By FCI Team –

We recently received a pleasant surprise: a gift of approximately $1,800 in sponsorship money for four of our children, enough to sponsor each of the four for a year.

The gift came from Antelope Hills Christian Church in Canby, Minnesota, which raised the funds during this year’s Vacation Bible School.

There’s a reason the church got involved: Pastor Steve Maas and his wife, Sharon, felt called to take a family mission trip to Dorie’s Promise in the summer of 2014.

“Our family bonded forever to the children and people of Guatemala in ways we could have never imagined,” Steve says. “We hope to go back to Dorie’s Promise in the summer of 2016 with a group from our church.”

Their 2014 trip also included their two youngest children, daughters Jenni and Emily. Because of the ties established last year, the pastor thought of a way to help our home. During this summer’s Vacation Bible School, Steve and Sharon handed out photographs of residents Fabiola, Lucia, Lester and Josue. The children took the pictures home to parents to generate donations for their support.

The gift from Antelope Hills included a donation from the memorial fund established for Steve’s father. A longtime church member, the elder Maas died just before VBS started.

There’s another reason Pastor Steve and Sharon feel so strongly about helping our kids. They adopted Jenni and Emily—who are biological sisters—from Guatemala in 1990 and 1995 through the Children’s Home Society, a U.S.-based adoption agency.*

“As we thought about going, we wondered what all would transpire,” Steve recalls of their planning for the girls’ first trip back to Guatemala. “The girls fell in love with their homeland in powerful and significant ways. Their hearts opened, swelled and broke time and time again.

“Tears filled their eyes, as well as ours, over and over at the incredible and touching big and small moments in each day.”

Indeed, Emily is following up on her visit. She departed recently for Guatemala where she plans to stay for three months at a language school in Antigua to learn Spanish.

“Forever Changed changed us,” Steve says. “People go on trips all the time and spend lots of money, but this is so much deeper and more meaningful than taking a vacation. We’re so excited we were able to sponsor these children through VBS and our church body. Our prayers are with everyone who make Dorie’s Promise the blessing that it is.”

If you would like to help children know the joy of security by signing up as a sponsor, click here to see the children in our home. If you want to organize a mission trip for your family, youth group, or other group get started here.

*International adoptions from Guatemala closed in 2008