#7 - The Widow's Mite
Our journey began in Sept. of 2008 when we had a team from Washington D.C. that wanted to view some feeding centers and orphanages. The last place they visited on the first day was the seventh different location. It had just been converted from a feeding center into an orphanage and was completely devoid of everything...no bedding, no toilet paper, no food, rags for clothes, very little supervison, no toys, and certainly no love! There were 17 children who had been abused, abandoned, molested, and who knows what else. Everyday that week the team went back to "#7" to visit the kids and God began to knit them into our hearts. On the way home Joyce, my wife, said "I have to do more." God had spoken to her heart and our journey was beginning to grow legs...we returned in Sept. and Nov. and then Joyce organized a Christmas trip where families sponsored each of the children to a backpack filled with clothes, school supplies, toys, etc. We arrived on Christmas day to find all the supplies we had previously given them were gone! We would buy truck loads of food only to see them stolen by the operators.
After our Christmas trip the Lord made it plain to Joyce and I that He expected us to help these children...already the number had dwindled from 17 to 12, we were told that their parents picked them up, but nobody really believed that! We returned in Jan. and met with the current operator of the orphanage and explained our desire to help the children...that we felt led by God to intercede on their behalf. At that time he told us, "If you get a place for them you can have them." So, we proceeded to recruit prayer partners in the states to help pave the way for these children and eventually(in April) we found a place to rent. However, the operator told us, "I've changed my mind, you can't have them." These children were being used as pawns to collect money from Spain and Germany, large amounts of money, and the children were being abused as severely as if they were still in the streets. In the interim one of the children died under mysterious circumstances!
We recruited more prayer partners and help from another orphanage operator in Honduras and began a legal fight to gain custody of the children. It was a roller coaster ride of highs and lows as it would seem we were on the verge of gaining custody only to see something go wrong, or another road block appear. Finally on June 11, 2009 Fiscaglia (Justice Dept.), IHNFA (Child Welfare), Police, Radio, TV, Newspaper personnel all invaded the orphanage to check on our allegations and found them to be more egregious than we had alleged. The conditions were so bad (rat dirt in the food) welts on the children, no toilet paper, filthy conditions, etc., that they immediately removed the children by force and gave them over to our care. So, June 11, 2009 is their liberation day, their day of freedom, essentially their Passover Day! Now we would begin to raise disciples of our Lord.
Joyce and I moved to Honduras to live with the children and raise them as our family...'our' doesn't just mean Joyce & I, it means all of you too. It takes all of us to pray, to give, to come to raise our 10 children. The final number of 10 children came about in this manner....there were 11 children left after the mysterious death of one of them. Next two more disappeared and we were told they went to a funeral and would be back on Monday...they never have been seen again. That left us with 9 children, which is the number we received on June 11...one week later we were asked to take in another child...one of the original 17 who had been removed under false allegations. He had a brother and sister with us already and we had made a connection with him on our Christmas trip and knew he had been falsely accused. Although we were already overcrowded, we made room for his renuion with his siblings and now we are 10!
PLEASE PRAY FOR: Gershon, Mauricio, Fabiola, Antonio, Rosa, Karen, Cesar, Pedro, Jesus, & Angel.
