A Note from Montana de Luz

I received a note today (below) from Montana de Luz, an orphanage for children affected by HIV/AIDS in Honduras. As you may recall, earlier this year we able to fund surgeries for three children and replace a Van that had been totaled in a crash. 

They do amazing, life altering, life saving work. To our donors who have allowed us to help this amazing mission, thank you.

Dear Friends,

Since April of 2001, Montana de Luz has been a place of refuge for 65 children with and affected by the ravages of HIV/AIDS. Since accepting the first three children in 2001, we have loved cared for, buried and celebrated the life of these precious and vulnerable children.

Just this past year, we have welcomed three new children! Four year old Erick came to us when he was orphaned  after his mother died of AIDS.

Cristal, who is eight, came to us when her mother who worked in the watermelon fields for $6 a day, could not afford to care for her. She sacrificed here own anti-retroviral therapy so that Cristal would receive the live lifesaving medication. She could not afford to send Cristal to school. The child spent her days locked in the dark and dank shack they called home, built into the side of a mountain, waiting for her mother to return. When Cristal told her mother than men were trying to break in the door while she was home alone, Cristal's mother asked MdL to take her in.

Then there is Samuel, who is eleven but looks to be about seven. When his parents died of AIDS, his aunt and uncle took him in but they were too poor to send Samuel to school. His uncle who is an alcoholic would often beat him and Samuel begged the neighbors to take him to an orphanage. When he found out he was coming to Montana de Luz he ran up and down the streets telling the neighbors he was doing to live in a happy place!

With the love, care and support Montana de Luz provides, Eric is receiving the lifesaving medication he needs, has settled in and his extended family visits regularly. Cristal is now in school and shyly shared that she received her first Christmas gift this past year. Samuel is being homeschooled and with support is working through his emotional pain and becoming more resilient every day.

With your support we are able to be a place of refuge for these children and others like them who are finding the way to the Mountain of Light. Your contribution makes this work, God's work, possible!

On behalf of the children, gracias!

Erica

A Miracle for Gersi

Gersi Ordonez and her twin sister were raised in one of the worst slums in Guatemala and had witnessed terrible gang violence. Her face was damaged as a young child (around age 1) The trauma crushed her facial bones and severed her nerves including the nerves to her eye (making her blind in that eye). She was not taken to the doctor at the time and developed an infection. It has always been her dream to be able to have a more normal appearance and be able to smile! Our partner organization Orphan Outreach has done all of the legwork to allow surgery to change her life. And here's the miracle. All of the doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists have agree to perform surgery for free. We just need to raise $18,200 (reduced exponentially) to pay for her hospital stay.

Gersi

There will be three procedures to get to the finish line. First is the surgery by Dr. Barcelo, Dr. Trone and Dr. Corona at Forest Park Surgery Center in Dallas Texas. They will remove Gersi’s eye, build her nasal septum (by taking part of her rib) and rebuild her cheekbone. Dr. Trone explained the process and it’s amazing that it all is done fairly quickly. She should only need to stay in the hospital overnight but she will need two weeks of recovery/staying there so they can see her to make sure there is no infection. She will then return to Guatemala. There the second procedure will take place in a Guatemalan hospital where she will get an artificial eye. Then this fall, with reanimation surgery in the United States, Gersi will be able smile once again for the first time since she was 1 year old.

Dr. Timothy Trone

This surgery would ordinarily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Instead, with God's grace and the doctors and nurses donating their time, the entire cost is only $18,200. 

We need your help to fund this life altering surgery. Please go to the World Orphan Fund donatation page today, choose Gersi from the pull down designation menu and make donation. 

Thanks and God bless!

My Day Job

The other day someone mentioned that they had always thought my paid job was the World Orphan Fund. Actually, I earn a living as a political consultant during the day.

Fact is, we have no paid staff at all. We're all volunteers. What's more we have no overhead, we pay for our own travel, the costs of raising money, hosting the website, and everything else that's not a specific project  --- out of our own pockets.

We're not seeking praise. That belongs to God, His grace makes what we do possible. But it is an important reminder that when you make a donation to the World Orphan Fund, 100% of every donation goes directly into helping orphans around the world.

We've visited 30 orphanages, met over 3,300 children and we've raised about $750,000 to fund some life-changing projects. It's a blessing to be able to connect donors with needs.

