Featured Story
January - March 2007
Nicaragua: First Children Graduating
Soon
April 2007 will mark the seven-year anniversary of the Arms
of Love Children's Home in Managua, Nicaragua. Two of the
children who first moved into the home in April 2000, Juana
Espinoza and Marlin Contreras, will soon be graduating from
secondary school and transitioning to a university-level
education or other training as they begin to pursue their
respective careers. This month, five of the girls -
including Juana and Marlin - share their stories
(translated by Emilio Padilla).
February
2007
Hello! I hope you are in good health as well as your dear
family, and I send cordial greetings to all those persons
whom my testimony is going to encourage them to get ahead in
life.
My name is
Juana María Gutiérrez Espinoza. I am 18 years old and I am
actually in 12th grade at the Mazarello School. I did not
meet my biological parents who abandoned me. I had the
opportunity of being adopted by a couple who accepted the
responsibility of caring for me, but who changed in their
hearts as I started to grow.
My
childhood was a very sad one because they severely
mistreated me and this caused that I had to start being
placed in several protection centers at a very young age.
The government took me away from my home and placed me in
the same city we were living, Estelí, in the ALDEAS S.O.S. I
stayed only a very short time because my adoptive mother
promised she would stop mistreating me. However, this lasted
only one month and then I was taken away again and sent to
the Capital City, Managua, where I stayed 3 years in a
temporary protection center.
Then I was
transferred to another town, El Crucero, where I stayed 3
additional years in an orphanage run by nuns. After this
time I was transferred again to the San Judas shelter, that
was being funded by Arms of Love, where I stayed another 3
additional years before being moved with all the other girls
at the home to the Reparto Las Palmas Arms of Love girls
home, where I have stayed from then until now.
When I
arrived in San Judas, I was just a very young girl with a
heart full of hate towards everybody, full of bitterness and
with a total lack of self esteem. It looked to me that
keeping on living and having a possibility of success was
not for me and that I deserved every bad thing that could
happen to me.
But little
by little I kept on growing, and I had an encounter with
Jesus while going to church on Sundays. I was slowly
changing my way of thinking even if it was very difficult
for me - even the thought of forgiving those who had hurt me
in the past.
After 3
years in San Judas, things changed for the better for when
we moved to the house we know as LAS PALMAS. This is a very
nice place and with excellent conditions for our moral,
intellectual and spiritual development.
Little by
little I was growing up and now I consider myself a young
girls with brilliant ideas, thanks to the people who have
helped me a lot as you and my grandpa and grandma (mis
abuelitos Emilio and Gladys) here in Nicaragua, who had
helped me to get ahead telling me that I never have to give
up and that good things and success are possible when you
work hard and apply yourself to do it.
I have
actually been at the Arms of Love home 7 yeas by now and I
do not regret it at all because I have learnt many very good
things. I give thanks to God for the opportunity he gave me
allowing me to come to this home because of the love that
people like you have given me.
My goals
are to graduate from high school, to get my certification as
a primary school level teacher, to continue studying at the
university, Psychology or Business Administration, and if
God allows it and there is an available position, to work
with the younger Arms of Love children in Jinotepe, hoping
to gratefully give back something of the lot I have
received.
May God
bless you all and very special greetings hoping that my
testimony may be of great blessings.
God bless!
Juana María Gutiérrez Espinoza
Arms of Love
February
2007
Since I was 5 years old I spent all my days begging
for money on the streets. I had to leave my aunt's house
where I lived, at 6 a.m. every morning, coming back around 9
p.m. every night. I never lived with my mother and I did
always lived with one or another of my two aunts.
Some time after this way of living my aunt Ileana looked for
a way to get us into a government internment center. She
talked with a psychologist from MIFAMILIA and it ended up
that we were accepted, my sister Diana María Lacayo
Altamirano and I, and we were placed in a center by the name
of EL CAÑON.
After a time there we were transferred to the Arms of Love
home. This home has been a very nice home because I have the
most important thing that is the love of a father and a
mother that I never had before but now I have it.
I was never loved before, but know I have the satisfaction
of saying that my "abuelitos" (grandpa and grandma) Emilio
and Gladys are my father and mother, even if sometimes they
correct me and I get angry for a while, but I do not mind it
because what they tell me to do is for my better well being
and not for them.
Thanks to God, I have changed my way of being because I was
very lazy and did not care for my things, etc, but now my
best satisfaction is that I have improved a lot.
