apathetic at 18 months old when La Providencia began caring for her. Today, she is a butterball of a three-year old who is healthy, full of life, and weighs over 30 pounds.

We have already began to identify these children in the local community through a community census that we conducted last summer. Right now all of the identified children are under the age of two, which is critical to our prevention model. In order for these children to have the best chance of functioning in society and a strong education structure, they must be well-nourished and cared for in the first five years of their lives.

Once these children are of school age, they will receive a top-caliber education at the school, as well as continuing nourishment (three meals a day, five days a week for nine months of the year) and medical care at La Providencia.

Widows

In addition to the children in the Aguas del Padre community, we also will serve the widows over the age of 60 in the community who have no family to care for and love them. Again, this is living out the call set forth in James 1:27 to love the orphans and widows. These women, who will be chosen based on their need, character, and love for the Lord, will live together in a 10 bedroom widows’ home at La Providencia, and will also serve as grandmothers for the children.

The Terminally Ill

Part and parcel with a medical clinic is working with the terminally ill, many of whom are days or hours away from death and have no loved ones to be with them in their final hours. To address this need, La Providencia will also give opportunities to volunteers to love these sick people by holding the babies and comforting the others until their death.

The Uneducated Community

The workers from the Aguas del Padre community have been chosen because of their skill level, and their character and desire to serve God. Many of them, however, lack a complete education, as most of them have dropped out of school as early as the first grade. As a result, we require all of our workers to have or be working towards at least a high school education, and we encourage them to carry on further. To accomplish this requirement, all workers who do not have a high school diploma must return to the grade they last attended and continue until graduation. Providence World Ministries pays for 50 percent of each worker’s education and if they perform well and earn grades above 80 percent, they are reimbursed for the other 50 percent.