If you've already donated, thank you for all of you've done to make what we do possible. If you're considering making a donation we have much to do this year and we need your help. I can guarantee that you will make a real difference in the lives of some amazing kids. Here's a link to donate.

Below is a sample of what so many have helped us to accomplish so far.

Funding for 3 Vocational Teachers.  $12,000

Casa Bernabe. Guatemala City, Guatemala

Funding a Full Time Psychologist for Abused Children $10,000

 Hope House Orphanage. Ixtlahuacan de los Mebrillos, Mexico

Special Needs Home for Boys $53,000

Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos. La Venta Honduras

Replacement of a Totalled Van $16,000

Montana De Luz Orphanage. Nueva Esperanza, Honduras.

New Boys House $75,000

Orphanage Emmanuel, Guaimaca, Honduras

Filtration System to Remove Arsenic From Drinking Water $15,000

Renacer Orphanage. Cofradia, Honduras.

New Third Grade Teacher $6,000

Hogar Suyapa. El Progreso, Honduras

Clean Drinking Water $2,500

El Refugio, Naco Honduras

 Toddler House for Boys $22,500

Orphanage Emmanuel, Guaimaca Honduras

A Note from Casa Bernabé

Enclosed are several pics, I think speak simply for themselves, from Casa Bernabé's new Culinary Vocational program. These are 14-18 year old girls. This is, of course, 1 of 3 programs your World Orphan Fund has provided for that started last month. Again, we thank you for helping us begin our first vocation program in our 30 year existence.

When Guatemala adoptions were open to US citizens, this program was not needed, as many children were adopted long before they needed any vocation training. Now, sadly, with adoptions having been closed for 6 years, we have had to revamp. The children are aging out. While we provide education in our on-site school, many will not have attained more than a 8-9th grade education for having missed early years of school, pre-Casa Bernabé.

Our culinary vocational instructor is Cantonese/ Guatemalan. She is a solid Christian lady who loves these girls and wants them to prosper. She has skills at a level we could never have afforded, but she is the best and what God brought us! This week she is teaching the girls practicality with, "If you owned a small restaurant, what can you create for your menu with only the food currently on your shelf?" Pretty amazing! Thanks again, World Orphan Fund, for blessing these children in the way you have provided. It is changing their lives.

Vocational Training in Guatemala

Boys at Casa Bernabe, Guatemala City

Preparing older children to be successful in the outside world is critical because the outcomes are grim for orphans when they reach adulthood. Studies show that 60% of girls will prostitute themselves and 70% of boys will become criminals to survive. It doesn’t have to be this way.

That’s why we feel a strong calling to create and support vocational training programs wherever possible and in particular, those that will help girls become self-sufficient.

In January, we visited Casa Bernabe in Guatemala City and were surprised to find unused, fully equipped classrooms to teach skills like welding, hair styling, and cooking. But they hadn’t had a program in years. Why?

The classrooms sat empty because they didn’t have enough money for teachers. So, with help made possible by our donors we provided the funding for three teachers for a total cost of $12,000 annually. On Saturday I received a note from Andrew Griffin though FB about the new program:

Allow me to make your day, RJ: 

Here are the first pictures from the new, fully functioning, Casa Bernabé orphanage vocational program. It started weeks earlier than originally planned. It was a BEAR to plan these children's schedules with school around this, but we did. The buzz of all the children in the program is one of incredible excitement and even younger children want to participate. This is the welding program in our shop- all set up- up to 8 boys at times (mostly Saturday "groups" and weekday "one-on-one" classes).

The welding instructor is a local Christian guy about 35, who has worked at Casa Bernabe off and on for years. He wanted to give back to these teen boys. He himself is an incredible artisan and patient man. The girls started with culinary and hair styling last week as well and are psyched! Allow me to further rock your world by telling you that 3 weeks ago out of the blue, the government sent us a hair stylist one day a week and she saw the other 2 vocations and now 3 goverment instructors come one day a week to train OUR new instructors more and actually promise to Certify these teens when completing the program. Simply amazing timing. The Certifcation is worth it's weight in gold. We never thought that could happen...happy man? We are one happy orphanage staff. Thank you - Bless you

In four months we went from an idea of restarting a vocational program to having three up and running classes. It's always amazing to me what can happen with God's grace and a committed band of believers.

The World Orphan Fund will fund the vocational teachers for the next three years.

