PROSPERITY — Those who ride through the Town of Prosperity may have noticed a tiny addition in front of Wightman United Methodist Church — it is called Ti Ana’s House and represents a project currently being built in El Salvador.
Chris Koon, who has taken three mission trips to El Salvador, said the first year they took a mission trip was when they met Ti Ana.
“Ti Ana had a very hard life growing up, she was a prostitute at a very young age and she ended up being saved later on in her life — basically she has a foster home for kids of prostitutes, and she has anywhere between 15-45 kids at one time,” Koon said. “Ti Ana was molested when she was younger by a relative and then when the rest of the family found out they kicked her to the curb — kicked her out of her house. It wasn’t her fault and she just had to survive — long story short, she was a prostitute for years. Through a bunch of ups and downs she was finally able to get out of that environment — she wanted to help other prostitutes like her former friends and whatnot and the way she started helping them was by taking care of their kids while they were working and she’s had kids at her house for about 20 years, maybe even longer than that.”
He said the first time the church traveled to El Salvador they were just breaking ground on the orphanage house. It was then that the group learned about the country and began working. They then went back the following year and worked on the house and this past summer traveled to El Salvador for a third time — where they assisted in completing more work.
Koon added that the house is set to be completed around December — hopefully before Christmas.
“After we got back, they set a goal to move in by Christmas time. In order to achieve that goal they were looking at another $15,000 to complete the project — so an anonymous donor decided to donate $7,500, a dollar for dollar match, for a total of $15,000,” he said.
This is where the house, which sits at the walking track in Prosperity, comes in.
The house was built lacking 30 planks of wood to complete the walls. For every $250 donated towards Ti Ana’s House, one plank will be added.
“I don’t know what they’re going to do with the house, it’s definitely not going to El Salvador. I think it’s really just to show people this is what we’re working on and to help measure our goal,” Koon said.
He added that as of right now, it looks like they will be making another trip to El Salvador next year.
“On this particular piece of property where the orphanage is being built, with several acres, they are going to try to convert this land into like a small farm where they can grow different crops, generate money and sustain themselves,” he said. “All the children, they are all kids of prostitutes — they’re unbelievable kids, extremely humble, their whole culture is so amazing. We have so much in the United States, yet people overall don’t seem to be very happy — when some of these people have hardly anything. A lot of times they don’t even know where/when their next meal is coming from.”
Koon said if someone would like to donate contact to Wightman UMC at 803-364-2340 or simply pray for them as the project continues.
