Chimaltenango

Jesse's back from Guatemala, and oh how I wish I could have gone with him! There are way too many experiences to share all of them here, and I'm debating on whether or not to share the funny ones along with the sad ones as I don't want to downplay the severity of the children's situations. Lets just say that there is laughter and humor amid all suffering... especially in children.

Guillermo (pronounced gee-YAIR-mo) and Mandy Brooks are the ones spearheading this effort. Guillermo is native to Guatemala and grew up as an orphan there. He served a mission for the LDS church and came home from it determined to make life better for other orphans in his country. He was working at an American run orphanage with Mandy, (from cedar city, SUU) who was there on her own accord for 4 months, and they both were saddened by the neglect and poor treatment of the children there. After Mandy went back to the states, Guillermo started getting suspicious of the children being adopted out for tens of thousands of dollars, but the conditions at the orphanage were remaining the same... like the orphanage had no hope of seeing any of the money. Jesse heard horrific stories of children being sold as sex-slaves on the black market, and also being adopted only to be killed for their organs to also be sold on the black market. I had heard similar stories of things like that happening in Mexico and other places... but I thought they were urban myths... I guess I just hoped they flat out weren't true. Guillermo started poking around and trying to find out information about where the children and the money were going. On one of his days off he got a call from the cook who worked for the orphanage telling him that the children were being taken to be hidden away so Guillermo could not report the owners to the officials. I'm not clear on the details after this point, but I do know:
-Guillermo eventually gained custody of some of the children that were taken
-He now has his own orphanage with 6 children,
-He comes to the states to do fund-raising to support his orphanage

Mandy is helping raise funds and find help, that is how she found Jesse and Kevin. They decided they not only wanted to donate money, but they wanted to go to the orphanage and make whatever improvements they could and help get the orphanage set up to be able to take in babies.
While Jesse was down there they built 24 closet/shelf things to put clothes in, put cabinets in the kitchen, painted on the outside and inside of the orphanage, and played with and loved the children. The youngest there is 15 months (about, they're not sure of her age) and the oldest is 18(? I think, I'll have to double check with Jesse).



The saddest part about this whole thing is that the Guatemalan government made adoptions illegal. Their theory is that since their babies were being so mistreated and even murdered when adopted out, they might as well die starving on the streets of their own country. Most of the children at the orphanage still have parents, but either were abandoned by them, or taken away from them becuase of abuse and neglect. Nearly all of the children are born of prostitute mothers and drug addicted fathers. Despite this, Guillermo still tries to find their families and get them rehabilitated enough to take their children back. Since the children were basically abandoned, he is free to set the conditions the parents must meet to be reunited with their children. He uses gospel principles and requires that the parents attend church for a set period of time, he also requires a series of visits with the children for 2 hours every 2 weeks, if the parents have shown improvement.
One girl, Jennifer, sat in her room and cried while the other kids were visiting their drug-ridden parents, because she had no one to visit her, drug-addicted... or abusive... she didn't care, she just wanted SOMEONE to care about HER.
This is my brother Chris (who served his mission in Guatemala) with Myerlee... Jesse said the kids just loved him so much.