January 25 – Sadness as a week of joy begins

The Away Team is off to Guatemala tomorrow afternoon. Our southern contingent, the Brazilian Four, leave Belo Horizonte at 2:30 tomorrow morning.  They will arrive in Guatemala City 12 hours before we do. We’ll get about the business of becoming one team very early Sunday morning. Such joy!

For me the joy of the mission trip will be diminished just a little because of news Becky and I received earlier this week. For the past ten years we have been Plan Padrino sponsors of  a couple of students, a boy and a girl, at PLM School. One of the privileges of being an Away Team member has been sharing a meal with our sponsored kids and getting to know them a bit more year by year.

Every so often Plan Padrino sponsors are asked to continue their sponsorship with a new child. The child they were sponsoring has moved away from San Lucas Toliman with his or her family or, as a child grows older, he or she may drop out of school to help take care of younger siblings of to begin a life of working in the sugar cane fields and picking coffee beans. Early on, the little girl we were sponsoring left San Lucas and our support was switched to another – we’ve known her for seven or eight years now. I look forward to seeing her next week.

We have sponsored Rodrigo (not his real name) for nearly ten years. We have seen him grow from a little seven-year old boy, to a 17-year old young man just one year away from the equivalent of his high school graduation.

Rodrigo is not much of a talker in person, but we recently connected on social media and he and I have messaged back and forth every so often; much better communication than those awkward sponsor dinners during an Away Team mission.

And then, just this past Tuesday, we received an email from the Plan Padrino team at PLM:

Last week, we were in San Lucas delivering school supplies to the sponsored children and we were able to follow-up with several students that had not given us a confirmation about continuing to study this year. We were able to talk to Rodrigo and, sadly, he failed the school year. As you might know, children who fail the school year lose their sponsorship since it is a requirement for them to pass the grade. This is so that other children have the opportunity to receive this benefit.

The PLM policy is absolutely correct. There’s a waiting list of children who’d like to study at the school and they need Plan Padrino help.  The students know what is required of them. Becky and I will begin our sponsorship of 5-year old Maria this week.

Rodrigo messaged me yesterday and told me what had happened (thank you, Google translator). He’s hoping he might yet finish school, a trade school, but it will be without a Plan Padrino scholarship. A few years ago, Plan Padrino sponsors visited their students in their homes. I have seen Rodrigo’s home; his family is poor. Maybe Rodrigo will be able to earn some money working in the fields with his father and then go back for his last year of school. Or maybe not.

Rodrigo attended PLM school for over ten years – or was in the care of the PLM system during the last couple of years in trade school. PLM School is not only one of the best academic centers in the region – it is, it is also a place of care and concern; the gospel made real in word and deed.

Rodrigo told me he’d like to talk sometime this coming week. Maybe we can meet in the town square late some afternoon after the clinic has closed for the day. I don’t why he failed this past school year. Maybe he doesn’t know.

Rodrigo has lost his scholarship. I can’t do anything about that. But whether it is face to face in the town square next week or through an occasional social media message, I would like to encourage Rodrigo to remember that the God who showed him so much care through the teachers and the staff at PLM school still loves him. God never fails us.

The week ahead promises great joy. But a little sadness is sure to linger as I think of Rodrigo having fallen short by just one year. God will not fail him, but his life may never be what it might have been.

It’s a real world. Thank God that grace enters our real world.