Miracle Three - Special Needs Children

One of the ranch’s Miracles is Casa Emmanuel and its residents. Casa Emmanuel is the house for boys with disabilities on the Ranch. There is a home for girls called Casa Maria Reina. 

Casa Emmanuel at Rancho Santa Fe

Currently though, there are several special needs children living in the younger children's home, who in the next 2-3 years will need to be moved to an interim house. Placing them with older special needs children is not a realistic option.

The problem is that an interim house doesn't currently exist, and if one isn't built soon, NPH will be forced to limit admission of special needs children.

The World Orphan Fund has set up a specific project fund to build the new house, so that Rancho Santa Fe can continue to love and care for these special children. Engineers are currently drawing up specific plans, but the estimated cost is currently between $35,000-$45,000. Please consider a contribution to the World Orphan Fund to help pay for this important addition!

Also, in Tegucigalpa, Casa De Los Angeles is a specialized NPH home for children with severe disabilities. Residents suffer from a variety of neuromuscular diseases including Cerebral Palsy and Hydrocephalus. These children require around-the-clock monitoring and specialized therapies. A dozen high school aged Pequenas live in the home and help with their care.

Rancho Santa Fe's exceptional commitment to take care of God's most special children is truly a miracle.

Miracle Two - An Education

The focus on education at Rancho Santa Fe is remarkable and it's been a key part of NPH since it's founding in 1954.

According to recent data in Honduras, for every thousand graduates of the first grade in 1990, only 29% complete primary school in six years and 46% never finish. The situation with universities is much more worrying, since only 20% avoid failing out in universities such as the National Autonomous University (UNAH).

At Rancho Santa Fe an on-site school extends from a Montessori pre-school and Kindergarten through the ninth grade. Additionally, seven vocational workshops on the campus train children in a variety of areas including welding, carpentry, electricity, shoe making, tailoring and dressmaking. Each student must be nationally certified in at least one trade.

Children who want to progress to High School outside the Orphanage must serve in an  “Año Familiar” or Year of Service Program, allowing pequeños to give back to NPH for all it has provided them. After finishing the 9th grade, all pequeños are asked to provide one year of service as a sign of appreciation for the care and education they received while living at the home. Students who have good grades and are in good standing are then offered the chance to attend high school.

After completing these studies, students are asked to give back a second year of service. If the student wishes to continue their education at the university level, he or she must complete a third year of service immediately following the second. The second and third years of service function as both a expression of gratitude and an investment toward their own education.

150 children currently attend specific technical High Schools and the University in Tegucigalpa. The Orphanage maintains four houses for High School and University students on the outskirts of the capitol. High School houses have either two Tios (uncles - boy's house) or Tias (aunts - girls house) who look after the children. Children are monitored in all their study areas, and when a child has trouble with a particular class a tutor is hired until they improve. Houses for college students don't have tios/tias but are regularly checked on by NPH staff. The orphanage pays for all tuition, housing, books and food. It costs about $3,300 per child per year for college. College students are asked to come back and help the orphanage every other weekend. 

National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) in Tegucigalpa

While every child doesn't go to High School or College, Rancho Santa Fe does everything possible to give them the skills to succeed in the world outside the orphanage.

Ten Miracles

Miracle One

There are so many miracles going on at Rancho Santa Fe, the orphanage in La Venta, Honduras, it’s hard to know where to start. Here's the first of ten.

On the edge of 2,000 acres, in the third poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, at an orphanage called Rancho Santa Fe is a world-class surgery hospital. And it’s totally funded by private donations of money and equipment.

The Holy Family Surgery Center was founded by orthopedic surgeon Peter Daly of St. Paul, Minnesota  and Reinhart Koehler, Director of Family Services for Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos International.

Dr. Peter Daly in one of HFSC's operating rooms

The goal of HFSC is to provide same day surgical procedures for underprivileged patients who otherwise could not afford surgery. Many of these patients struggle to receive medical attention in the few public hospitals due to inadequate access to services and personnel. The first priority is the children at the orphanage followed by people in the surrounding community.

Recovery room

HFSC is a 5,000 square foot facility that has two main operating rooms, a septic surgery room and post-op recovery rooms. The Holy Family Surgery Center annually hosts 3 to 4 surgical brigades, each involving over 200 consults and 70 surgeries in about a week. Additionally a local Honduras surgeon preforms 5-10 simple surgeries every other week for members of the local community.

First Up - Honduras

In about three hours we will begin our first journey of 2012, visiting two orphanages in Honduras; Rancho Santa Fe and Orphanage Emmanuel. Our trip will last ten days beginning with a three hour drive to Chicago to catch a 5:30 AM flight, and then arriving in Tegucigalpa at about 1:30 tomorrow afternoon.

Our first stop will be Rancho Santa Fe, which is about an hour outside the capital. The orphanage is part of the Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos International (NPH) network, which has operations in 9 countries. We hope to learn a great deal from this community of over 500 children. 

Girls in front of their dormitory at Rancho Santa Fe

A thriving, bustling community less than an hour from the nation’s busy capital, Rancho Santa Fe is the second oldest of the NPH homes. Over five hundred boys and girls make their home in this vast wooded oasis in the hills—while an additional one hundred youths who study and live in the capital, Tegucigalpa.

A normal morning sees groups of uniformed children making the pleasant fifteen minute walk down to our Montessori-based kindergarten and elementary school while the older youths head for the on-site junior high school and trade workshops. 

The sounds of tractors in the corn fields and restless cows and chickens drift up from the farm, from which they obtain all of their meat, milk, and eggs, as well as all the corn needed to produce the 45,000 tortillas consumed monthly. Aside from the farm, NPH Honduras also boasts a model greenhouse and vegetable gardens. In the afternoons, children are often seen helping harvest cucumbers or turning the dirt in the garden before they return to the houses to finish homework and play.

Unique to the Honduras family is Casa Pasionista, belonging to the order of Passionist Priests. Casa Pasionista is a hospice for adults living in the final stages of AIDS. Ailing parents can be with their children as their health deteriorates, comforted by the knowledge that after their death, their children will have a secure home with NPH.

Casa Eva, another special house, is a rest home for elderly adults who previously had no one to care for them until coming to NPH. These loved grandparents are included in Ranch activities and add a wonderful balance to our growing family.

Two other important components of the NPH Honduras family are located in the capital. Casa de los Ángeles provides 24-hour care for over fifteen children with severe disabilities. The children also receive physical, occupational, and speech therapy. Pasos Pequeñitos, a children’s daycare center, specifically seeks to help single mothers in difficult circumstances who need extra assistance in caring for their children.

Stay tuned for regular updates and pictures.