Creating change, one meal at a time

Palm Coast Observer
Opinion

With Christmas music playing, a group of slightly rowdy women, decked in tacky Christmas sweaters, one with lights, paraded around the gymnasium Saturday morning, at First Baptist Church of Palm Coast.

As the tacky sweater parade made its way around the room, the ladies danced and laughed, filling the room with abundant joy.

The sold-out brunch, with 210 women, was a fundraising effort for the group's upcoming mission to Guatemala.

As I walked around the room earlier that morning, I was humbled to see photographs I took of children while I was in Guatemala this August strategically scattered throughout the room. Some sat underneath a Christmas tree and even more were affixed to snowflakes and hung on the walls. Two of my larger, framed prints that were featured in my documentary portrait series at Hollingsworth Gallery were propped up on a table.

I had donated the photographs to the church and the ladies used them to show their brunch guests a general face of Guatemalan children. A group of women from the church will be traveling to serve at a malnutrition center in March.

Howard Hooper, who coordinates at Orphan’s Heart, the center where the First Baptist women will be serving, was also in attendance at the brunch with his wife, Marvina. One of the statistics he shared during his presentation is that the malnutrition rate for children under the age of 5 in Guatemala is 50%, the highest in the region and the fourth highest in the world. Also, 53% of Guatemala’s population lives in poverty and 13% in extreme poverty.

These are just statistics. The women at First Baptist, as well as the 35 other teams who visit and serve at the Orphan’s Heart malnutrition center in Guatemala each year, go and serve for so many reasons beyond statistics.

From my experiences serving in Guatemala, I know that the children that these women encounter will forever change their world. And it trickles down from there.

Those women will come back, just as my group and all the other groups in our community who serve abroad, with an increased fire to continue to create change at home.

It encourages and amazes me how many mission-minded people live in Flagler County. As we as a community continue to inspire each other, I am excited for the change and the good that can be done here.