This is where it all begins....

In February 2014, we led a mission team from Anchorage, Alaska, to San Pedro La Lauguna, Sololá, Guatemala to serve at a school in a small Mayan community. The experience left an indelible mark on our hearts and set the foundation for what has become The United Missions of Hope and Memorial Scholarship program.

Today we serve together as a community of Christians in action, Tom Spiak and Karen Main, committed to building and strengthening relationships through service. We are active members of St. Mary’s Church in Anchorage, AK, where our faith has guided us and continues to deepen our commitment to serve others.

We began our service in December of 2012 with child sponsorship. Children simply in need of love and compassion. We sponsored a young man, Erick Eduardo Navichoc Rodriguez, the oldest of three siblings, and it has been a meaningful way to give back and to build many meaningful personal relationships.

As trip plans were developing, we learned in June 2013 that Erick had passed away just days shy of his sixteenth birthday, we were deeply moved. The loss of a child, classmate, neighbor touches an entire community, son, classmate, neighbor and the grief inevitably reshaped our resolve to serve and to honor his memory.

We assumed leadership of the 2014 mission team, at the time from Anchorage Wesleyan Church, eighteen of us—fourteen adults and four children gathered for meetings, meals, and devotions to prepare us. Nothing can fully prepare your heart for the first embrace, wave, or grateful expression you receive from the people you come to serve; those moments change us forever. During our time in San Pedro La Laguna, we repaired Erick’s school, supported the medical clinic, and prayed with families in need, while most importantly forging relationships that endure. We also went on to sponsor Erick’s two siblings in their education.

Our 2014 mission outreach inspired broader support beyond school supplies, gifts, and monetary donations that flowed in to assist the Mayan community from the team. Through prayerful discussion with local missionaries, we identified a lasting way to channel that generosity and it was through education. Karen and I returned home and began righting our ship towards sustainable investments in education to serve the poor. It is in these moments The United Missions of Hope’s Memorial Scholarship came to light, and we became a registered 501 (C) 3 with the Internal Revenue Service, September 22, 2014. Karen’s financial services career took our pocket full of family shared dollars to the full-blown financial backing of two awarded scholarships per year you see today. Now, over a decade later, her financial strategy is an endowment program beginning to support future scholarships all on its own preserving the works of the many donors who have chosen to serve through us!

We are establishing this scholarship to support Tecnológico Bethel and its “Pursuit of Knowledge,” providing financial assistance as students transition to high school and continue through college. At UMH, we are committed to closing the gap between those who can advance their education and those whose schooling ends for lack of resources. We currently enroll two scholarship students per year, one girl and one boy. We believe this program combats poverty, reduces gender inequality, improves agricultural outcomes, and fosters peace. Through hard work, dedication, and love, we are bringing a new lens of educational hope to this region of the world. Through consistent stable levels of service, we are seeing the altering of past perceptions on how education is valued. Something we could have only imagined.