Casa de Esperanza y Amor: Love Link’s Journey to a New Home

Whether it’s a small house, a busy apartment, or a simple place to live, the warm feeling of being home is something we can all understand. Within the loving embrace of home and family, our hearts find solace and our spirits are nourished. For Love Link , finding a place to call their own was challenging. Through the Lord’s grace and guidance, however, they were led to a home that surpassed their expectations, where they can continue caring for those in need, extending love and support to families and babies. This new home stands today as a testament to God’s power, a token of God’s unwavering faithfulness to His children, and an inspiration for us to cling to the Lord and pray without ceasing, just as He says in His Word.

Love Link, Oakseed’s ministry partner in El Salvador, is a nutritional rehabilitation center that helps malnourished babies on the verge of death, restoring them by giving proper care and nutritional support. The ministry began when an American couple, Sam and Julie Hawkins, visited El Salvador in 1986 and saw infants and children dying of malnutrition. Realizing that more babies will suffer and die if not given the proper care and nourishment they need, they founded what is now Love Link (Vinculo de Amor). This non-profit organization aims to help severely malnourished babies and their families. Thanks to the couple and Love Link’s efforts, babies who would have lived a lower quality of life or even died are returned to their families with restored health and a chance to live.

To help us understand the significant number of infant deaths due to malnutrition in El Salvador, we must understand the contributing factors. Poverty and the lack of education in proper infant feeding are elements proven to be fatal. Poverty makes it difficult for a family to buy the foods needed to feed the mother and her baby, and the lack of information on the proper care of breastfeeding mothers and their babies intensifies the problem. When a breastfeeding mother does not receive adequate nutrition, her nutritional intake affects the quality and production of her breast milk, affecting the baby’s health. If the mother lacks essential nutrients, her breast milk may lack vitamins, minerals, and calories necessary for the infant’s growth and development. In the worst cases, the mother cannot produce enough breastmilk to feed the infant. When this happens, the family feeds their baby with the only thing they can afford and know could satisfy the baby’s hunger – atol.

Atol, typically a drink made of corn flour dissolved in water and cooked to a soupy consistency, is given to babies in El Salvador as a breastmilk substitute. While this may satisfy hunger, it falls short of the nutritional value babies need to help with rapid growth and well-being. As a result, the baby becomes severely malnourished over time, and most pass away before age two. God has seen the difficult condition of the dying infants and parents who have lost their children early, and He has placed a heavy burden on the hearts of those at Love Link to accomplish His plan.

Love Link’s ministry has grown rapidly as more children have been brought to the center for proper care. What started as a nutritional center has expanded to an organization offering 24-hour care to nurture malnourished babies below two years old back to health. They also carry out feeding programs for children in nearby communities and provide free medical consultations for families to raise awareness of proper care for breastfeeding mothers and their babies. Love Link provides not only programs for physical healing but also spiritual reconciliation with God as they share the love of Christ and the hope that is found only through Him.