Dear Friends:
PHEW! We have completed another school year, and I want to tell you, it just keeps getting better and better! We are so thankful to the Lord and to all of you who support this ministry through prayer, financially, and correspondence with the kids! It is making a tremendous difference in their lives and the lives of their families. And it is also making a difference in the communities of Las Palomas, La Victoria, Modelo, and Entronque, as we have students and their families involved from the nearby villages also. Most of the parents in our families have minimal education, few skills, and are really only able to earn a subsistence living. Nonetheless, the faith of many of them is strong, and they are contributing to their local churches and supporting their children’s progress in school.
This year, we started out with 172 students. This coming school year, we have accepted 178 students into our program. That means we need a lot of new sponsors!
The schools in Mexico use a 10-point grading system. We require our students to maintain at least a 7.5 gpa, and if they do not, they must enter our tutoring program to help them overcome the barriers that are holding them back.
As in any school system, there are always students who, for whatever reason, never learned to read and write or to use basic math, and before they know it, they are hopelessly behind in school. Our tutoring program was new this year, and it was a great success, but we were unable to reach some students for various reasons. Next year, we are already preparing to expand our tutoring program to reach even more students. We also have a tutoring program for high school seniors to prepare them for college exams.
Since our program started, we were instrumental in obtaining a public high school in Palomas, and we now see most of the kids in our program staying in school into high school, which is a real blesssing. More and more businesses are now requiring a high school education for a worker to enter employment with them, whether that is a business or a factory. And kids who graduate high school have opportunities to go on to college or trade school, and we continue to scholarship them if they decide to get higher education. Most of our high school Seniors are continuing their education!
Now that we have closed the orphanage (whether temporary or permanent, we do not know), we have opened up the use of our building to Pastor Fernando Velasquez and his congregation in Palomas for their church meetings, which occur 3 times a week. He and his wife, Azucena, Pastor Jeruel congregation in Palomas and also 2 other congregations in nearby villages. They have planned a VBS for this summer that will occur at our building, and they are doing an amazing job creating a dinosaur jungle for the program.
We had 7 students in our program this year who achieved a perfect 10 gpa! We had 17 students with a 9.5 or above! We had 30 students with a 9.0 or above! This is all very remarkable, as when we started our program 15 years ago, most of our students struggled to get high enough grades to stay in our program!
We also had a number of young people and their parents who committed their lives to Jesus this year, and it has really shown in their interest and involvement both with us and in their local congregations.
As we get ready for the new school year, please keep the Alas program in your prayers! We are busy determining the theme for the 2026-27 school year, and praying about ways to improve the program! You sponsors are amazing, and your obedience to the Lord in sponsoring these kids is having a huge impact on their lives!
Matt 6:33—Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all of these things will be added unto you.
2 Peter 1:2-4--Do you want more and more of God's kindness and peace? Then learn to know him better and better. For as you know him better, he will give you, through his great power, everything you need for living a truly good life: he even shares his own glory and his own goodness with us! And by that same mighty power he has given us all the other rich and wonderful blessings he promised; for instance, the promise to save us from the lust and rottenness all around us, and to give us his own character. TLB
God bless you!
Jim & Pat