As the days go by at El Hogar, you realize how precious is the time you have spent with these children.  Your connection to them gets greater, your ability to communicate in Spanish improves and you find yourself praying for a bright future for every soul here.

This morning, while I could not understand the full story, one child in my class was speaking about a news story where a gang approached a mother and her sons in the north of Honduras to recruit the boys into the gang.  Sad details aside, it did not end well for the family. 

I wondered where he had heard the news. Their teacher reassured all of the children that they were safe at El Hogar. In fact, she told them, God had chosen them to live and study here.  He wanted them to be safe, have a place to become educated and bring peace to their country.  In seeing their sweetness, we all held that hope in our hearts too. But, I wondered what was going on in their sweet heads, how much of violence they may have seen and experienced first hand.  

It is safe behind these walls. These children are nurtured in a way in which my own children had been nurtured, without the constant shadow of competition.  They also hear the steady reminder that their choices, behavior and commitment to education could change the face of their whole nation.

As Americans, we don’t often think of our children’s future in terms of their responsibility for the shared success of the whole.  Being smarter, faster, prettier and more successful is how we often assess success.  I think there is a lot that El Hogar could teach us.

Later in the day, we visited the agricultural school far into the countryside. Nearly 60 young men live here, miles from everything and everyone. The study agriculture and animal husbandry - teenage boys far from home and far from temptations – building a future to sustain them.  Their reality seems a bit fragile as boredom, a desire to be among other teens in their home communities might trump the educational opportunities they earned at El Hogar. On the soccer field their was a plaque to a graduate of their program who had lost his life coming home on the bus – to thieves who considered his life worth the ear buds they stole from him.  I imagine that serves as a daily reminder to them for what is at stake.

As we end our stay here, our greatest hope is for all of these children to be a hope for their country and may we return to ours and continue to support them from afar.

Mary Hilton, Ellicott City Rotary