Sometimes A Calling Is Very Personal

March 27, 2008

Striving and Thriving

In 1994 Hilda Pacheco-Taylor visited Door of Faith (Puerta de Fe) Orphanage in Baja California, México. There were around thirty children in care at the home in La Misión, in the countryside near Tijuana. The buildings were in disrepair and overall conditions were shocking.

Things had deteriorated so much since she had last seen the home. That was when she left at age sixteen to find her mother, after spending eight happy and memorable years at the orphanage.

Hilda, the oldest at age seven, was placed at the orphanage by her mother along with her two brothers and sister. Their mother had to work long hours after their father abandoned the family, and the children’s safety was at risk with no one to care for them. At the time, Door of Faith housed between 90 and 100 children in very good conditions for poor, rural Mexico.

Curtis and Sylvia Freeze founded the orphanage in 1959, and they ran the home along with their son Val and his wife Agnes for decades. The Freezes had retired and left Mexico before Hilda’s return visit. The connection between churches and donors in the U.S. and the home was lost after the Freezes retired.

New Beginnings

Hilda met DJ and Lynette Schuetze during her first return visit. DJ and Lynette had moved from Orange County to live full time at Door of Faith in April of 1993. Lynette was trained in child development and was a pre-school teacher. DJ had a background in business as a director of marketing. After volunteering for many years at various orphanages they felt led to move full time to Baja to serve the children at Door of Faith.

DJ and Lynette were looking for ways to bring in support from U.S. sponsors. They asked Hilda to help find donors and participants for the orphanage’s new sponsorship program.

What Can One Person Do?

Hilda had been a U.S. citizen for many years by then and had a typical American life with a good job in southern California. She wondered how she could persuade people to help. Since the cause was so personal to her, she knew her appeal had to be personal. That meant telling the story of her early life, which was so different from her current life.

She started telling people about her mother working long hours to support her and her brothers and sister, and then about her years living at Door of Faith. The owners of the company where she worked not only offered to help, but they assisted Hilda in establishing a foundation to support the orphans.

A Slow Recovery

While Hilda began learning about setting up and running a foundation and finding donors and sponsors, DJ and Lynette were busy finding ways to move the home beyond daily survival. One step at a time, day by day, they helped stretch whatever resources were available to provide for the children’s needs.

They worked hard and got help on a project every now and then. Repairs were made and facilities were improved. Door of Faith was slowly being restored.

The Power of One Person At a Time

The Door of Faith Foundation started a program of arranging trips to the home. People in the communities around San Diego and up to Orange County (and even a couple of times from Texas) would travel together to visit the children and bring supplies. The personal connection helped people see the difference that Door of Faith was making in the lives of the children. It helped them see firsthand the needs of the home. And it allowed them to invest their time getting to know some of the children and to be a part of their lives.

As more people started to contribute, the Foundation was able to help Door of Faith build back up to the point where it could again house close to 100 children. In recent years, the number of children at the home has grown to nearly 120 at times. It is one of the few orphanages in the region that can provide good care for infants so they are regularly asked to accept more children. Currently Door of Faith has a construction project to build a new nursery. Information is updated here on their website to track the progress of the building.

What Can One Orphanage Do?

Door of Faith, desperately in need of supplies and assistance a few years ago, now gives back regularly to the community around the home. It’s not because they are overflowing with bounty. Far from it! They have ongoing needs that any family of 150 or so (children plus staff) would have.

They also have big needs that show up without a warning, like pump motors for wells, appliances for the kitchen, maintenance on vehicles, and newer vehicles to replace the dilapidated ones. They rely daily on God’s grace expressed through the donations of supplies, equipment, money, time, and talent of all the people who support the home.

But ongoing need doesn’t stop them. DJ says they take service to others very seriously at Door of Faith. Their top three core values are rooted in faith and flow from honoring God. They are family, education, and community service.

“An outcome of teaching our many kids to give back is they are much healthier emotionally,” DJ explains. “We believe people are designed to give and to serve others. Only through serving others is true joy found in this life.”

Door of Faith has developed programs to provide assistance to families in the area. They coordinate efforts to help repair or build homes. They collect school supplies for children who can’t afford them after collecting them for the dozens of children at the home who need them. The children of Door of Faith help wherever they can. In addition, DJ and Lynette are consultants to other orphanages in Baja and show them ways to organize their limited resources and provide the best care possible.

Where Can One Vision Lead?

As the Foundation gained support and helped re-establish Door of Faith, it became clear that the need in Baja was much, much greater. In 2001 Hilda and the board expanded the Foundation’s mission to assist more orphans in Baja by providing support to a growing number of orphanages. They renamed the Foundation Corazón de Vida, which means Heart of Life.

Right now they provide assistance to 14 homes, which care for more than 750 children. Through their child sponsorship program they have connected 140 children with sponsors. The sponsors provide monthly financial support and can send letters or visit the children they sponsor.

In order to expand their reach to more orphanages, Corazón de Vida has created the SOCAL50 Challenge. The goal of this program is to connect 50 businesses or other organizations with 50 orphanages as sponsors. Their long-term goal is to provide guidance and support to all the orphanages in Baja while teaching them how to become more self-sufficient by getting outside support.

Called To Serve In Different Ways

DJ and Lynette were called to spend a long season of their lives living and volunteering in Baja to make sure Door of Faith, and now other orphanages, are able to care for children in need. Hilda was called to spend her time guiding a foundation and taking the message of the orphans of Baja to her community. Business owners and community members she met were called to give financial donations and supplies. Some were also called to give their time volunteering at CDV’s offices, gathering and sorting donated supplies and goods, coordinating trips to orphanages, and traveling to the orphanages to do service projects and spend time with the children.

The level of commitment DJ and Lynette have made to this calling on their lives is stunning. Hilda puts so much time and energy into building up and maintaining support for an increasing number of orphans while she keeps a full-time job t’s exhausting just to imagine. Their dedication is so great it seems it would overshadow the smaller contributions of people who can’t give nearly so much. But that’s now what happens. Their work amplifies other people’s efforts and focuses on them.

In fact, what DJ and Lynette most often say they need is the ongoing support those smaller efforts provide. That can be contributions of food, donating to get uniforms or school supplies for one child, a group spending a week helping with a construction project, or someone donating a vehicle. These contributions are essential to the ongoing welfare of the children.

When Hilda spends her time letting more people know about the orphans, she shows them ways to contribute their time, their talent, or their treasure. Her effort becomes productive only as other people respond and give the portion they can.

Each person who helps improve the lives of the orphans of Baja makes an important choice. When they see the need, they don’t think, Somebody should do something. They ask, “How can I help?”

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For More Information

A synopsis of Hilda’s story is available on the web site for Corazón de Vida Foundation. The site has information about all the homes CDV currently supports, with lots of photos and even some audio greetings from the children.

You can read about DJ and Lynette on the web site for Door of Faith. You will find a little of their story plus contact information. While you’re they’re look at some of the photos of special events at the home.

Category Posted in Striving and Thriving, Zine 6: March 2008