Faith In Action (FIA) is a 501(c)(3) Christian organization designed to target isolated, remote people who have become lost and stagnant within their developing country. They primarily focus on mountainous highlands and the swampy waterways of Rio Dulce in Guatemala, Central America. Faith in Action takes the Good News into communities that have no church and have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.For the people in these extremely remote villages they construct safe houses, churches, schools, clinics, and facilitate all types of economic and agricultural developments. They work with volunteer teams to bring in the expertise to build major infrastructure improvements to areas that are completely isolated. Some of the things that they bring to these people are bridges over swamps to facilitate their contact to the outside world, provide fresh water by drilling wells, and construct churches, schools, clinics.
Education: When Faith In Action started working in the highland villages there were only 5 children going to school. On the rare occasions he even showed up, the state-sponsored teacher organizing the classes was more interested in drinking alcohol than teaching the children. After several drunken visits to the village school, the teacher reported back to the Ministry of Education that there was no interest in education anywhere in the region. He told the council to close the school down.
Michael and Rocky Beene, on behalf of FIA, asked the Ministry of Education not to give up trying to educate the children in the mountains. They asked the counsel for one more chance to teach the local children. Michael and Rocky were even willing to provide a full-time teacher (including paying salary). The Ministry of Education agreed to allow Faith In Action to sponsor the school and bring in a private teacher for the remainder of the school year. By the end of the first school year Faith In Action had 35 children attending a new school located on the mission in Matasano. Their once little school has now grown to over 125 children, however, that is still only ¼ of the children from the community. The results are in and the response is conclusive, there is a huge desire for education in the mountains of Guatemala.
Nutrition: As a stimulant to keep children in school, they have started a reward program. Those children who stay in school for a month will receive nutritional drink, beans, corn, rice, and sugar. This is seen by a child’s parents as a form of a job so as to motivate the parents to let them study.
Small children usually have to survive only on corn tortillas – these are the children that many times do not survive. Parents often bring very young children to the clinic for them to treat for a wide variety of illness when the root cause is simply malnutrition. Having a place where they may educate the families of small children about nutrition and provide support for those in immediate need is imperative.
Agriculture: Subsistence farming has been practiced here for generations, stripping the mountains bare and leaving behind depleted earth that has little agricultural value. Corn or beans are planted on the same hill year after year and ruins the soil. Today, FIA is promoting permanent cash crops that will not only improve yield but help conserve the water shed for the entire region. Some of these advancements in agriculture include citrus, macadamia nuts, coffee, and fruit that yield four or five times the income of traditional harvests.
They teach composting and vermiculture as an alternative to chemical fertilizers in their soil. They buy coffee crops from the very plants they planted years ago and produce some of the world’s best organic coffee right in their mission. In their greenhouses they graft many types of seedlings onto strong rootstock and patiently nurture them until they are ready to be planted in the fields. Diversity and sustainable ideas in agriculture are improving the lives of the people they minister to. The amount of land needed to sustain a family is decreasing, and the quality of life is improving.
Housing: Most of the people in the villages where they minister do not have the ability to provide safe, clean housing for their families. Many children sleep on dirt floors. They cook over open fires. They eat a diet of mostly corn tortillas and usually have no fresh water. Along with the villagers and teams that have come to pour out their lives, they have been able to construct concrete homes that replace mud or bamboo huts, build bridges over swamps, and construct roads through rough mountain terrain. This links the local people with the developing world around them and enables commerce. They have dug wells and built latrines, schools, and churches. The playgrounds that Faith in Action has built encourage an atmosphere of friendship and love between the children and help to combat the long history of family feuding. The stoves project was initiated to halt life-threatening lung diseases. They have piped water from a fresh spring five miles through the mountains. The villagers now have clean water in their own homes for bathing, washing clothes, and cooking. All of these projects help develop a sense of community while teaching various trades
Medical & Dental: Faith In Action takes medical and dental teams into areas that have never seen a doctor or a dentist. Their teams suture wounds and pull teeth and then give them their teeth back through dentures. The teams go by boat up the tributaries and hike into the villages so that these people will know how extravagant God’s love is for those that only His eyes see.
To learn more about FIA, please visit their website.
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