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.