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.

You gave the first idea from How To Talk a try. You focused carefully on acknowledging your child’s feelings. You learned more about your child’s world, maybe you defused a couple of situations that were headed for tantrums or arguments, and you deepened your connection with your child. You felt great!

Then you tried the ways to engage cooperation. You described what you saw, you told your child what you expected, and you learned to summarize it all with a word – “Laundry!”

But there are still things you’re child won’t do, or things he or she keeps doing that aren’t allowed. What now?

Chapter 3 of How To Talk So Kids Will Listen And Listen So Kids Will Talk is titled “Alternatives to Punishment.” Don’t worry! This doesn’t mean, “Let them do whatever they want.” It means, “Teach personal responsibility.”

It’s a process that seems pretty straightforward, but it’s hard to implement when we’re in the habit of threatening or yelling or imposing restrictions. The good news – you still get to let ‘em know you’re mad.

But instead of going out of control yelling or criticizing, Faber and Mazlish ask us to be specific. “I’ve told you the rule about your shoes. Take them off before you walk on the carpet so it doesn’t get muddy. It’s covered with muddy shoeprints. I’m really upset about that!”

We’re still using description, but instead of describing a situation that needs cooperation, such as finishing a chore, we’re describing a problem the child has made. And we’re showing how it’s affecting other people. That’s part of teaching empathy.

Another level of the process is showing your child how to make amends, how to fix the problem. You can tell her, “The bucket and cleaning rags are in the laundry room. You have to clean up the wet mud with a damp rag, then spray on the carpet cleaner and follow the directions. The carpet cleaner is under the sink.”

For recurring situations, even after logical consequences are used, you can get more strict. “I’m storing your play shoes in the garage. You put them on and take them off out there. That way they won’t come in the house.”

One of their best recommendations in this chapter underscores the respect and investment in character development that makes Dr. Ginott’s approach stand out. When you’re baffled because what you’re trying isn’t working to enforce the rules, they recommend sitting down and brainstorming with your child. You’re identifying the situation as a problem, making it clear your child owns the responsibility for solving the problem, and helping come up with some different ideas to try. Your child decides which approach will work best and makes a commitment to do it.

This is sensible. This is doable. It’s so simple you’ll think there has to be a lot more to consequences that work. But there really isn’t, except in situations that are so severe they merit professional help. Even then, the professional defuses the immediate frustration and teaches you to use techniques like these to correct and shape and guide your child’s behavior towards compliance and obedience.

Natural and logical consequences teach our children a lot more than punishment does.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway.

© Copyright Kent M. Keith 1968, renewed 2001

Maybe it’s skepticism borne through experience that causes many employees to doubt their employer ever acts out of consideration or kindness.

Maybe it’s a sign of a pervasive entrepreneurial spirit that clients will tend to see improvements in your service as just a way to earn more money. Or maybe Kent Keith is right.

In the child care world, payroll is the biggest expense. You have to have enough teachers and caregivers to provide an interesting and fun day for the children and keep the group sizes reasonable. The expected pattern is to send people home when the number of children in attendance on any given days starts to drop. It’s a way to save money and increase profit, but it’s at the expense of low-wage people who need a predictable number of hours per week.

I didn’t like that. We only sent people home during low attendance times if they asked to leave. This was usually the days around major holidays. In fact, if I scheduled someone for a half-day because they asked to take the afternoon off, I would let them leave mid-morning if attendance was low. And I would pay them for the full time they had been scheduled to work. It seemed right to me. I regularly got confused looks when they looked at their paychecks and wondered – often sheepishly – if I forgot they left early.

Sometimes I confused my staff even more. During a period when someone was on vacation and another person would call in sick, or maybe when we transitioned from school year to summer and were waiting for part-time summer staff to be available, we had to rearrange schedules to cover all the groups. Some people came in earlier and took longer breaks, and some were willing to work a little overtime and help close at the end of the day.

After a pay period like that, I would look at actual payroll expense compared to my budget, based on every position being fully staffed. I took a portion of the payroll savings and paid it as bonus to the people who went out of their way to help us by adjusting their schedules and taking on extra responsibilities. Inevitably, staff who got bonuses were grateful, but they looked uncertain, like they were worried I made a mistake and might take the bonus away!

Our parent-clients and my friends would also be skeptical when we made improvements to the classrooms, equipment, playground, or programs. When we upgraded the playground, inevitably people assumed it was because that would help us get more clients. Actually, we stayed close to full with a waiting list in some groups at the time. We did it because we wanted the kids to have more fun and more variety.

When we added a music program, and when we instituted Spanish and art and drama classes for all the preschool groups, eyes would light up and people would suggest we were going to be able to charge more for having these “extras.” We explained that we were just offering things we were able to offer at a reasonable expense to us. We didn’t increase prices when we added those programs. We just improved the experience of the children in care.

Maybe it’s just an indication of my lack of entrepreneurial vision that I didn’t see the opportunity to save on staff costs as a way to make more money. I didn’t see a connection between adding new equipment and programs and hiking the rates, either. I was just trying to treat our employees well, and give the children in our care a warm, comfortable, safe, and happy place to be.

If you put quality and respect and consideration first and try to do good, people will assume you’re working some angle.

