Why Family Preservation?
by Lisa Steele, FLM Executive Director
Most children are placed in orphanages or residential homes because of poverty. Most are not “true orphans.” The majority of these children have a surviving parent or a close member of their family who could take care of them if they could afford to do so. At Family Life Missions, we know when we strengthen families, we are helping them stay together.
Many children can stay with their families with the right resources and tools. Keeping families together is better for the children, reduces the number of children in orphanages and residential homes, is more cost-effective (the cost of supporting a child in an orphanage is 5-10 times higher than supporting a child in a family), and most importantly, honors God.
God created the family. He knows that children need love, a sense of belonging, and a connection to the community and church. When we help children within families access education, food, shelter, and trauma therapy, we partner with God.
At Family Life Missions, part of our daily routine is to identify and express feelings properly. At one time this was hard work for the children living at the Por Los Niños Village. Because of the trauma they had experienced, they had lost their voice and they didn't know how to express what they were feeling. Some tools, such as the feelings chart, has helped. The children learn how to express their feelings and can identify more than three feelings when there is a change in their life. This gives us a lot of satisfaction knowing that they have achieved emotional health. Research shows that not expressing emotions and feelings hurts our body and can causes heart disease, ulcers, or gastrointestinal problems, as well as experiencing high levels of cortisol (the hormone that is produced by stress), causing tension in the neck muscles and experiencing headaches or muscle aches.
At Family Life Missions, we see the hope of Christ. FLM is transforming lives in Catacamas through the Family Preservation program with parenting workshops, nutrition resources, “building dreams,” and spiritual guidance. FLM is growing with safe and secure homes for children through the Foster Care program, where vulnerable and abandoned children are placed in loving homes that change their future path. FLM is equipping adolescents each day through the Por Los Niños program that provides education and residential homes. The Por Los Niños village provides loving homes for vulnerable children on campus. It equips students from the community through the Escuela Bilingüe Por Los Niños (Por Los Niños Bilingual School) with a quality Christian education. I believe that FLM is working closely alongside God and follows in step with Christ’s demonstration of love. When I think of this love, I am reminded of Romans 5:6-11...
By Eduard Juarez, FLM Honduras Accounting Administrator