Medrano shipments being unpacked!

 
 
 
 
There were so many wonderful gifts packed into these boxes that we recently received! Thank you everyone who was able to send gifts to their students and to everyone who sent general donations! Thank goodness we have been receiving lots of toys!
It is so exciting when these boxes arrive!
Thank you to everyone for your kindness and your generosity!

Christmas Tamale Food Baskets 2010

Please click this link to read our Christmas Tamale Food Baskets e-mail newsletter!
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Christmas-Tamale-Food-Baskets-2010.html?soid=1103559743325&aid=LyjwqPjISyE

Or here it is in plain text.

Christmas Tamale Food Baskets! November-2010 Dear Amigos of Mayan Families, It is Christmas Tamale Food Basket time again! Tis the Season for Giving Food!

Christmas Food Basket Time!    IT IS THE SEASON FOR SHARING.  At midnight on Christmas Eve 2005, two of our sponsored students went door to door hoping someone would give them a tamale to eat. This is the traditional meal at Christmas in Guatemala. Their single mother could not afford to buy the ingredients to make Tamales.   When we found out about this we wondered how many other families could not afford to celebrate Christmas and how many other children were sad and hungry at this time of the year.    It turned out there were a lot of people who could not afford to celebrate Christmas.   In 2006 we started the Christmas Tamale Basket Program. We gave out 215 baskets of food. In 2007 we gave out 650 baskets. In 2008 we gave out more than 1,000. In 2009 we gave out approximately 1,600 Christmas Baskets of Food! This year has been a very, very hard year in Guatemala, natural disasters, sink holes, flooding, mud slides, volcano eruptions, rising costs of living and a severe lack of jobs due to a lack of tourism and all of the reasons listed above.      Mother Teresa said "If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one..." We are asking for your help to feed just one family this Holiday Season.   Food prices have continued to rise again this year in 2010. This Food Crisis means that families will be forced to forego traditional foods for tortillas and beans. This continues to take its toll on children and families. There are lots of families needing help.   Malnutrition is a constant challenge in Guatemala.   Please consider feeding an impoverished family this Holiday Season. Many families in Guatemala do not have enough food to eat this year. Many of the families that we work with cannot afford to have the traditional meal at midnight on Christmas Eve.   You can make a difference now.   For $35 you can give a Christmas Tamale Basket and feed a family of 12 or more. Our Christmas basket is made of plastic and will be used afterwards by the family to stack and wash dishes, hold food etc. The food items will include: Oil, 15 lbs of Rice to make the tamales, a block of drinking chocolate (this is traditional to drink at midnight), a loaf of bread with which they eat the tamales at midnight, sugar for the tamales, coffee, usually we include raisins, grapes, apples but this year there are so many people in need of food that these luxury items will be replaced for food staples such as beans, corn or vitamin enriched cereal. To make a contribution for the Christmas Tamale baskets please go to our website http://mayanfamilies.org/DonateOnline  and go the General Donation section to send a donation. If you would like to nominate a special family or a sponsored student to receive your basket please send us their name or student number by e-mail to Sharon@mayanfamilies.org If you would like to pay by check please send your donation made out to Mayan Families to: Mayan Families P.O. Box 52 Claremont, N.C. 28610 If you would like to give this gift in Honor of someone special, please send us an email to: dwight@mayanfamilies.org giving us the details and we will put them on our IN HONOR OF web page.....to have an e-mail sent to the person you are honoring - please send us their email address. Thank you for your support. ABOUT US: Mayan Families is a small non-profit group working in the Highlands of Guatemala. We are a registered 501(c)(3) Non Profit Charity of the Internal Revenue Code. Your donation is tax deductible. P.S. Please help spread the word by forwarding this e-mail to your community or posting it on your personal blog, web page and your social networks such as Facebook, You Tube, MySpace, Google Buzz, Twitter, Hi5, Blogs and any others that are appropriate. Please follow Mayan Families on Blog: http://mayanfamilies-sharon.blogspot.com/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/mayanfamilies Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=100343161838&ref=ts YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/mayanfamiliesvideo Mayan Families Connection Blog http://mayanfamiliesconnectionguatemala.blogspot.com/ MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/mayan_families Mayan Families on Google BUZZ: http://www.google.com/profiles/mayanfamilies#buzz If you would like to join a Yahoo support group that assists Mayan Families please go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MayanFamiliesConnection To ensure receipt of our emails, please add dwight@mayanfamilies.org  to your Address Book." To signup for our E-mail Newsletters please go to: http://www.mayanfamilies.org/EmailSignup.aspx Your help this Holiday Season makes small miracles happen! HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM OUR FAMILIES TO YOURS. Thank you once again for supporting Mayan Families!

Sincerely, Sharon Smart-Poage Mayan Families http://www.mayanfamilies.org/DonateOnline Tel: 619-550-2608

Boys in need of sponsorship to go to school in 2011.

Hi Everyone,

Here is another family in desperate need of help.
Their mother was murdered earlier this year and they are really struggling.

Fortunately the girls have found sponsorship but the boys need sponsors to be able to attend school.

Luis Rigoberto #1532 is 12 years old. He will be in elementary school in 2011.
Juan Francisco # 1533 is 15 years old. He will be in elementary school in 2011.

You can read about them on the link below.

http://mayanfamiliesconnectionguatemala.blogspot.com/2010/12/xalcut-julajuj-children-struggling.html

This family is very poor and need a lot of help.