Do good anyway.

Barbara Winter is famous for her book Making a Living Without a Job. She loves to talk about the “Joyfully Jobless” life. It’s easy to hear words like that and be skeptical.
But I’ve had a very special opportunity to listen to Barbara on teleseminars and talk to her and exchange e-mail notes. She is genuine. She is warm and friendly. There’s no hype to her.

And she’s passionate about helping people find ways to work creatively or set up a few part-time businesses, or just find a way to make money doing something that is natural and comfortable for them. In a recent conversation she said she remembers a small business consultant giving a most excellent answer to the “What do you do?” question. The woman said, “You know how some people get all excited when they see a puppy? That’s how I feel about new businesses.”

Barbara said it perfectly describes how she feels. She’s never used that exact answer – out of respect for its author – but it explains so much about her.

There is a way to get to know her sincerity and curiosity and passion. She publishes a newsletter – the paper and ink kind. It contains vignettes, book reviews, wonderful pieces of conversations she has with creative thinkers, and powerful ideas for sparking your own imagination to find better ways to earn money.

The newsletter is called Winning Ways and can be ordered online. Subscribe and enjoy getting to know the entrepreneurs’ muse, Barbara Winter.

How much is it costing you to stay in a job you hate but think you can’t leave?

On the surface, you might think you’re stuck. You have a mortgage or rent payment, a car payment, and a pile of bills that take every bit of money you earn. There doesn’t seem to be much, if anything, left over at the end of the month.

When you think about leaving a frustrating or even soul-sucking job you worry that you won’t find a job that pays as much. You can’t see a way to make it on less money. You can’t see a way to save up money to pay off bills or build up a cushion to get through the transition.

When you’re looking at how much you spend each month, try adding a new category: Misery. Here’s how I would like you to see this. When we are unhappy with work and only stay for the level of salary, we tend to compensate for our misery with the money.

It can be things that seem small, like thinking I’m too stressed out by this job to go home and cook. If I’m wearing myself out for this salary, then we’re going to have take-out or eat out a lot.

It can be something bigger, like I spend so much time commuting for this high-paying I’m going to buy myself a really nice care.

It can be little choices that pile up. How many times do you think That’s kind of expensive, but I can afford it. And I’m working so hard I deserve it. Giving yourself permission to buy something nice you can really afford is fine. But buying things you can barely – or not really – afford to try to compensate for your unhappiness with your life gets very expensive quickly.

What other expenses are specific to that job? Do you eat out for lunch because it’s expected? Or do you eat out to treat yourself because it’s a nice break in a frustrating day? If you were happier at work, that expense might disappear. Think about it and decide if it goes in the “Misery” category.

Do you have to wear clothing that needs to be dry-cleaned? How much do you spend on the commute to and from work? Are you buying three-dollar coffee when you could brew your own coffee if you had a better schedule?

How much is it costing you to keep the high paying job that’s making you miserable? When you see all the ways you’re spending money to be able to keep the job, or to compensate for the misery of the job, you get a much truer picture of what you are earning.

Can you get a less expensive car? Would you be willing to live in a more modest home if it helped you have a life with more satisfaction, enjoyment, and peace?

When you look at all the ways you would be willing and able to pay less if you were in a more satisfying job, you get a much clearer idea of how much you need to earn.

You have a plan to change your life. At least you have the next couple of steps.

You look at what you’ve written down to move you forward. You know you want to get there. You remember being excited just thinking about taking these steps.

But now when you look at the steps on your To-Do List you keep putting them off. Some people say it’s resistance—maybe you’re anxious about changing, maybe the rut feels comfortable and keeps calling to you. But that doesn’t really fit.

What could be holding you back?

One possibility is that your steps don’t really seem like something you can do. Or at least they don’t seem like something you can put on a To-Do List and get done.

Are your steps too vague? It’s hard to accomplish something when you don’t know when you’re done.

Are your steps too big? It’s overwhelming to take on something when you know it’s complicated but you’re not sure where to begin or what it’ll take to finish.

Here’s an example. Jeremy has decided he has a passion for music and technology and wants to see if he’ll like working in a recording studio. On his To-Do List he wrote: “Look for part-time position (volunteer or paid) in a local recording studio.”

That’s not exactly an action step for a To-Do List. It’s almost a goal. Let’s rewrite it. Jeremy’s focused goal can be stated as: “Find a part-time position (volunteer or paid) in a local recording studio.” From that goal he gets to try out his interest and see if it fits his passions.

What are the action steps? They include finding local studios, finding out who makes decisions on hiring or internships or informal “hanging out and learning” relationships, finding out the best way to initiate contact, setting up time to meet or talk on the phone with the decision-maker, and so on.

Jeremy’s To-Do List will work better for him if he organizes it like this:

* Identify local recording studios – get addresses, phone numbers, web sites, e-mail addresses

* Call or e-mail one studio to gather information – part-time jobs, internships, opportunities for learning, who makes those decisions, how to contact?

* Follow-up with contacting decision-maker at first studio

* Use information learned to plan how to contact other studios if first one doesn’t have opportunities
* Contact next studio on the list

Each one of these steps is more Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-defined. This SMART system helps you turn long-term goals into short