Meet the Eben-Ezer Family

We are very blessed here at Eben-Ezer to have many volunteers from all around the world.  While we certainly are co-workers, we also consider ourselves to be family.  Our “family” consists of students, volunteers, and their children.  This year we have 93 people on campus!  We all get the chance every day to get to know each other since we work side by side, but we want all of you to have the opportunity to meet and get to know us, too!  We will be introducing you through the blog to our students and staff and we thought it would be fun to first introduce you to our founder and director and his family, the Cardoza's.

The Cardoza Family

Hello, my name is Jerry Collazo Cardoza.  I was born in Mexico and grew up there until I moved to the US as a teenager.  I spent over 10 years there, studying and working.  At the age of 23, I committed my life to serving God in missions and decided to volunteer wherever He sent me.  I prayed and very soon He made it clear to me that He wanted to send me to Bolivia.  When I left the US and left the “normal” life I was living, I made a commitment to God that as long as He took care of me, I would never go back.  Until now, He has fulfilled His part, and I continue to fulfill mine.

I arrived in Bolivia almost 18 years ago and I worked as a teacher and boys Dean at a boarding school in the Amazon jungle.  The main objective of that school was, and still is, for young people to know God, surrender to him and learn to serve him.  After a time, I served as an administrative member and then as an associate director of the same place.  In 2007, I worked for a couple of months during the summer vacation as a translator and editor of audiovisual material for the Advenir channel.  In 2009, I moved to a new project and for one year I was the associate director of a children’s home – boarding school.  It was there that I met Jenny, a young woman committed and dedicated to service and with a love for God and others that went beyond what I was just beginning to understand.  I fell in love with her, and God allowed us to get married at the end of 2010.

​Now as a couple, Jenny and I were both serving in the same boarding school where I had started my mission work.  After several years of serving there and faced with a growing need for space to accomodate more young people, God showed us the way to open another center and together with Miguel and Tara, we started plans to meet that goal.

God allowed us to dream and showed us that dreams with Him can come true.  Eben-Ezer is that dream that God gave us.  When we started, the entire property was complete jungle and through the process of transforming the jungle into a fully operational campus, God allowed us to see how He did His work shaping it through our work and the work of many others who He sent to make this a reality.  In the same way, He connected us with many others from a distance and with their financial support built what Eben-Ezer is today.  Eben-Ezer started only a few years ago and we could fill books describing what God has done and continues to do through simple people that he brings from anywhere in the world to show a different world to hundreds of children, youth and adults who now know what Eben-Ezer means: so far God has helped us.

Jenny and I have two daughters.  Jordanna is 11 and Juliana is 9.  I serve here at Eben-Ezer as a director, alongside Miguel.  Every day God does so much for us and forgives us so much through things and people.  He fills us with love and the best we can do is reciprocate that love.  There is so much need and so much pain and suffering in this world.  What kind of people would we be if we did not do something for those who suffer?  God has taken away our pain and suffering and has given us hope.  What kind of Christians would we be if we did not cooperate with Him to help others receive which we have already received? 

Eighteen years ago, I made a decision, and it was the best decision of my life.  As long as God allows me, I will seek to serve Him.  For whom much has been forgiven, much will he love.

​My wife, Jenny Carolina Figueroa, was born in Bucaramanga, Colombia.  She grew up in a home with a fear of God, but without a specific religion.  At the age of 16, she gave her live to God through the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and from that age she dedicated her life to volunteer missionary service.

She began her experience in the mission field in Brazil at a missionary training school that she attended for over a year.  Since then, she has served in several departments (departments are the equivalent to States in the US) of Bolivia at many different projects.  She spent some time serving at a television channel doing cooking shows, radio shows, writing and translation of material.  She has also served as a 1st grade teacher, academic director, and surrogate mother of 10 girls at the Familia Feliz orphanage.  After getting married, Jenny and I worked together to start a bakery that would provide the boarding school that we were serving at together to become self-supported.  We lived and served there together for over 8 years.

Jenny has a very special personality.  She has a welcoming charisma and with this unique gift she works as the director of social activities and hospitality at Eben-Ezer.  She loves to make people feel welcome, she loves to serve and care for people.  She has a special ability to make our volunteers and students feel welcome, special, and loved.  One of Jenny’s favorite quotes is found in Hebrews 13:2 and it says, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”. 

