Selling a Child for Drug Money

I believe I have perfected the prairie dog maneuver – the art of bobbing in and out of a cold shower to avoid outright freezing. Then yesterday Kina and Rodney were able to get the hot water heater to work. It was nirvana.

Nahum picked us up after breakfast, driving us the 45 minutes to Jocotepec and La Ola Orphanage to meet directors Bob and Becky Plinke. Becky gave up her nursing profession in 2009 and worked with the poor at a dump in Puerto Vallarta and saw first hand the need to care abandoned and orphaned children. She founded La Ola in early 2010, and three months later Bob gave up his practice as a doctor and joined her.

La Ola is a girls only home for 17 abused street children. A rarity in Mexico, they take in older high-risk girls and their stories are often tragic. Three-year-old Valeria let me pick her up the minute I walked

Valeria

into the house. The child of a crack addict, her mother tried to sell her for 300 pesos (about 25 dollars) at age two. Angele came to the orphanage as a street savvy 12 year-old with purple hair a blackberry. She was being used as a drug mule. When she first arrived she was illiterate and signed her name with an X.

Angele

But lives change after children enter the doors of La Ola. Now 15 years old, Angele has learned to read and write and she’s now in high school. Valeria, despite having a mother who smoked crack during pregnancy, is a bright little girl who speaks to you in both Spanish and English.

La Ola employs two housemothers, women who have raised children of their own and understand the world of teenagers. They share the responsibility with others at the orphanage of raising the girls. One is always present at the house. While the girls get counseling, they have also bonded with these housemothers and often talk with them as a parent.

A fencing lesson at La Ola

Eight of the girls are enrolled in Terranova, a bilingual private K-12 school, and others attend Cetac, the public vocational high school. Cetac provides skills training in everything from administration to accounting and computers to laboratory technology. Two girls are even learning nutrition because they want to be chefs. Job placement afterwards is very high. Sponsors provide scholarships for the kids to attend both schools. No effort to give the girls outlets is overlooked. While there we were treated to a visit by a local volunteer who was on the Mexican National Fencing Team, who gives free lessons at the home.

Unlike most orphanages we work with, La Ola is blessed to have an outlet to provide their children the skills necessary to live independent lives when they leave the orphanage. This extremely important in a society where the better paying jobs go to men.

La Ola and other orphanages we visited here have been targeted by the local authorities and given a list of “safety” upgrades required at the Orphanage. The costs are an average of $3,000, a staggering sum for orphanages scraping by on budgets of about 100K a year. They are given little time to find the money, and if they don’t comply fines are imposed. It’s causing the orphanages to let people go because they no longer have the resources to pay them, and a stress on the directors. Already overworked and understaffed, the effect on the children is significant.

This targeting and the costs associated with it seem all the more baffling given the massive orphan problem in Mexico. To hear the Government’s side of it, they don’t have orphans here. Crisis would be an understatement. We will be helping La Ola with a grant to get them past the current cash crunch.

Postcards from God

The temperature here is 20 degrees below normal and it’s been pouring rain since about midnight. Great sleeping weather. That is until the rooster outside the window starts crowing at about 4 AM. Not to be outdone, every other rooster in the neighborhood feels obligated to chime in.

For some reason it didn’t really bother me and I fantasized about the breakfast that was being brought here in four hours. We asked Kina if we could do authentic instead of typical fare from the states and so far it’s been amazing. The neighbors are really nice ladies and excellent cooks. Not sure if my plan to lose a couple pounds is going to hold up to their cooking … a couple of times I actually had the urge to lick the plate.

We headed out at 9:30 this morning for New Hope, run by Nahum’s father Jorge Gutierrez. He was a pastor before becoming the full time director, and it’s obvious he loves the boys like a father.

Jorge Gutierrez

The property was formerly a residential house, but over the past five years they’ve added a kitchen/dining structure, laundry, bodega, directors house, greenhouse and woodworking shop.

