January 2021 eNewsletter
The New Year is beginning and we are excited to share with you the celebrations from 2020, blessings from this past year, and a profound reflection from Jonah Hurst, a former missionary who served with his family!
Celebrations from the past month!
The Farm of the Child community celebrated Christmas and New Year's Day with Mass, presents, and time as a community. We hope that you enjoy the photos from these days!
Remembering our Founder Vincent Pescatore
January 3rd marked the 25th anniversary of Vincent's departure from this life to the next. His life and legacy are at the heart of our work with the Farm of the Child. His beautiful family continues to be a witness to God's love present in this world. We pray in gratitude for the gift of his life and ask that Vince continue to be a source of inspiration and blessing in each of our lives and may we pray for his intercession when we need encouragement, faith, and zeal for the journey.
Celebrating 25 Years of Mission
Jonah Hurst (Missionary 2010-2012), shares a profound reflection of his time at the Farm of the Child when he and his family served as missionaries.
I served at the Finca over 10 years ago with my parents and it was truly a blessing. I had experiences there that I took for granted at the time, but now are more meaningful and have made me a better person. I learned from my friendships with the orphans that people are people, no matter the physical differences. In contrast, it was the differing attitude towards food between the two cultures that has also had an effect to me. Through my reflections of my time at the Finca, my experiences have been able to teach me significant lessons about the differences between cultures.
While I was living at the Finca, I soon became friends with the other kids my age. I took the friendships for granted at the time, and just thought that I was living a normal experience for a kid. Now I realize the ease of relationships between humans of different backgrounds is not common. I didn’t know about racism. Granted, after overcoming my initial shyness, we acknowledged that there were physical differences between us, but that never was an issue in terms of our friendships. They were basically just like me, and I like them. We all loved to play soccer. We all had the same needs for food, shelter, and love. We all preferred playing with marbles to going to school. And we all had the same desire to be the very best at everything. Looking back at my friendships, I wonder if racism would lessen if not disappear if more people had similar experiences of friendships unrestrained by skin tone.
L-R: Brothers Isaac, Jonah, and Ruben at the Farm during their time as missionaries.
Another element from Honduras that has greatly impacted my character is the food. At the time, I once again took for granted the abundance of fresh fruit that was available to me. I didn’t appreciate that fresh fruit was not a guarantee. We ate what was in season, and if a storm knocked out the fruit, there wasn’t a refrigerated produce section to fulfill our desire. I also remember watching my mom sift through the flour to remove the bugs. When thinking about modern day luxuries, clean flour is not one that I would say comes to the top of many people’s lists. I also saw firsthand how little they wasted. I remember for Christmas that they used every single part of a pig, even the brain and tongue. I remember passing that by with a look of disgust on my face. Now I think differently about that, mainly because I realize that a pig was very rare to have. Meat protein in any form was rare for that matter. If Thanksgiving turkeys were an insecure food item, I would probably eat the brain as eagerly as I eat the white meat covered with gravy.
My experience living as a child in Honduras was a definite blessing
because I did not seek it out and it has changed me for the better. I have participated in multicultural relationships that have been free of many forms of racism. And I witnessed a dependence on what was available that daily reminds me to consider reducing my food waste.
Jonah (second from the left) and his siblings today!