In addition to this important work, Jenny also works as a general supervisor in the kitchen, which includes making menus, scheduling weekly cooking groups, inventory, and shopping lists.  This is no small feat when a kitchen is feeding close to 100 people 3 meals per day!  Along with all her responsibilities to the project, Jenny is also a homeschool mom.  She educates our daughters and dedicates part of the day to teaching them the basic and essential things in life; mainly for the mission field because she wants and believes that they will finish the work.

From Jenny: “I live a personal experience of REDEMPTION.  I live my life grateful to God for so much love that I receive from my Heavenly Father.  This is my greatest motivation serve as a volunteer missionary.  I simply want to reciprocate this love through what God allows me to do in my work.  “We love Him because He first loved us.” – 1 John 4:19.
My biggest motivation in service is to see a life transformed.  I love being able to see a redeemed soul, to see a young person or child believe in a Savior and accept Him into their lives.  I love seeing a smile on the face of a wounded being, healed and redeemed for the glory and honor of God.

​I want the readers to know that I worship and serve a REAL God.  An understanding God who always accompanies His children in their lives.  For me, God is a present God, a consoling God, a God who forgives and loves…always!”

​2022 Overview

​Every year at Eben-Ezer is busy and full of activities.  2022 was no exception!  Click here for a summary of some the mission and outreach opportunities we had during the 2022 school year.

Baptisms
Following a powerful Week of Prayer, we were blessed to witness 22 of our Eben-Ezer family members, both students and staff, commit their lives to Christ through baptism. ​

Graduation
The end of the school year is always bittersweet here at Eben-Ezer.  Students and volunteers can look forward to a little rest and time with family during vacation, but it also means that we will be saying goodbye to our graduating students.  We grow to love each of our kids and so when it’s time for them to leave and “spread their wings”, as the saying goes, it truly is bittersweet.  In 2022, we graduated 4 students.  Noel, Yovanna, Emer and Lizeth.  All 4 of these young adults have great potential and we know that God has a plan for each one of them.  Our prayer is that they will keep their focus on Him and let Him guide their steps.

God Works in Miraculous Ways! 
By Jeff Young

In May of 2021, after several months of going out and visiting folks in the communities, we started praying for God to provide Bibles that we could give to those we were visiting with since most of them did not have even one Bible in their home.  Shortly after we started to pray, we received a call from someone in the States offering to give several thousand dollars for Bibles!  Now we had the money, our next challenge was trying to find the Bibles to purchase.  Not surprisingly, God had an answer for that, too!  Within a couple of days, the Bible Society of Bolivia “just happened” to be in town (we are well off the beaten path and have never seen them here since that day) and stopped by our project for a visit.  They had a Bible on sale that had a plastic cover (a huge plus here with the humidity) that they would sell us for $2.70 each.  This allowed us to purchase 600 Bibles, along with 900 Children’s Bible Story books.  We were also able to use some of those funds to purchase Proclaimers, audible Bibles that come in the languages of several of the indigenous tribes here in Bolivia.  The Proclaimers have given people who cannot read the opportunity to hear God’s word, spoken in their language.  Praise the Lord for his blessings and answered prayers!

Prayer Requests and Needs

“…in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving
​let your requests be made known to God.” 

As many of you know, we set a lofty goal to raise $350,000 to cover all the costs of providing for almost 95 people on campus for the 2023 school year.  With that money, we will be able to provide 3 nutritious meals a day (we are trying to increase the amount of fruits, veggies, and whole grains we are incorporating into our meals…and these items cost more than their less nutritious counterparts), cover transportation costs, inevitable medical costs for staff or students, housing and so much more, including many much-needed improvements to many areas at Eben-Ezer. Some of those things include:

Solar panels/batteries ($6,000-$7,000): We need to increase our solar capacity.  Our campus is completely off the grid, and we rely on solar power.  And, while the sunshine is free, the solar panels and batteries are not.  Our current system is not adequate, and we are often without power from about 7 pm until the next morning.  It gets dark here year-round by 6:30/7 pm.  The evenings are a critical time for our students to study and do their homework.  That is difficult to do without lights.  We also have freezers and refrigerators that ideally would be on longer than they are off in a 24-hour period to preserve food.

