Page 25 - Priorities #49 2011-April/May

25
ents on spacious ranch facilities at three locations in Brazil. Hope Unlimited provides health services, food, clothing, a safe place to live, and education and vocational training.
When students first come to Hope, they are taken to the doctor for a full medical exam. They also receive a bone scan, because almost all of the kids do not know their birthdate or how old they are.
After they arrive, they are given a welcome
bag, which includes some basic necessities and some toys. For many of these children, this is the first time they have had any be- longings they can call their own.
Hope helps prepare the children for the workforce by training them in the fields of culinary arts, computer and business, auto me- chanics, and beauty/cosmotology.
After completing vocational training, students receive a certifi- cate, which is highly valued in the workplace. Hope provides care for these children until they are 18, and then assists them in finding a job and moves them into housing with other graduates.
The staff members at Hope don’t just provide education and training, but also celebrate special moments of the children’s lives. Every month, the teachers take all the kids with a birthday, out to a local mall for a party consisting of arcade games, shop- ping, dinner and a movie. Many of the children have never had a birthday party.
I was invited to go with a group of boys celebrating their birth- days. I enjoyed playing games with the other teens. A twelve year old boy with whom I had played arcade games, offered me a piece of gum he had bought with part of his birthday shopping money. While his gesture may seem weirdly inconsequential as we sit here today, for some reason it touched me. He had a degree of gentle and humble generosity that I wasn’t expecting. I later found out that before his time at Hope, he had wandered the streets high, and had been arrested for robbing people at gunpoint. The story seemed in- conceivable.
Hearing the stories of the children at Hope made me uncom- fortable And that is exactly why it was so important to listen. After struggling with their stories and pasts, I was amazed at how they had learned to love and move forward towards a new future.
The love I witnessed in Brazil was unconditional. It was about loving people simply because they exist. At Hope, that kind of love heals, and makes people feel that their past does not tarnish who they are in the present.
Theresa, the girl I met last summer in the slum and whom I mentioned at the begin- ning of this talk, has not yet made it to Hope. Hope is currently trying to help Theresa’s par- ents recover from their addictions in an effort to keep the family intact. However, Theresa has not yet been able to experience what it is like to be unconditionally loved.
The ultimate proof of the effectiveness of love at Hope is evident in the graduates. Not only have they become productive members of society, they are raising their own families and contributing money and time back to
Hope to support programs for the current students.
Hope’s goal is not only to change the lives of its students, but to
reshape the future of the next generation. The unconditional love provided at Hope is achieving that transformation.
My experience at Hope taught me that people deserve our love simply because they exist. We owe them that as a result of our com- mon humanity.
Hope provides vocational training such a auto mechanics.
For kids who have never experienced a birthday party, a bag of gifts is a rare treat.
In the poorer classes, many families are so desperate as a result of poverty and addictions, that they make money off of their children by selling them into prostitution or using them to sell drugs.