Walking in Love in Mexico: May 2013

CONFERENCE IN MONTERREY

God promises: to defend their cause. Psalm 82:3

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to attend a conference for leaders working in orphanages and with orphans in Monterrey, MX (The Summit-hosted by Christian Alliance for Orphans and Back2Back Ministries). Back2Back truly blessed us while we were there. They took care of our every need, served us and blessed us. Honestly it was weird having somebody serve us, I guess we're not used to it since we are used to serving constantly in orphanages. But God knew what we needed. While at Back2Back we were able to talk with orphanage directors and other people who serve orphans all over Mexico. It was a great opportunity to dialogue, encourage, be encouraged, share experiences and learn from others.

With Rob Mitchell (author of Castaway Kid-his story of growing up in an orphanage

A few months ago the team of women I work with had the dream to restructure, train and serve various orphanages here in Guadalajara. The majority of orphanage directors and staff are people who grew up in a similar situation as the kids they care for (on the streets, orphanage, poverty, etc) and they have a huge heart for serving and loving orphans, so they start an orphanage. However they usually do not have the training or knowledge on how to run an orphanage and they are often too burned out to seek training or help. We desire to help train the orphanage directors and staff in administrative areas, creating programs, etc.. We want to create programs and resources to train orphanages in 5 basic areas of orphan care: education (corazónes educados) physical (cuerpos restaurados), spiritual (almas redimidas), emotional (mentes transformadas) and social (vidas unidas). We dreamed of this project a few months ago, however we never really took action; I think we kind of saw the project as impossible- after all who is going to listen to a group of women who have never run their own orphanage?.

However during our time in Monterrey, we saw that Back2Back is basically implementing the same program that we had dreamed about. They serve, train and equip numerous orphanages. They focus on the same 5 basic areas in orphan care. They focus on creating a more family-based care within the orphanage with an emphasis on adoption. Basically everything our team wants to do here in Guadalajara is what Back2Back is doing in Monterrey. It was such an encouragement to see that there are other people serving the Lord with the same vision here in Mexico. We are currently pursuing numerous opportunitites to train and learn from Back2Back to put into action the progam here in Guadalajara with our team!

With Rocio and Adriana (two awesome women dedicated to serving orphans in Chihuahua)

While in Monterrey I was invited to go on a canyon trip with the invited speakers and Back2Back staff. We rappelled down 100ft and 75ft waterfalls and cliffs. We jumped off cliffs 50 ft tall. It was an all day trip (4am-8pm). Honestly I was scared stiff on the first jump (which was only about 10 ft). But little by little each jump got easier. I had to trust the guide when he told me when and where to jump. Before jumping off the highest cliff (50ft) my friend/teammate Maroly shared with me a cool analogy. Our work in Guadalajara is a leap of faith. We don't know what is waiting for us down the road. It is going to be scary. We need to let go of the canyon and jump. Trusting God. And God is with us every step of the way and He catches us if we fall. He just asks us to trust Him, believe what He tells us in His Word, let go of our fears and JUMP.

So we did just that. We took a leap of faith. Returning to Guadalajara, Maroly and I had a meeting with the rest of our team (Tania, Mariana, Mara) to share with them what we had learned in Monterrey and about how we felt God was confirming the project we had wanted to start. For the first time in the past few months we have really seen the team unite with a vivid passion to start this new project. Each person has an unstoppable initiative to research and put together the different projects we plan on implementing at the Kids in Victory orphanage. We are starting off with the education area and will be expanding from there as we receive more training/resources and find more volunteers.

This past week we had a meeting with the orphanage director about what we feel God is calling us to do at Kids in Victory. He welcomed the project with open arms and repeatedly said it was a huge blessing. We're excited to see how God is really pulling this team together and giving us a vision for what He has in store for the orphanages of Guadalajara.

With the directors of the orphanage in Chapala

Also, 2 directors from an orphanage in Chapala attended the conference with me. It was a great opportunity to get to know them better and learn from them. God really worked in their hearts in Monterrey and they also returned with a very similar plan. They have opened their doors to the team and I to go in and help them implement various programs and activities.

One thing that really stuck out to all of us was a program called 'Casa Viva' in Costa Rica. They shared with us a paradigm shift in orphanages, adoptions, foster care, etc. Here in Mexico when a child is orphaned or taken out of their family because of abuse, etc., the first step is to place him/her in an orphanage. In all reality an orphanage is not able to provide a family which is what is best for the child. Casa Viva is working to make the orphanage the last option. They focus on placing the child in their biological family (if safe), extended family, adoption or foster care before an orphanage. They work in partnership with churches, the community and the government to train, educate and prepare churches and families for adoption/foster care and work as a bridge with a team of professionals in between the government and the family.

In the future we would all love to see a program similar to Casa Viva in Mexico and specifically here in Guadalajara. We would love to partner with churches and other organizations in the city to find families wanting to adopt children. It was such an amazing experience to see how God is putting the same desires on the hearts of the people that went to the conference from Guadalajara and Chapala. He is at work, uniting the people of Mexico to seek out, rescue and love the orphaned child.

JOIN US IN PRAYING...
-There are a million needs here. It is hard for me to say no, but I know that I cannot spread myself thin. Pray that I would say 'no' to certain things to better focus my attention and time on what God has called me to do. The theme of Back2Back is that there are 163,000,000 orphans in the world. That number can be overwhelming. But instead of focusing on that big number, we should just strive to "make the difference in one". God went out of his way to seek out and rescue the one sheep. Pray that we would do the same here with these orphans.

Can I steal Miguel? He is too cute!

-Pray for opportunities to train and learn from Back2Back.

-The orphanage in Chapala is starting a private Christian Charter School on site at the orphanage. They have invited me to join their charter school founding board to help research, investigate and start up the school. Pray for wisdom, guidance and direction for me on making a decision about participating on the founding board. If I decide to participate this would allow me to stay local here in Guadalajara to continue with the project at Kids in Victory and to research/network throughout the week to meet up once a week in Chapala with the board of directors.

-Pray for legislation on adoptions in Mexico and that new laws would be passed to make adoptions easier.