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