It all started with the gift of 10 chickens from Samaritan’s Purse. Now there are enough eggs for a Bolivian family to sell at their community store and provide for school lunches in Chuma.
Eric, 3, and Andy, 7, help their parents, Margarita and Antonio, tend to the chickens that Samaritan’s Purse provided them.
Seven-year-old Andy jokes with his mother Margarita about eating raw eggs. He’s happy because the luxury of so many eggs is a recent development for many families in Chuma.
And with so many recipes learned from our nutritional training, Margarita ensures Andy is eating eggs that are cooked well and delicious.
By providing families with 10 chickens each and chicken coops to protect them, Samaritan’s Purse has given families a practical way to promote nutrition and grow their incomes.
Growing Opportunities
The chickens each produce an egg a day, which allows Margarita and her husband Antonio to stock the convenience store they opened near their home and to provide eggs for use in lunches at a nearby school.
Antonio also has learned from Samaritan’s Purse teams how to grow produce in a garden we helped the family plant on the slope between their home and store.
“Now we have something to add to our diet besides rice,” Antonio said. “We have fruit, vegetables, eggs, chicken. We’ve become healthier and happier. Samaritan’s Purse has taught us how to manage what we make and work as a family.”
Receiving the Word
As they’ve seen God provide for them through good nutrition and economic opportunity, families also have come to cherish the Bibles provided for them by Samaritan’s Purse. “The Word they’ve shared with us and the love and respect they’ve shown us—they’ve been an example for us,” Antonio said.
Antonio stands outside the church, built by Samaritan’s Purse, that he and his family attend in Chuma.
The family already were churchgoers—at a church that Samaritan’s Purse built in Chuma in 2015—but only a few people in the church had Bibles.
“Now everyone in church has their own Bible and can look up Scripture on their own,” Antonio said.
He jokes that the family used to get up late each morning until the sound of Samaritan’s Purse representatives’ motorcycles in the community became their wake-up call.
“When we hear the Samaritan’s Purse motorcycles roaring by, we know it’s time to get up and work,” Antonio said with a laugh. “Seriously, the money we’ve been able to make by selling the eggs has been an encouragement to us to get up and work even harder.”
