It has been an ongoing struggle to help Oscar continue his studies. For the past couple of years, we have been trying to encourage him to express and show interest in returning to school. We had been helping him with tuition in his last year of primary school, but he continually failed classes and practically bombed out. Like his sister, he lost his scholarship until he showed greater interest in school and applying himself.

An entire year passed and he did nothing. He didn’t try to go to public school, he didn’t ask for ways to continue his education, and when it was already too late to register for the next year, he came to us expecting to be enrolled. We even recorded our previous conversation and had to play it back for him and Mirna (his mother) that it wasn’t about waiting a year to get the scholarship again, but to prove that he actually was committed to return to school and do his best.

The following year, he actually made some efforts to work on his education. Although it wasn’t the same caliber, he attended a public school to continue his education and apply himself. We spoke to and encouraged him and Mirna and applauded their efforts last year. However, they did not ask for a scholarship in time for 2024. In fact, they asked after the registration period expired. We had to have a hard conversation with Mirna (Oscar was not present because he was working on a construction site) that we are not responsible as a ministry to reach out and offer the scholarships, that they need to take responsibility to request them.

Surprisingly, Mirna responded, “You guys are right, we didn’t follow through with our responsibility.” All of this has been gearing up for the 2025 school year (Guatemalan school runs from January – October). As registration opened in November of this year, we had counted Oscar as one of the students we would be helping, but we heard nothing. To avoid the issues we had at the beginning of this year, we asked Mirna in October if Oscar would be returning to school. Unfortunately, he has decided not to, as he would prefer to continue working in construction to earn money instead.

This is an ongoing struggle with helping children finish school. Impoverished families need to balance earning a living with education. While we do our best to encourage them that higher education means better job opportunities, the impoverished mindset forces them to only be able to look into the short-term gains: where will we be able to get food, how can we survive, can I even pass my classes? While we do provide relief to these questions, the individual and family has to decide whether or not they are willing to put forth the work. Many times, the fear of failure out rules the potential for success.

We also just discovered yesterday that Oscar has been using drugs. Mirna told us she was embarassed and sad about it, which is why she didn’t share with us, but is asking us to pray for him because things have gotten worse. He comes home to sleep it off then goes out again and sometimes doesn’t come back for days.

Please continue to pray for this family as we try to encourage them and minister to them through these decisions.