A LWML Mission Grant History entry for 1955-57 simply reads, “School, Zacapa, Guatemala $5,000.” The application is perhaps lost to archives; the stories behind the initial need perhaps forgotten. But the seed money sewn in a remote Guatemalan village half a century ago took root in six grades at Divine Savior Lutheran School. When two Kansas agricultural missionaries arrived in 1964, they built upon this seedling, adding a boarding school with the aid of a Kansas LWML grant. Construction was completed in 1968. A collection of rural Lutheran Kansans founded Children’s Christian Concern Society (CCCS) to sustain the boarding facility and support students from the surrounding countryside through scholarships.
This is where ten year old Gloria Canjura learned of a loving Savior far away from her remote fishing village. With CCCS support, her dream of becoming a teacher became a reality. She recounts the impact of Children’s Christian Concern Society upon her life.
“The CCCS scholarship project is the story of my life. I lived and grew up with my grandparents until I was 10 years old in a tiny village on the Atlantic coast of Guatemala named the Barra de Motgua.
My grandparents were part of a tiny Lutheran mission where the missionaries came about every two months. I never had a chance to go to school. It was during one of the missionary visits that I met Sr. Jorns and that was my chance to leave this tiny community. It was at this moment when I started my new life. The Jorns family invited me to be a member of their family [and attend school]. It was in 1968 when through love of me and other children that had no possibility to attend school that the CCCS project for children began. Now 40 years have passed and the CCCS continues advocating, serving, teaching and sharing the love of Jesus in 19 countries around the world. Thousands of children, thanks to [the CCCS], have changed their lives. Because of this valuable gift, the work of God is being brought to so many children who do not know Him.
The CCCS projects signify to me a blessing, a gift of love, and an opportunity for me to help change lives. Thanks to the CCCS, many leaders, teachers, and pastors are serving and guiding others to the love of God all over the world. I feel truly honored and blessed to have been one in the first group of students.
Today, I am a teaching preschool at Grace Lutheran School in Chicago, where I can teach children of the love of God. I am married to Rev. Hector Canjura and have four adult children.”