Bonnie

Tereso, an Elderly man who needs help with his medications.

Hi Everyone,

I know that some of you have been following Tereso Conjon's story.

He is one of the elderly in our Elderly Care Program.

With help he visited a great doctor who prescribed the right medication for his convulsions, dizzy spells and headaches and did great on it with 2 months of sponsorship for his medication.

Unfortunately he has run out of his medication and his convulsions and dizzy spells will likely return.

His medication costs $25 a month.
Please spread the word to get help for Tereso. Any amount toward getting him the medication he needs for his convulsions is greatly appreciated and will make a big impact on the quality of his life.

Below are links to Tereso's story.

http://mayanfamiliesconnectionguatemala.blogspot.com/2010/11/meet-tereso-conjon-from-mayan-families.html
or
http://mayanfamilieselderlycare.blogspot.com/2010/09/tereso-cojon.html

Two boys who lost their Mom this year....

Hi Everyone,

These 2 young boys have endured a lot of hardship.
Juan Carlos (11) #495 and Juan Pablo (7) #1001 lost their mother last April and now their School sponsors are also unable to sponsor them.

The family is very poor. They are FA48.

Please pass the word about these children in desperate need of school sponsorship.

You can read their sad story here.

http://mayanfamiliesconnectionguatemala.blogspot.com/2010/12/2-boys-struggling-after-mothers-death.html

Bonnie

The Ibate Family is getting a new home!

Hi Everyone,

We have very good news to share!

The Ibate Family (FA54) 19 Family Members is getting a New Home thanks to many donors!!!!

To see updates on their new home please visit:

http://mayanfamiliesconnectionguatemala.blogspot.com/2010/11/ibate-family-fa54-has-19-family-members.html

or

http://familyaidprogram.blogspot.com/2010/12/new-home-for-big-family.html

13 year old Enrique #1536 from this family is still waiting and hoping to receive school sponsorship for 2011 so that he can go to school
Enrique really wants to study but had to drop out of school in 1st grade 2 years ago because he couldn't afford to go to school.

Enrique's Student Sponsorship is just $180 and he is hoping that he will be able to attend 2nd grade in 2011.
If you would like to sponsor Enrique for school, please click on the following link.

http://www.mayanfamilies.org/sponsorastudent?id=1536

Thank you to everyone who is helping this family.
They are so excited to finally have a place that they can call home.

Bonnie

Medical Aid matching gift!

Hello Everyone,

As you know we have had 3 terrific volunteers for the past few months at Mayan Families who have done an outstanding job working on the Mayan Families Elderly Care and Family Aid Programs.

Ronnie has been working hard with the Elderly Program and Stephanie and Jessica have been working hard with the Family Aid Program.

While they have been working with these Mayan Families Programs, they realized first hand how important it is to have money in the Medical Aid Program for many medical emergencies that come up daily.
Stephanie Ronnie, and Jessica, will be leaving soon but before they leave they want to make a donation to get even more support for Mayan Families General Medical Fund by offering to match any donations to the Mayan Families General Medical Fund, up to $1000.

If you would like to help match the $1000, please go to the Donate Now page, and enter the donation in the "Other" box--be sure to specify that it is for the General Medical Fund under 'details'.

Thank you to all who donate to this very important MF Medical Fund. It helps save lives!

I would like to THANK Stephanie, Ronnie and Jessica for all their dedicated work they have done to help so many people while they have volunteered for Mayan Families and for their very generous $1000 matching fund to the Mayan Families Medical Fund.
Below are a few reasons they wrote about why the Mayan Families Medical Fund is so important.

Bonnie

Mayan Families performs many vital functions for the people of Panajachel and the surrounding towns, and all of these activities have made the foundation a trusted part of these communities, and earned it the reputation of being a safe place to turn in a crisis.
As a result, families often come to us when they are faced with medical emergencies, and medical funds are always stretched thin by the almost daily arrival of people in urgent need of treatment.

Often, people come to Mayan Families after being brushed aside by doctors at the free health clinic or the public hospital, and we are their only chance for finding the care that they need. That's exactly what happened with 2-month-old Miguel Sajuin. He was having trouble breathing when his mother took him to the public clinic, but the doctor he saw dismissed the case, sending Miguel home with nothing but Diclofenaco (a pain reliever on the order of Tylenol). That was on a Friday afternoon. By Sunday, Miguel was on the brink of death, but his mother simply didn't have the money to take him to another doctor. She came to Mayan Families, desperate. We rushed Miguel to a trusted private doctor, who worked around the clock for days to bring the baby safely through his illness (it was bronchopneumonia). Against the odds, Miguel made a full recovery, and today he is completely healthy.
While Mayan Families' generous donors would probably have supported Miguel's treatment had it been possible to contact them in time, it is the nature of medical emergencies to require immediate action, and in cases like Miguel's, we rely on the General Medical Fund to make decisive, life-saving action possible.

Stories like Miguel's are not uncommon. Doctors at the overburdened public clinics and hospitals routinely brush patients aside without thoroughly investigating their condition, and discrimination against poor or indigenous patients is a problem. Even when they are thoroughly examined, many of our clients are unable to purchase the medicines prescribed, or pay for necessary surgeries. Mayan Families is often the only line of defense for vulnerable patients, and we want to ensure that the people who depend on us don't have to suffer through a medical crisis without the help of a trustworthy doctor.

Thank you, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!