Woodshop

The woodworking shop would make Bob Villa drool. Outfitted by Rotary International the boys learn not just skills, but math, how to read schematics and self- esteem. They have been able to sell some of what they have made in the local market, enabling them to see a project from conception to final sale. 

Greenhouse with aquaponics

The green house uses aquaponics to grow plants. It’s really quite ingenious -- the fish fertilize the plants and the plants oxygenate the water for the fish. This is the first orphanage I’ve ever seen that grows mushrooms. Nahum converted a chicken house on the property into mushroom production and they have found a market for them at many of the local restaurants, as well as using them in cooking for the boys.

I was amazed to learn they feed nearly 20 boys plus staff on $200 USD a month. It’s an astonishing feat, and what makes it possible is Walmart giving them day old bread and other products like fruits and vegetables that are consumable but no longer on the shelves. Add a cook who’s a genius and you have a recipe for a miracle. A vanload of the food showed up while we were there.

Daughter Reagan and Len teaching

The best part of our day was simply spending time playing with the kids and even doing their math with them. They love Jenga, and we found ourselves explaining long multiplication and negative numbers in Spanish. They really wanted to learn and the smiles of success were awesome. As a reward, if the boys did all of the math problems right they got a ticket to watch a movie. (they got to fix their mistakes)

Before we left Jorge told the boys how he believed there are no coincidences and that everything happened for a reason. He then looked at us and told the children we were sent to them as postcards from God, a reminder that He has not forgotten them. I looked over at Reagan and we were both tearing up. We are all feeling blessed to be here.

Hola Mexico!

12 hours after leaving home in Randolph, WI we arrived at the airport in Guadalajara. We were met at the by Narum Gutierrez, a 26 year old Chemical Engineer, whose father is the director of Hope House Orphanage, located in Ixtlahuacan de Los Membrillos. Yep, that's the name of the city and it's in the state of Jalisco. Narum will act as our interpreter and volunteers at the orphanage.

After arriving at the team house, Kina Dutro told us how she and husband Rodney came to Mexico 13 years ago and some of the challenges they face over a traditional dinner prepared by their neighbors. They're raising their four daughters here, and started Hope House, a boys only orphanage in 2008.

Kina is a breath of fresh air with a background in teaching and counseling.  After a couple of hours of conversation we already are thinking about ways we might be able to help. They recently lost a great psychologist who counseled her for about a year because they lacked the necessary funding to keep her. In her short time here she made a big difference for both the children and those who provide care for them. Counseling for abused orphans is a big priority for the World Orphan Fund.

Tomorrow we head over to visit the orphanage which is currently caring for seventeen boys between the ages of 3 and 17.

2:30 AM Departure for Mexico

At 2:30 AM (in, umm, about five hours) daughter Reagan, Len Hernandez and I will be leaving to catch a 5:20 flight out of Milwaukee to Guadalajara, Mexico. This will be the World Orphan Fund's first trip into Mexico and we will be visiting four orphanages in and near Jalisco while there. Here's a thumbnail of each orphanage:

Love in Action Orphanage, Jalisco, Mexico

Anabel Frutos, the founder of the Love in Action Center, is a native of Mexico. She and her husband, Raul saw great needs and poverty around them and felt they needed to respond. So in 2001, they started a feeding program from their carport for children in the neighborhood. The original group soon began bringing their siblings and friends and then their mothers as well and a parenting class was added to this weekly event.

With a growing need for space they found an old pottery manufacturing shop that consisted of a number of small buildings. They established a daycare for the neighborhood and during the certification process, the government asked if they would consider being a shelter for children. They now help orphaned children sent from throughout the state of Jalisco.

La Ola Orphanage, Jocotepec, Mexico

La Ola Orphanage was founded by Bob and Becky Plinke from Cookeville, TN. Both had a heart for foreign missions and had been involved in mission trips for several years. In 2009 Becky left her professional career as a nurse and moved to Mexico to look for a place to start a mission. On March 1, 2010 La Ola received it's first children.

