Amar Es Servir! who we are?

Blessings! We would like to share with you about a Guatemalan Christian Ministry “Amar Es Servir” and a woman of God, Doris Mazariegos.

Doris is a Guatemalan pastor and director/founder of a ministry to slum children and mothers in Guatemala City. Her ministry "Amar es Servir" ("To Love Is To Serve") serves a population of about 3,000+ very poor people without any local church in their community.

Amar es Servir is the only Christian presence and ministry to these slum people, mostly displaced indigenous Mayan people and many single parent families. The ministry is based in a school which she has built up over the years.

The ministry offers preschool and kindergarten classes to help prepare children for school, plus after school programs to help school children with home work and teaching special skills. Their programs are very Christian focused with the goal of winning many to Christ and saving the youth from gangs and prostitution. Amar es Servir feeds about 300 children and mothers as day.

Pastor Doris also ministers individually and in groups to the mothers with practical lessons on hygiene, health, life skills, emotional and social issues always with the focus on sharing the gospel. Through her school she also offers employment to some of her former students and also some of the impoverished mothers who she is discipling.

As she has resources she also supplies clothing, medicine and other practical materials to improve their living situations. In the hurricane disaster of June/10 when many people who were living (or squatting) on the side of the hill where the slum is located, lost their homes, she appealed for money and was able to supply wood, aluminum roofing and other construction materials to many affected people.

Pastor Doris started this ministry about 18 years ago, because God called her to care for her neighbors. She saw the need and started feeding the children from her own meager resources. From this start, the school and ministry to the mothers began. Now her grown up children are helping with the ministry and one daughter is teaching in the school and offering psychological counseling.