John McGourthy Sr.

May the road rise up to meet you

May the wind always be at your back

May the sun shine warm upon your face

And rains fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again, 

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Irish Blessing

This past Friday, we lost a great friend and one of our biggest cheerleaders, John D. McGourthy Sr. of Mequon, Wisconsin. He peacefully began his new journey with his loving family singing and toasting him at his side as he entered Eternal Life on January 31, 2014, at the age of 72. John and Judy had been married for 50 years and they were blessed with six children and eleven grandchildren.

I remember when I first met John at our first Gala in Milwaukee. We shared a similar ancestry and we were able to talk for nearly an hour about our beloved Ireland and I told him stories of the orphans we had met in Central America. After the Gala, he grabbed me by the arms with tears in his eyes he said: I want you to know, I'll be doing much more to help these children.

John and Judy McGourthy in 2012

And that's exactly what he did. Over the past two years, the McGourthy family has made a huge difference in the lives of orphaned children in Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico. With their support, we've been able to remove arsenic from water, build homes, hire teachers and feed hungry children.

There's an Irish saying Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam. It means may his soul be at the right hand of God. Of that, we have no doubt.

St. Jean Baptiste De La Salle and My Dad

In May of 2011, five months after I started the World Orphan Fund, my father died in Florida. I was at Orphanage Emmanuel at the time, and the first person I told was my oldest Godchild Mersy. She held my hand for most of the day. Who would better understand how I felt?

My Dad Jean Johnson 1934-2011

That day I made a promise to myself: the first building we entirely funded through the World Orphan Fund would be named in his honor. That building is the new special needs house at an orphanage called Rancho Santa Fe. (Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos Honduras), in La Venta Honduras.

I was at the Ranch last week having a conversation with the Deputy National Director for NPH, Ross Egge, and he asked me about naming the house. It's a Catholic Orphanage, so I suggested there must be a St. Jean that we could choose. My Grandfather was reading Les Miserables when my Dad was born, so he was named Jean after Jean Valjean.

Today I received an email from NPH saying they had chosen St. Jean-Baptist de la Salle, the Patron Saint of teachers, to honor my dad. A French Saint, how perfect.

Saint Jean-Baptiste De La Salle

I would be nothing if it were not for for my father. I hope he likes the home we built in his honor. I miss him every day.

My Name is Angel

My daughter Keeley and I been at Orphanage Emmanuel in Honduras since last Thursday with a mission team from Gainesville and Blairsville Georgia. We come here every January together, because the kids are out of school and we have an opportunity to spend lots of quality time with them. It can also be a time where the children get, well, bored. So this year the team devised contests to keep them engaged. The winners won bikes that had been shipped down in December.

The letter below from a boy named Angel David. He won first place in the essay with a picture contest, and it touched our hearts.

The Lost Sheep

My name is Angel David Garcia Obiedo.

I want to talk about my family. Well, my family is very poor and thanks to God in 2013 they helped me find my family. It was a great happiness. I have been at Emmanuel for 12 years, and when they found my family it was 12 years since I had last seen them. I remember all the names of my family and that was something that made me very happy. Thanks to God. 

My father is 65 and my mother 53 and when they came to visit me. I saw them as old people. The truth is I would have loved to have known them when they were younger. They have only come to visit me one time because they are poor. But I love them so much and it doesn't matter what age they are. I will continue loving them and I hope to return to see them if God wills it.

The 12 years that I have spent at Emmanuel have been a great help to me because when I go one day I am going to leave prepared. Here at Emmanuel they have taught me many good things that can help me in my future but all with the help of God. Because if God is not with us in our lives we are nothing.  Likewise if He is with us then we are somebody in life. 

For my future I want to be able to have a profession and be able to bring my family forward to make them happy. That is the goal that I want to achieve and I know very well that I am going to do it if God wills it.  I am a 17 year old young man. I will be asking help from God in my prayers for him to help me finish this goal .

Something that I want to tell everyone from the group I want to thank you very much for having left your family in the US to be able to see each person in Emmanuel.

Also I want to thank you for the activities that you all have made happen with each one of us.

You all are a great blessing to each one at Emmanuel that God has given us.

Many thanks for coming to create new memories with each one of us that you can share with other people in your life.

Something that I want to tell you all is that you all will be in our hearts because you have been a great blessing to each one of us,