In July Bob retired from his profession as a medical doctor to join the effort. Today La Ola is serving the needs of 16 abandoned, abused and orphaned children. Over 40 children have been sheltered there since its inception.

Hope House Orphanage, Jalisco, Mexico

Hope House, located in Jalisco, Mexico, is a children's shelter providing permanent and foster care for young boys ages 6-18 who have been abused, neglected or abandoned. It was founded by missionaries Rodney and Kina Dutro. (Kina has put together our visits to all of the other orphanages and we will be staying there each night)

Many of the boys are sent by governmental agencies in Jalisco to stay while permanent housing is found, a process which may take several years. Meanwhile, these boys are given the opportunity to receive an education, learn a trade skill and mature socially and developmentally.

San Pablo Orphanage, Cedro, Mexico

The order of Las Misioneras del Cristo Resusitado was founded in 1996 by Madre Bertha Chávez López to care for families impacted by AIDS.

Approximately three years ago the HIV-negative children and siblings of the patients under hospice care in Tonala, were moved to the Misión San Pablo orphanage in Cedros. Nuns from the Order now care for approximately 52 children between the ages of 2 and 14 years, whose parents have died from AIDS-related conditions.

The nuns facilitate frequent visits between siblings, and surviving family members.

An Amazing Three Years

February of 2014 will mark our third anniversary at The World Orphan Fund. Over those three years we've been able to visit 22 orphanages and meet 2,900 children. And with a lot of help from people like you we've been able to make a difference, we've kept our zero overhead pledge, and100% of every donation went directly to projects to help orphaned children.

Our work continues. We will be visiting eleven orphanages starting the day after Christmas in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras, seven for the first time. We'll keep you posted.

For all of you who have donated, volunteered and prayed for us, thank you. We thought you might enjoy a look back at what's been accomplished so far.

Completed Projects 2011-2013

Vehicle Import/License Fees – New Hope Orphanage, Jalisco, Mexico. Completed 2013. Cost: $3.500.

Matching donation - Construction of Transition House, Eagles Nest Orphanage. Sololá, Guatemala. Ongoing. Cost: $20,000 of $31,000 construction pledge fulfilled to date.

25 computers, monitors, printers, projector for Orphanage Emmanuel. Guaimaca, Honduras. Completed 2013. Cost: $9,000.

Water Cistern repair – Rayo De Esperanza, Rio Dulce, Guatemala Cost $4,600.

Home for 45 boys
Orphanage Emmanuel, Guaimaca, Honduras. Completed 2013 Cost: $75,000.

Water Filtration System
Hogar Renacer Orphanage, Cofradia Honduras. Completed 2013. Cost: $15,000.

School Books/Materials subsidy Nuestro Pequenos Hermanos, La Venta Honduras. Completed 2013. Cost: $ 10,000.

Scholarship – Orphan attending University of Mobile, Alabama. 2012-2013. Ongoing. Cost: $20,000.

Emergency Food Relief. Precious Moments Orphanage, Guatemala City, Guatemala. Completed 2013. Cost: $1,000.

Scholarship – Orphan attending 
Central American Technical University, Tegucigalpa, Honduras. 2012-2013. Cost: $1,500.

Vocational Training for Sewing.
Orphanage Emmanuel, Guaimaca Honduras. Ongoing. Phase I completed 2013. Cost: $6,000.

Matching Grant to attract new donors. Hogar Renacer, Cofradia, Honduras. Ongoing. Cost: $14,000 of $25,000 pledge.

One-year emergency Grant for Food
El Refugio Orphanage, Naco Honduras. Completed 2013. Cost:
$6,000.

Construction of a Special Needs House.
NPH Honduras, La Venta, Honduras. Completed 2013. Cost: $53,000.

Deep Water Well,
Orphanage Emmanuel, Guaimaca Honduras. Completed 2012. Cost: $18,000.

Repair Well/Cistern,
El Refugio Orphanage, Naco Honduras. Completed 2012. Cost: $4,500.