I came to the Arms of Love home when I was 12 years old, in
the year 2002, and now I am 16 years old and I feel a lot of
satisfaction. The more I grow in age, I become better in all
the areas of my life. Maybe what I lack a little bit is
spirituality.
I give thanks to God for the opportunity he has given me to
one day become a great professional and an excellent mother.
All the values I am now being taught, I will be able to
teach to my future children, not abandoning them as my
parents did with me because they did not want to be
responsible for me. I can do all in Christ who strengthen
me!
My dreams are to become a great professional and someday be
able to contribute to get my country ahead. I would like to
go to the university to study the following: Bilingual
Secretary, Tourism and Dentistry.
Thank you for being interested in the testimony of my life
and the testimonies of all the other girls who live with me
at this nice home of LAS PALMAS.
God bless you,
Tatiana Aurora Espinoza
February
2007
My testimony is to talk about my life!
Before I came to this center I was in another center known
by the name of Friendship’s bridge or EL CAÑON. I was there
sometimes mistreated because I misbehaved oftenly. The
center’s director, Mrs. Lidia was very strict. She liked to
see the place clean. Every Saturday people used to come to
attend church services and they brought snacks for all the
children and teens who attended the services.
Afterwards we, the children interned in the center, had to
clean the place and the whole center’s house. when North
Americans visited the center we enjoyed the time and played
games with them. One day they asked us what we wanted for
Christmas and I said I would like to have a bicycle and one
of them said he would send it to me but I never received it.
Then I was transferred to the other center in Managua, in
the Lomas de San Judas neighborhood, known as the Arms of
Love Home.
In there I started to interact better with the other
children. I thought they did not attend school but they did
attend at the school “September 15th the Vineyard”. I did
like that school because they taught us good things and I
received good grades because I did study a lot. However, I
did not like the fact that the home and the school were
located in a very dusty slum area and I had unending
allergies.
Then things were changing because the abuelitos came and
they moved us to another house and enrolled us in another
school by the name of The Calvary Baptist School. I got good
grades because the abuelitos encouraged me to study and also
did it when I received those good grades.
Now that the boys lived in the other home in Jinotepe we go
there to celebrate birthdays. I like to be here because I
receive love, while in EL CAÑON the people in charge did not
give us any love, and I feel protected here. May God bless
you and keep you.
My goals are to become a professional and help other street
kids. I would like to get a bachelor degree in English.
Diana María Lacayo Altamiranos
(Tatiana’s sister)
February
2007
Hello! My name is Luz Esperanza Maradiaga. I am 13
years old and I live in LAS PALMAS.
When I was only 5 years old I was sent to the streets to beg
for money so I could eat and be able to stay at home with my
mother. When I was 7 years old, on August 14th, about 9 p.m.
I was hit by a car and I thought I was dead, but I found
myself the next day in a hospital where they placed a long
platinum rod in my leg.
Just only 5 months later I was sent again to the streets. my
life as a little girl was not a nice one at all because I
did not have any joy at all. Afterwards, when I was 10 years
old, the government placed me at the Arms of Love home.
At the beginning I felt alone because I was used to live in
the streets, but little by little I started to get used to
following rules, as I was being told how to be an educated
girl. My grandma Gladys told the teacher Vicenta to teach me
to read and write.
Later on after I acquired all that was taught to me. I was
enrolled in the school by the name of COLEGIO BAUTISTA EL
CALVARIO (The Calvary Baptist School) in 3rd grade. One year
later we were enrolled in the MAZZARELLO SCHOOL and I am now
in 6th. grade and my goals are to become a Fashion Designer,
Bilingual Secretary, and someday, if God permits it, to go
to France to learn French, and other languages like English
and Italian. I would like to have 2 children, a boy and a
girl, and to be able to help to other people as I being
helped now.
To be happy, to obtain happiness, we do not get it by being
rich but by being generous, helping others so at the end of
our walk in life we finally find happiness. Happiness is in
the heavens, and is the eternal life in the company of God
for all the good we did in the time that God allows us to
live.
Sharing with the most needed brings joy and rewards to your
life
Luz Esperanza Maradiaga
February
2007
Hello. I will talk about part of my life and how it
has been changing!
We used to live with my grandmother in the city of Diriamba
because our mother had left us to move to Panama. Then my
father came and took us from our grandmother’s house and
brought us to Managua to live in the house of one of his
brothers.