Generator ($1,000 - $3,000): We have a generator that we need to use to power campus in the evenings if the power goes out early.  Without light, it is difficult for our students to do their evening activities, including study hour/homework.  The generator has been out of commission for several months and we need a few parts from the States to get it back to good working condition. 

Staff stipends: Praise the Lord He provided funds to start with a small monthly stipend for our volunteers this year.  It was a special moment to see their faces when we were able to share the news with the volunteers that they would be receiving these funds each month.  ALL our missionaries are here on a volunteer basis.  None of them expect any compensation for their service and they were truly humbled when they heard that donations made this possible.  While we are incredibly grateful for what has been provided, many of our volunteers receive no financial support outside of this stipend.  Our prayer is that we will be able to provide a bit more to help them not only be able to cover these basic needs, but also to help them with things like travel for various reasons (visa’s, medical needs, family emergencies, etc.) and to visit their families back home and get some rest during breaks.

There are many other items on our list of needs (nurses office, computers for a computer lab, a bread oven, industrial bread dough mixer, supplies to tile the dorm floors, and more…)…these are just a few.

Our vision is to “recruit” sponsors to help us meet our goal this year.  Knowing how much will be coming each month will be helpful for us to budget and plan.  Our prayer is that 297 people will commit to donating $100 per month for the 2023 year.  Or…594 people who will commit to $50 per month.  That said, if you can’t commit to that amount, but want to help…we will be grateful for anything you feel like you can and want to give.  Honestly, every dollar helps!  It costs about $50 to feed each person per month…so even a smaller donation can really go a long way!

We want to thank each person who has so generously donated to help us reach our financial goal this year.  We are so grateful.  If you would like to donate, please click the link below. 

outpostcenters.org/en/payment/donate/51/

To see our progress toward reaching out financial goals, click here: Give
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Additional prayer requests:

Head chef - We need to fill this essential position immediately.   We feed over 90 people, 3 meals per day.  The head chef is in charge of coordinating the students, who help to prepare all meals and ensure that meals are prepared and served on time, daily.  

Teachers!  We have a large staff of volunteers this year, but only 7 classroom teachers.  We are praying for God to send more qualified, trained teachers to help lighten the load and provide the students where with a quality education.  We currently have 4 licensed teachers, but two of them are administrators and while they are both excellent teachers, we would like to move them out of the classroom so that they can focus on their primary responsibilities.

Doctor/Nurse – we have had quite the reminder of our need for a trained medical professional this past month.  Bolivia is experiencing a Dengue crisis, nationwide, this rainy season and Eben-Ezer has been hit with it, too.  Dengue Fever is a mosquito-borne illness that occurs in tropical and subtropical areas of the world.  High fevers and flu-like symptoms are common with this illness.  We have had several staff and students with it and have certainly had our hands full trying to keep everyone hydrated and fevers under control.  Along with the Dengue, we seem to always have someone who is sick or hurt.  Having someone here who can focus solely on medical would free up the other volunteers to do their primary jobs.

Psychologist/Licensed Therapist – Many of our students have experienced trauma in their lives.  Physical, emotional, and sexual abuse are a part of too many of their stories.  Our mission here at Eben-Ezer is to provide a place where they can heal, grow, and thrive.  It is our earnest prayer that each of them will experience all three of these things here and that they will leave stronger, healthier, and ready to thrive in their lives.  One thing that we know would help us to help them is to have someone on our staff who is specifically trained in the mental health field to talk with them and to give them resources that they can use to heal from the difficult experiences that they have endured. 

Bibles/ Children’s Bible Story books – We have given out all the Bibles and Children’s Story Books that we purchased in 2021 and are praying for funds to purchase more so that we can continue to give them to people in Bolivia.

 “The work which the disciples did, we also are to do.  Every Christian is to be a missionary.  In sympathy and compassion, we are to minister to those in need of help, seeking with unselfish earnestness to lighten the woes of suffering humanity.”
~ EGW, Christian Service

​Thank you all for being a part of our team.  Every prayer, text, donation, positive word of encouragement…they all help to motivate and strengthen us here to keep doing the work.  The support from our family and friends means so much.