New Well. NPH Honduras, La Venta, Honduras.  Completed 2012. Cost: $9,000.

Computer to run education program. El Refugio Orphanage, Naco Honduras Completed 2012. Cost: $700.

One-year salary for new 3rd Grade Teacher. Hogar Suyapa, El Progresso, Honduras. Completed 2012. Cost $6,000.

Toddler House (50% of Cost)
Orphanage Emmanuel, Guaimaca Honduras Completed 2011. Cost $22,500.

Special Needs House in Honduras

I received an email with new pictures from Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos this morning. They're making serious progress on the special needs house we're funding at the orphanage known as Rancho Santa Fe in La Venta, Honduras.

NPH has a wonderful record of accepting special children whenever possible, and the loving care they provide is the best we have seen in Honduras. After learning of an impending housing shortage last year we worked with staff at the orphanage and developed a plan for more space.

Now, the last fittings on the roof are being secured before installing the windows, flooring and the outer ramps. Once those steps are completed, they can begin to focus on the final touches of painting and outfitting the home.

By God's grace we have been blessed to be able to fund this important project, helping NPH to continue accepting special needs children at the orphanage. A big thank you to all of our donors who have made this possible.

Bob Perry 1932-2013

I just learned that Texas homebuilder Bob Perry died in his sleep last night at the age of 80. Many know his name from his political contributions nationally and in Texas, and I expect those will dominate the media coverage of his passing.  

Bob Perry

That's unfortunate, because there is another much more important side of Bob Perry. From Texas Monthly in 2007:

"Perhaps because he has made his money off those who can afford to buy their own homes, a significant portion of Perry’s charitable giving has targeted those who cannot. Ten miles across the border from Brownsville, through the teeming, cluttered streets of the booming Mexican city of Matamoros, is a private orphanage called the Matamoros Children’s Home. Also known as Casa Hogar, the home houses 186 orphaned, abused, abandoned, or neglected children from ages four through eighteen. It is run by a doctor named Saul Camacho and his wife, Maria. Its principal benefactor is Bob Perry.

Casa Hogar is not the only orphanage Perry supports outside the United States. There are many more in Mexico, in Reynosa and elsewhere, that I was not invited to tour, or even informed of. He supports another in El Salvador that he does acknowledge. On a tour of Casa Hogar’s brand-new, Perry-donated dining hall in January, I saw a Christmas tree covered with cards the children had made thanking Mr. Perry, as he is known, for his kindness. Perry may be alternately admired, feared, or loathed in Texas political circles, but here, he is loved. He is a frequent visitor, and the kids all know him.

According to Perry’s friends, the lesson I should draw from my tour of the orphanage is this: While it is typical of his philanthropic work, it is also just a small sample of the activities in which he has long been involved. “He has dozens and dozens of these things going at a time,” says Michael Stevens, a Houston developer who chairs the Governor’s Business Council and is one of Perry’s closest friends. “I have never called him to do something for people that he has not done. His charitable giving is far larger than what you have seen in the political arena.” He does not even tell his friends the full scope of what he does, according to Weekley. “I consider Bob a good friend, and I had no knowledge of the orphanages,” he says.

By all accounts, Perry is extraordinarily, and spontaneously, generous in his giving. It is driven by what Holm terms “the multiplier effect, the idea that he can go and help someone who is a net drain on society and turn him into a net plus. It is a version of ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.’ ” Though Stevens, like Perry, does not like to acknowledge his charitable gifts, he offers two examples of projects he and Perry have developed together. One aims to give jobs to soldiers who have lost limbs in the war in Iraq. Stevens says the two men have sunk “hundreds of thousands of dollars” into the project. “We plan to roll it out in six months,” he says. “The plan is to get corporations throughout the U.S. to employ injured veterans.” The other project is typical of what friends say is the more personal side of Perry’s giving. When former U. S. attorney Michael Shelby, a man Perry and Stevens admired greatly, died after a long struggle with cancer, the two men made sizable donations to a college scholarship fund for his children. “This kind of thing happens all of the time,” says Stevens. Indeed, one of Perry’s classmates from Meridian High School says that this sort of private, personal charity extends to his old hometown. “Over the years, any of the people we went to high school with who had money problems, he helped them,” says Hiram Woosley, who played in the backfield with Perry for the Meridian High Yellow Jackets."

