Help us celebrate the graduation of our 9th and 11th -grade students this November!   Juanita from La Bendición will also be graduating from 11th grade in her distance learning program. This achievement is a miracle! Juanita’s education stopped after 6th grade because her significant physical disabilities made it impossible for her to travel to another village for 7th grade. Juanita is very bright, and she has flourished through the distance learning program. Her stated goals are to help her parents learn to read and write, to write a book about her life and to help the youth in her village. All of these students have achieved an important milestone. Being able to graduate from high school is not common in the Ixil. Many students in other schools drop out to work in the fields or help at home, or because they are unable to afford the cost of uniforms, books, supplies and transportation required for secondary school education in Guatemala. Drop out rates are high, particularly for girls. Many girls get married at age 14-15 and begin raising their own families. Nicolás Fund for Education has been extremely successful in retaining our students year to year. This is evidence of how God, through donations made to NFE, is literally changing the trajectory of these student’s lives. They are completing high school, getting married later, having children later, and are more likely to have children who are immunized, have better nutrition and are read to by their parents. It is considered quite an honor to have North American guests at graduation ceremonies, and isn’t it an important part of our relationship-focused program to celebrate what these hard-working students and their …