Last Fall, Rowland Smith, Christy Penley, and Kyle Robertson traveled to Guatemala to discern possible new partnerships for Pulpit Rock Church. The hope was to find something we could be relationally tied to for an extended length of time and was in an area of the world that wasn’t as expensive to travel to as many of our other partners (Uganda, Ethiopia, India). This would allow more of our church community to go on short-term trips if they so desired to.
The team came back extremely excited about the organization Children’s Hopechest (Hopechest). Hopechest has operations around the world and is headquartered right here in Colorado Springs. They focus on the betterment of life and conditions in poor areas of countries, basing their work around “Carepoints” (like a community center). These carepoints become centers of services, tutoring and education, job training, and other needs identified in a particular context.
Our team was able to visit three Carepoints which all needed church partners. When they visited the area of Santo Domingo in Southwest Guatemala, they immediately saw a possible connection to Pulpit Rock and could envision a long-term partnership, where we not only help individual children and families in the area, but can help develop the Carepoint programs and structure over the next several years.
Hopechest has a strategy that focuses first on the children of an area as a way to fund the direct work that the Carepoint with do with families. These first steps with sponsoring children “friends” lead to further work with families, job creation, helping with small business ideas, and other things that will help that area flourish.
What Can You Do?
Our goal as a church community is to begin by sponsoring 50 “friends” (children). This starts the flow of funds into that area so that we can begin to develop this Carepoint. Unlike other child sponsorships though, you don’t pick a child….the child will pick YOU! So come MAY 11 for our big kickoff of this Guatemala partnership in Santa Domingo. Be prepared to signup to support one or more children and bring a picture of you and/or your family on your phone or device. We will help you do everything else. This will be a BIG PARTY and Hopechest will be in attendance at our church services.
- Pray about being a sponsor friend to a child in Guatemala ($45 per month)
- Attend May 11 and be prepared to be one of the initial 50 sponsors
- Begin praying about visiting Santo Domingo with one of the team trips we will take each year.
You can visit this link for video that shows another church that launched a partnership. You may also contact Rowland Smith at rsmith@pulpitrock.com if you have further questions before May 11.
Example of a church partnership: https://vimeo.com/986009431
