Welcome to our new site! It’s hard to believe we’ve been in Guatemala since 2014. We started our journey here in Guatemala with faith, hope and love, and confidence that God had a plan…
In 2013 we had visited an orphanage in the eastern region of Guatemala for a week. We saw such a need among the institutionalized children to be raised in families. At the time, international adoptions were closed (and they still are as of now). Our niece had been adopted from Guatemala just before international adoptions were stopped. We were now visiting this country, these villages, this orphanage, and seeing needs around us that were staggering.
God spoke to our hearts about moving here. He cleared a way for us to move with our children, to be house parents in an orphanage. After just a few weeks in the orphanage, we moved into a house to “temporarily” care for a household of children. After some time, two siblings of brothers we cared for were added to our family, and then another teenager, and then four years later, another sibling group of three little ones joined our family.
Between mom and dad, and our three biological sons, we totalled 17 people in our home slightly bigger than 1500ft2.
In 2020 after much planning and we moved out of the orphanage so that we could have legal custody of the children we had raised as our own for years. This move enabled us to bring the children out of institutional orphanage life, and into the real world, opening a major door for their future.
Over the last 8 years of raising our big family, we have seen our kids grow and learn. We have grown and learned as well. Now we see our big kids turning into adults. Our 2 oldest American sons are in the USA in college now. Our 4 oldest Guatemalan children are adjusting to life outside of the orphanage, some are studying, finishing highschool, working, or preparing to enter the workforce.
Having become legal residents of Guatemala, we were able to adopt two of the children in our care. This enabled them and their siblings to leave the orphanage early rather than to spend there entire childhood institutionalized. While all the children we raised our now legally with us, we still hope to adopt all the minors God has brought to our hearts and home.
In the years we have spent here we’ve had the opportunity to facilitate a variety of activities including evangelism outreaches, food and clothing distributions, tutoring, school and youth outreach events, bible distributions, bible studies, worship events, mission team outreaches, constructions of homes, clean-water well-digs, and helping meet medical needs for the poor.
Once we moved out of the orphanage and all our children were able to re-join us, we moved to the western region of Guatemala. The main focus of our mission has always been the children.