Featured Story
January 2006
Only Love Brings
Lasting Change
Written by Emilio Padilla
Director of the Arms of Love Children's Home in Nicaragua
We're
often asked how Arms of Love is different from other child
protection organizations and orphanages. Arms of Love is
breaking new ground, showing others that God's loving
heart
transforms the "un-adoptable" into healthy and productive
children preparing to be the leaders for tomorrow.
The
central child protection government agency in Nicaragua,
MIFAMILIA, refers most children to privately funded
organizations called "Centers of Special Protection." Like
many governments, Nicaragua's child protection
infrastructure focuses on "temporary protection" of children
with the intent of family reunification. However, the
reality is the children often stay in the evaluation centers
for years at a time - sometimes their entire childhood -
living in limbo as the government struggles with trying to
reunite broken families.
The
protection centers are often overwhelmed with more cases
than they can handle. Children are often returned to
relatives even though there has been no real change in the
family situation, because those in an immediate crisis
displace those who have already enjoyed a period of relative
stability within the refuge of the center.
Beyond
the "Centers of Special Protection," the Code allows for
children to be permanently adopted and to be placed in
substitute, individual homes. Arms of Love is the only
privately-funded organization that expressly falls into the
category of "substitute home" by virtue of its purpose and
family structure.
Below
Arms of Love Director Emilio Padilla compares and contrasts
Arms of Love to other child protection organizations in
Nicaragua, both government and privately funded agencies.
In recent
discussions of our vision with the MIFAMILIA officials, they
have started to consider the Arms of Love program as
analogous to adoption. Why are they coming to the
realization that our approach is both feasible and
worthwhile?
The
majority of children who came to Arms of Love were rejected
by other "protection centers" as unmanageable,
uncontrollable or unacceptably behaved. The children tried
their best to control the staff, as they did other
caretakers before us. They wanted to wear us down, until we
threw in the towel and sent them back to the streets so they
could continue living the only life they had ever known,
even if abused.
Though they
often persist, we do not despair. We believe in the power of
God's healing love and we are seeing remarkable changes.
There are always relapses, times when the children seem to
lose everything they have gained in just a second, but we
gain strength in the words from Arms of Love president
Robert Benson: these children have accumulated almost
unbelievable abuse in the short span of their lives, and it
is better that their issues surface now, when we can work
with them, rather when they are adults. If they do not heal
of their past abuse while they are still children, the ones
who pay the consequences are their future spouses and
children - ten, twenty or thirty years from now.
The
children are the focus of our untiring attention and care.
We know their strengths and weaknesses. We love each one as
if they were our only child. We laugh and cry, chastise and
correct them as well as encourage them. We have faced the
challenges with patience, flexibility and endurance. We aim
to replace the distortions inadvertently imprinted into the
minds and hearts of our children by their previous fathers,
mothers and relatives.
"Arms of
Love" is a ministry, not a job! As many in the lower classes
have a hard time finding a suitable job, many turn to
childcare. It has been a challenge to make them understand
that we cannot pay them to love a child. Love is a gift from
the heart! In the early years of our ministry we have had to
let staff go, because caring for these children is a special
calling. But we have seen our staff becoming more committed
to our vision as time passes, and our primary focus of
providing love and care has been bearing fruit.
We teach
others through our actions, from the interaction with our
donors and visitors and from building an environment of love
within the homes. People are being drawn by our example.
There is no more satisfying compliments than those expressed
by our young volunteers who visited us recently and also
when a young British volunteer came to stay with us for the
fourth time - this time for six months.
I humbly
feel that God's love is what it distinguishes us as a
people, as a home and a ministry from all the other
well-intentioned groups that are giving their best for the
protection and care of the neglected and abused children in
this country of contradictions - that is my country,
Nicaragua.
By being
faithful to the Arms of Love vision and being good stewards
of children and the financial support, we have been humbled
by the innumerable blessings that the Lord has poured upon
these children. He is changing their hearts, healing their
emotions and raising higher and better expectations for
their future. In return, the children are learning to be
innocent and loving children, who lavish their love upon us,
up to the point that sometimes they innocently ask us to
give them our last names.
There is a
saying in Spanish that the one trying to control a lot ends
up controlling very little, if anything! If we focus too
much on trying to control a widespread societal problem, we
can forget the most basic need of our abused and abandoned
children today: love.
The
children need us because their lives did not have enough
love in the past. Their parents or guardians had accepted an
environment where neglect and abuse was the norm. If we
provide a neglected, mistreated and abused child will good
care in terms of cleanliness, nutrition and clothing, there
will be a sense of refuge. However, if individual love is
not present in the child's life, a vacuum will always be
present. You'll find a sense of insecurity, distrust,
resignation and sadness in their eyes.
The
government's biggest challenge for real change in Nicaragua
is the inability to build fundamental values within the
family, which is the root cause for neglect and abuse. One
of the ironies of the Nicaraguan system is the strong legal
measures they will take if abuse occurs in the "protection
centers," but there are no adequate measures to address the
source of the abuse within the family - which is the reason
the children are in the centers in the first place.
A program
such as ours can either work for the present or work for the
future. If we only provide the children with a temporary
place of rest and refuge, caring for their immediate
physical needs, then we are working for the present. To work
for the future, we must focus on each child, walking with
them until we restore them and give them back to the society
as healthy individuals who will make a difference in their
due time! We must strive to seek a future that protects our
most valuable treasure: our children and their future. A
future, where as effective leaders, they can confront the
challenges of their days.