The book of John tells how "talking a good game" simply isn't good enough. 

We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God's love be in that person?

Dear children, let's not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.

God's love was in Bob Perry.

New Pictures of Special Needs House

Got a an email today from Ross Egge, Deputy National Director of Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos Honduras. They are making great progress on the new special needs house we are building at NPH! Below are pictures of the construction. When finished it will be home to up to 16 special needs orphans.

Why I Couldn't Fall Asleep Last Night

This is my sixth trip to Emmanuel. We've seen seventeen orphanages now in Guatemala and Honduras over the past two years. We've met incredible people doing amazing things for damaged children. We've heard tragic stories before, -- often directly from the children, and for the most part in this blog I've chosen to focus on the positive. But for some reason, more than any other trip, we learned the awful backstory on how so many ended up in the orphanages we visit.

Last night, as I was trying to get to sleep their stories ran through my head.

The child I met whose mother who sold her when she was under five years old to a man who used her for sex.

The children we met who were born of orphans who became pregnant because guards at the government orphanage took bribes to let gang members enter and rape them.

The child named Francisco, who at 14 months looked like a newborn - suffering fetal alcohol syndrome.

Lupita, whose mother made her sniff glue as an infant to quiet her cries for food. The doctors said she would never walk or talk.

Or the 18 year-old boy who came from a government orphanage weighing only 50 pounds, bedsores down the bone and two weeks to live.

He died on New Years Eve.

When we're tired, or we have our doubts about what we're doing they drive us. Motivate us. They ignite our need to do everything possible to help the caregivers - ones like those here at Emmanuel who love them and help them begin to heal.

They are God's children. And they deserve everything we can do for them.

Madre Anna Vitiello Orphanage

We didn't know what to expect on our first visit to Madre Anna Vitiello. The missionary traveling in Guatemala with us to make introductions and translate told us it was an orphanage for HIV positive children, and that it was run by a Catholic order of Nuns in Sacatepéquez, Guatemala.

We were greeted by Sister Anna Marina who runs it and we sadly learned that they had just lost an 18 month old child the night before. It was the second chid in a week.

We began by explaining our reason for being there. We simply wanted to build a deeper relationship with them. We wanted to get to know them, who they are, how they came to be, and most importantly how we could be a part of it.  Most of these children have been abandoned because their parents’ cannot afford the medication needed for their condition. Other children live there temporarily until their parents’ learn how to care for their child and how to treat them with the proper medication.

The first children we met were infants, and we decided not to hold the babies because we thought some of us might have colds. With compromised immune systems we didn't want to take the risks of getting a  any child sick. Complications from other infections and viruses are often the biggest threats.

The orphanage is warm and inviting. The group of 15 sisters who belong to an order known as Small Congregation of Redemption Apostles, go about the business of caring for the children with a calm love that is palpable. They live on-site to care for the 63 children.

Medications are a big ticket item for the orphanage and some medications are donated from samples obtained from doctors in Guatemala. As you scan the shelves you immediately notice the medications are organized and labeled by child.

Shelves of Medication Labeled for Each Child

Donated Samples

The home was built in 2005 with many additions and improvements over the past 7 years. Their stated mission is to care for children is to provide housing, balanced diet, clothing, medicine, academic education (K-6 at the orphanage), recreation, moral and spiritual and warmth of a home. They have all areas covered in spades.

Primary School

I happened to come across the video below. It's a beautiful slide show of children at the orphanage in 2010. 

The Sisters at Madre Anna Vitiello reminded me what religion ought to be -- love in action.

World Orphan Fund Team with Sister Anna Marina