You will find a lot of books in my home – home school books, how-to books, pop-up books, medical books, song books, devotional books, novels, Bibles, dictionaries, and picture books. I love to read and my kids enjoy books too.
You will not find a lot of books in our town. Students don’t use books in school because the school cannot afford them. People don’t read books because they aren’t available. The closest library is 6 hours away.
Paraguay is a poor country and we live in a poor community. We have a high illiteracy rate, a high high school drop-out rate, and a high teen pregnancy rate. There is little opportunity for youth to receive higher education even if they finish high school mainly due to finances. Many people in this town were born here and will live here their entire life without ever visiting the next town over.
To me an education is very important and reading books is a good place to start. Over the Christmas holiday Jeff’s mom sent several books in Spanish for me to start a little library. Also, a church in Georgia sent money for me to buy books. In Asuncion I found titles such as Little Women, The Little Princess, Treasure Island, Tarzan, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Alice in Wonderland, and several Christian biographies.
I presented the books to a few teens who come to my house on Saturdays and they were absolutely thrilled! I wish I could have captured their expressions as they looked at the covers and flip through the pages. They each took home several. Since then, they have finished those initial books and have come back to exchange them for different ones.
1 comment:
What an EXCELLENT idea!!! Someone brought a few of the teenaged girls here some Christian fiction, and they just devoured it. We are book-lovers, too, and have gotten a lot of comments and looks from our neighbors when they see us reading. Almost half our luggage allowance was used to get them here...
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