Every Gift Has a Story: Love Link (El Salvador)

For the past 23 years, Oakseed has partnered with Love Link to help transform the lives of severely malnourished infants and children in El Salvador. Poverty and lack of education on proper infant feeding are the primary factors contributing to the high rates of infant mortality and malnutrition in El Salvador. Many families simply cannot afford the nutritious foods needed to keep their babies healthy, and the lack of knowledge on breastfeeding and supplementary feeding leads to devastating consequences. Many mothers are suffering from malnutrition themselves and are unable to feed their babies. This is where Love Link steps in, providing 24-hour care and rehabilitation for the most critically malnourished infants, outpatient medical checkups for children, and regular meals for children across the area.

Through Oakseed’s bazaar catalog, donors have had the opportunity to give gifts of Bibles, medicine, vitamins, formula, diapers, wipes, and meals for children’s community dining rooms. Oakseed’s prayer warriors have prayed for children undergoing surgeries, families separated from their children during treatment, foster children in Love Link’s care, expansion plans, special outreach programs, and more. Crib sponsors have provided for the medical and nutritional needs of babies at the Baby House, praying specifically for each precious soul who shares that crib.

Last year, Love Link provided outpatient care for over 700 children, monitoring children and providing free nutritional medical consultations every couple of weeks. Over the same year, over 25 children were cared for in the baby house on a 24-hour basis before being released to their families after regaining their health. Another 500 children around the region benefited from the nutritional medical brigades, and over 800 children received regular healthy meals through Love Link’s meal programs.

Love Link’s director shared, “ We are grateful to God because, in total, we helped and served 1,946 babies and children. Besides the care that they received, they and their families also heard the gospel of God and learned about the Bible. ”

Yassin, Ricardo, Thiago, Erick, Josue, Anita, Ashley, Keisy, Mateo, Carlos, Ana, Dennis, Eliana, Lian, Allison, Damian, Kimberly, Jazmin, Axel, Adriana, Adrian, Miguel, Gael – every gift has a story, and every gift has a name. These are just a few of the babies who have come through Love Link’s baby house this year. Countless others have come through over the decades that Love Link has been in existence. Likely, most of them would have perished from malnutrition without medical intervention. Yet, because of God’s great mercy, the care provided at Love Link, and prayer and financial support from sponsors worldwide, each of these children has the chance to grow up, to laugh, to play, and to go to school.