‘Hope Lives Here’

Hope Lives Here 

Angela S. Hatch. Greenville, South Carolina: Ambassador-Emerald International, 2015. 128 pp. (Paperback).

I first heard of “Casas por Cristo,” or Houses for Christ, from my son, whose church makes annual trips to Guatemala to build houses for needy families. I knew basically what the organization does and how and where it operates. I had even heard about the grateful families who were presented the key to a new house — something the families would never have been able to afford on their own. What I had not been exposed to was a close-up look at the recipient families. Angela Hatch has changed that with “Hope Lives Here.”

Hatch is a veteran of missions trips to build with Casas teams; the work is close to her heart. What “Hope Lives Here” did for me is to introduce a family in Guatemala from their own perspective; it is one thing to hear about people, but another entirely to see their lives through their own eyes. Hatch has written a moving story of a family experiencing grinding poverty as they try to survive, perpetually on the verge of disaster, but holding onto hope for a better future.

The book is well written and entertaining, but more than that it grips the heart — the aim, one presumes, of this new but very capable author.

— By Martine Bates Fairbanks, TAB book reviewer