When I was 10 years old I was abused by this uncle and the
neighbors reported this to MIFAMILIA and they placed me at
the Arms of Love home located in Barrio San Judas. My sister
María del Pilar and my brothers Francis Marcel and Marcos
were also placed there at the same time.
I did study from 3rd to 5th grade in the adjacent school
that was also part of the center and they gave me
certificates of the best student of the class. Then, the
abuelitos came and they moved us to the LAS PALMAS house
where we are living until now.
Thanks to them I have been able to get ahead and to have the
opportunity to study and start my technical level career in
English and Computers. At the same time I am enrolled in the
High School 11th Grade in the MAZZARELLO School.
My Abuelita Gladys teaches us how to behave and to become
good and educated ladies, and more than anything else, to
love God and give Him thanks for having the opportunities we
have, because many children are not as privileged as we are.
Thanks to them, I now have great expectations for my life. I
want to become a great professional with the support our
sponsors give us and the love and care that our abuelitos
lavish on us.
I give thanks to God and to all those persons who think
about me and believe and see that I have a future.
In this home I have everything I need. Love of father and
mother! Understanding and more than anything else trust in
me and in what I can become. The abuelitos are the best
persons I have ever known.
I say good bye desiring you all peace in everything you do.
Sincerely,
Marlin Contreras
Nicaragua:
Swimming Pool Completed
In March
2007, we completed the swimming pool on our Jinotepe campus.
A short-term team from Colorado came up for the day and
sponsored our first-ever swim party! All of the girls came
up from Managua, and it was the first time we used the pool.
No doubt the pool will provide some refreshment for visiting
teams in the summer, as well as a lot of fun during
supervised swim times for the children!
Brazil: Children's Home Under
Construction
February 19, 2007 marked the
two-month "birthday" of breaking ground on the first Arms of
Love Children's Home in Castanhal, Brazil.
The
photo shows the home from the front, which includes the main
entrance and the living room. To the left is the kitchen and
dining room, and to the right is the suite and office for
the houseparents. The bedrooms for the children are around
back.
The "branches" that are sticking
up everywhere are the scaffolding that they use to make
columns for the veranda. The construction workers also use
this scaffolding to work on the upper part of the walls. In
the coming weeks, roof trusses will be added and ray clay
roof tiles will be put into place. The piles of red dirt in
front of the house will be used as filler for the
foundation.
Thus far, the construction
workers have pounded 20 truckloads of dirt into the
foundation for the home, with another five truckloads to go.
After the roof is in place, they will pour cement over the
dirt to form the floor. Overall, the construction of this
first home will use more than 10,000 bricks and 100 bags of
cement. The goal is to complete the home by the fall of
2007, so children can begin moving in. Can you begin to
"see" the children running through this house and out the
door to play in the yard?
One of the biggest challenges to
construction in the Amazon is working around the rain. The
climate in this part of Brazil is split between dry season
and rainy season, and since the beginning of February, the
rains have kicked into a higher gear. One day in early
February, a solid downpour lasted for more than five hours,
and the pond on the property rose at least six feet. During
all of the rains - except the heaviest downpours - the
workers keep plugging away in the mud and the slop, wearing
only flip-flops or just bare feet, as they try to get the
house under roof as soon as possible.
In January, Tom and Karen
Pauquette, pastors from the Grove City Vineyard church in
Ohio, visited the children's home and Scott & Becky
Joellenbeck, a missionary couple
from
their church who are serving as the directors of the home.
Scott & Becky previously spent five days in Santarem,
attending an annual conference of the Brazilian PAZ
churches, and in March will be attending the
Children-at-Risk conference sponsored by Arms of Love in
Anaheim, California.
Over the past few months, the
need for a children's home in Castanhal has become
increasingly apparent to Scott & Becky. In December, Becky
met with a small, government-run shelter for boys between
7-17 years old. The director talked about the local system
for responding to potential cases of neglect and abuse.
Another shelter run by Catholic nuns cares for girls between
7-17 years old.
However, these two centers are
inadequate to care for the total number of children in
Castanhal who need protection and care. Moreover, there are
apparently no centers that care for children under seven
years old! We are praying that this will become the primary
population served by the Arms of Love children's home in
Castanhal, and that the home will be able to provide
long-term care for these children as they mature into
adulthood.
