Summer 2012 - Help build a home for Carmen and her family in Roatan, Honduras
Click here to go to "Hope for Carmen" Online Support Page
In June 2012 we'll be taking a team from Elevation to build a home for Carmen Reyes Rosales. A home for Carmen and her family would mean better educational opportunities, health, and peace of mind. You be a part of fulfilling the dreams of this young woman and her children...
Antonia de Carmen Reyes Rosales
Carmen was born on April 4th, 1984 in Olancho, Honduras. She has 11 siblings, 8 sisters and 3 brothers. She is the 3rd eldest child. When she was 3, her father abandoned her mother. Carmen and her brothers did no receive an education because her mother did not have the finances to send them to school and insisted that she needed their help at home.
When Carmen was 15 years old, she was sexually assaulted by her mother’s boyfriend. This same man would later become her stepfather. Because of this rape, Carmen became pregnant with her first daughter. Mariela was born healthy on July 30th, 2000.
At 20 years of age, Carmen moved to San Pedro Sula in hopes of work. It was during her time in San Pedro that she became pregnant with her second daughter, Sarai. Once the father learned that Carmen was pregnant, he left her and has had no contact with her since.
Just before Sarai’s birth, Carmen and her sisters came to the island of Roatan looking for work. Her siblings quickly returned to Olancho after having a difficult time finding steady employment. Carmen began cleaning homes in Sandy Bay for a Canadian family. Soon, word spread that she was a hard worker and Carmen hasn’t stopped working for ex-pat families since that time.
In April, 2010, she returned to Olancho to visit her mother and family. Her daughter, Mariela has been living in Olancho due to Carmen’s poor living conditions on the island. It is her desire to have both of her daughters living here with her, but in order to do so, she must have adequate housing.
Currently, she lives in a small, one room apartment in the Sandy Bay Colonia. She pays nearly $300 a month for housing. At less than $15 a day for work, just providing a roof for her and Sarai can be quite a challenge.
A home for Carmen and her family would mean better educational opportunities, health, and peace of mind. Would you be a part of fulfilling the dreams of this young woman and her children by providing a home?
You can change a families future by helping to provide a home and free up finances that can go towards food, education and healthcare. We take care of the logistics and you provide the labor. Join us for a “turn key” Dwellings house build in Roatan, Honduras. For more information about Dwellings, log on to www.alternativemissions.com and click on the ministries tab. Tax deductible donations can be sent to: Alternative Missions, PO Box 5835, Goodyear, AZ 85338. Be sure to indicate that the donation is for Dwellings House Build: Carmen Rosales. Thank you for your partnership!
More about Short Term Missions
Short term missions are and always will be a huge part of Elevation. In fact, many of the founding members of our church can trace the root and depth of their relationships back to some of the early mission trips we took together many years ago before the church even started. Short term missions are usually one to two weeks in length and most trips consist of a team of 10-20 people. Pastor Kenny and Pastor Brian became amazing freinds and started ministering together in '95 on a trip to Cofradia, Mexico. One organization has been incredibly influential throughout the years - Alternative Missions. Tom Hackett founded Alternative Missions several decades ago and it continues to be a powerful tool in the hands of God to spread the gospel. Take a look at their website here.The focus of Alternative missions at this time is their DWELLINGS progam where a team goes and constructs a home for an indigenous family in need in a week's time. Awesome! We hope to be able to participate in that in the future.
Short term missions are an opportunity that every believer can participate in to travel to a foreign or local mission site and devote every day all day to sharing the love of Jesus, working on community projects to bless the people, help with construction projects for the ministry, and bless, support and encourage the full-time missionaries that are serving there. We believe it is vitally important for short term teams to come alongside existing in field ministries rather than going in "blind" with no real opportunity for follow up and continued ministry to the people you meet. It's about participating in what God is already doing in a particular site and uplifting the missionaries who know the local people the best and are giving everything they have to influence the community they live in for Jesus.
In past two years we have taken summer mission trips to Tepic, Mexico to serve with Andy & Nayeli Hackett and to Roatan, Honduras to serve alongside Jeremy & Melissa Dyck. Go to the ongoing missions tab to find out more about these two locations and the amazing couples that serve as full-time missionaries there. To check out some slideshows and video of what happened on these trips go here for the '08 trip to Tepic and here for the '09 trip to Roatan. Pray about where God would have you go in the future and know that if you are a believer in Christ you are called by His Spirit to "Go! Make disciples of all nations"
Summer 2010 Mission Trip - SonQuest Rainforest Vacation Bible School and Day Camp - June 1st through June 5th - Inca Elementary School, Buckeye Az
Summer 2011 Mission Trip - Beach Blast Vacation Bible School and Day Camp - June 6st through June 11th - Inca Elementary School, Buckeye Az
Some of our summer our mission trips will be right here to the children in our community! Sometimes the Lord calls us to remember that our primary mission field is here in our back yard and for the past two years that is precisely where we have gone. We will be doing Vacation Bible School for five days right on the Inca Elementary Campus where we have our Sunday morning services for kids grade K-6th. We'll be inviting children from the school and community to come for five fun-filled days where we can pour the love of Jesus into them and reach kids and parents for Christ! In the last two years we've reached out to well over 100 children with many of them coming to Jesus in faith for the first time - praise God!
