Marta is growing up in a terrible place called the ‘Rat’s Nest.’

The ‘Rat’s Nest’ is a Guatemala City barrio (ghetto) notorious for drugs, poverty, and crime. Gangs roam the streets at will. Pepsi Cola employs armed guards to ride along with delivery trucks that bring the soda into the neighborhood. The public school in Marta’s crime-infested community was closed because teachers feared coming to work. With the school closed Marta had no hope.

One day Marta heard about a Christian school sponsored by Kids for the Kingdom. Located on a small hill in the heart of the ‘Rat’s Nest’ community the Christian school had openings for children like Marta. Today Marta attends school along with seven-hundred other children from the ‘Rat’s Nest’ community. The school provides a high-standard academics and Christian-based education.

Kids for the Kingdom provides support for national directors Alvaro and Leticia Perdomo as they direct the Shalom Baptist Church, Manos de Amor, and Shalom Christian School. Together the Perdomos oversee the school with a current enrollment of 750 students, a daily breakfast program for 300 children, job-training programs, and medical/dental services for 10,920 (annually) children and families living in the ‘Rat’s Nest.’

Kids for the Kingdom has funded the addition of job-training programs for the high school-aged students. This year 134 girls and 212 boys are enrolled in job-training programs including: beautician program, cooking, culinary, electrical, plumbing, welding, masonry, carpentry, computer, and vocational skills classes. in Guatemala City.