School Team - Wednesday

From Wylie Family's blog:

Today we had food distribution. Each month Catalyst distributes food to people in their community. The food consists of rice, beans, oil, sugar, noodles, milk and formula. The amount given will last a family of 4 for one month. Many people from surrounding areas arrived, thinking they would also be receiving food. We said we could give them all but rice and oil, they were not happy about that. One mother with a 9 month old and a 6-7 year old was in tears, she just wanted to feed her children. It's hard to watch.

If we give food away for everyone, the program doesn't work. The idea is to educate the children and teach the parents, for that they earn vouchers for food and other items. If a child scores well on tests and gets good grades, they get vouchers. If parents attend special trainings on the weekend, participate in community events, they get vouchers. If they don't do any of the above, no vouchers. It's the give a man a fish, eats for a day, give a man a fishing pole he eats everyday philosophy. Even knowing all of that it's hard to watch a mom have nothing to feed her children.

*Caroline's notes:

The afternoon was spent with the last of the activities and crafts we had planned for the children. Lots of stickers, card making, soccer, feathers, masks and piggy back rides. Mimi, Shelby and Haley did an amazing job organizing our 10 activities for the week...and it was so nice to "delegate" that task to the teens! Our kids couldn't get over how much bigger they were to the children in Kien Giang so it seems even our youngest kids were still bigger and stronger. As one of our Catalyst kids said, "It's because we eat fast food all day, and they have pho!". That probably 1/2 true :). The painting crew is really hard at work painting the outside of the school and library building. The quality of paint is not great, but that just leaves us something more to do next time!! It's hot...103' on the thermometer today!