Dear friends and family,

We are so excited to share with you about an exciting opportunity we have this upcoming summer! As you may know, we have attended Grace Church San Diego for many years (which is where we met!). Recently, our church has decided to partner with an organization called Hope of Life International, located in Eastern Guatemala. Our church has sent one of our pastors and his family to Hope of Life for a 2 year long mission, in addition to sending multiple missions teams for a week at a time this year to help aid in their work. We are so excited to share that we will be joining the June 2025 missions team to Hope of Life!

Hope of Life is an incredible organization with a simple mission- to save lives. In a country where nearly half of children are suffering from malnutrition, 35% of the population has no access to basic healthcare, and 44% of families lack clean water, help is desperately needed to come alongside families to provide resources and support. Hope of Life aims to do this through a variety of programs including food distributions, educational programs for parents and children, foster care, well building projects, and their amazing program to provide life saving care for malnourished babies and children. Additionally, they have an incredible campus where they house an orphanage, a home for the elderly, a free pediatric physical therapy and occupational therapy clinic, and a long term care facility for children who are affected by physical and mental disabilities. They do all of this while also providing a number of spiritual programs, praying for those they interact with, and spreading the hope and love of Jesus through their work. They are deeply committed to not only the physical and emotional health of Guatemala, but its spiritual health as well. They are a living embodiment of God’s great mission to share the gospel and make disciples of Jesus from every corner of the earth, so that the people of Guatemala may enjoy and exalt him forever.

Among all the amazing things happening at Hope of Life, we were immediately grabbed by their passion to help and house children and adults with physical and mental disabilities. As you may know, Sara is a physical therapist and Michael is an occupational therapist. During our trip to Hope of Life, we will be able to partner with their incredible staff of therapists, care givers, doctors, and nutritionists to help provide free PT and OT services. Not only can it be difficult or even impossible for an impoverished person with disabilities to afford therapeutic care, but these children are often hidden from society due to cultural stigmas and can suffer from loneliness and lack of emotional support as a result. We are so excited to come alongside these kids, their families, and their healthcare team to provide support however we can.

This is where you, our amazing friends and family, come in! There are 2 main ways you can partner with us:

Prayer: You can support us by praying for a number of practical things like fundraising, travel, utilizing our broken Spanish, unity with us and the team, and providing the best care we can as we care for the kids and elderly at Hope of Life. More importantly, we ask that you would pray that the hope and love of Jesus would be spread through our words and our actions, and that he would be glorified in all we do.

Financial support: As you can imagine, both of us going on this trip means it’s going to cost a lot! We are committed to contributing whatever we can from our savings and we will be doing multiple fundraising events to earn the money needed for this trip. However, if you feel led, we are also asking for your financial support to help raise the funds needed- however big or small. We know this is a tough time financially for many during these economic times, so no worries if you are not able to help contribute financially. We appreciate all types of support!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this information and for considering supporting us. We look forward to sharing all the amazing things God will do!

Thank you,

Michael and Sara Curtis