Sponsor Valle Arriba-Medicine & Clean Water

I am opening this report with some reluctant honesty: When COVID hit us in full force back in March, I did not expect our uncertainty and “new normal” to last this long. I guess I’m not sure what I expected to happen, but it wasn’t this. It wasn’t trying to plan for a 2021 trip that may or may not happen. It wasn’t having to tell our friends in Honduras that we don’t know when we’ll see them again. This has been a tough year, no doubt about it, but here are two things I’m thankful for:

• Our friends in Honduras are safe. Johns Hopkins University reports that there have been over 82,000 documented cases of COVID in the country, many of which are located in the major cities of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. While there are cases in the rural areas, to the best of our knowledge, Valle Arriba and its surrounding communities have been spared. That said, it’s difficult to know all of the details from that area as Hondurans are in a state of lockdown. You can only go out shopping and doing essential things once a week, so this makes getting supplies to, and information about, these communities difficult.
• The water filters continue to be a huge positive force in people’s lives. In one village, the clinic nurse loves the filters because he sees that the people living there are healthier. Having clean drinking water during a pandemic is so important because people know they aren’t getting sick from their water and that reduces their worries just a little bit. There’s one nearby village of 110 homes that needs filters, though, and we’re already thinking about how we can get filters to each one.

Throughout the uncertainty of COVID, we continue to plan for our trip in 2021. We don’t know what it would look like, but we’re strategizing about how to fundraise for filters and medications and how we can continue to help the people in and around Valle Arriba. Thank you for partnering with us!