15 years ago, I traveled to Honduras for the first time...

It was a short-term mission trip with my youth group.
We woke up early and got to the airport before the check-in desks were even open.

By lunchtime, we had landed in Honduras, and we loaded all of our luggage into the vehicles and drove about an hour and a half up and down mountains to visit an orphanage. 

That night we learned the kids' names, played soccer, and helped put some of them to bed. 

We spent two more days at this same orphanage working on some small projects. I remember that we were digging a ditch that would be used to install some new piping system.
(The truth is...I say that we were digging a ditch, but I absolutely spent more time playing with the kids than holding a shovel. I loved every moment with those kids.)

I will never forget the weight I felt on my chest the night that we said goodbye and packed to go to another part of the country. It absolutely broke my heart to have to drive away from the dozens of kids in who were living in that orphanage.

That night, I committed with all of the passion in my teenage heart, to spend my life, my resources, and my energy helping kids in their situation. This very first experience in Honduras broke me, and I knew that for me, this was a cause that would I would be dedicated to for the rest of my life. 

I went back to visit that specific orphanage at least once a year for the following six years, and as a teenager, I thought it was so cool that I had built relationships with these kids. I thought I must have been making a tremendous impact because I knew their names, that they knew mine, we called each other brother and sister, and they had our pictures from past trips on the walls above their bunk beds.

June 2006

Erica’s first trip to an orphanage in Honduras.

However, I learned something I was not expecting…

I learned that most of them had family who actually lived close by. 

Most of them would tell me about their parents, how they would go and visit them for a weekend or for a week during the holidays, and they told me all of the time how much they missed them.

This struck me as odd at the time, but it wasn't until much later that I really began to think about what this really meant.

Why was it that they lived in an orphanage when they had a family?

My first thought was, if they had family, then they must have been separated because their parents are unsafe or at the very least ridiculously unstable and as a result unable to take care of them…

But then why would they go and visit their parents and stay with them a week or so out of the year? They must not have been unsafe if they were safe enough to sleep in the same house for a week…

So what was really happening?

I began to realize as I met dozens of orphanages across Honduras that the vast majority of kids who are growing up in orphanages are not there because they don't have parents, but because orphanages typically provide quality education, consistent meals, a bed, new clothes and shoes, and other services that most families living in poverty cannot guarantee to their children because of their financial situation.

Poverty is a very real challenge, but it doesn’t automatically limit a child's future.

On the other hand, there is something that is deeply wounded within a child when they have to deal with the ongoing battle of the questions like…

• Did they ever want me?

• Is something wrong with me?

• Am I an unnecessary burden and will I always be an unnecessary burden?

And there are long-term questions that the adults who love these kids have to wrestle with, like…

• Who will they be able to look to as an example of what it means to be an adult or a parent?

• How will the velcro effect (only knowing short-term visitors or shift workers who would come in and out of their life) allow them to form healthy future relational attachments?

• Will the unawareness of how life in the community works outside the walls and the rules of the orphanage inhibit kids from acclimating to culture?

Growing up without a family takes a toll on a child's life in ways that quality education and new shoes just can't fix.

There is just no other type of support big enough to fill the gap that a family naturally fills.

So, what if we shifted our focus...

What if we shifted our focus from providing opportunities outside of the family to meet the needs of kids, to supporting families and helping them to become stable enough to care for their kids, not just one week out of the year, but all fifty-two weeks out of the year?

What if we supported families with training, therapy, and the resources that they need to stand on their own two feet and sustain their children?

What if we could focus on empowering families so that they can say “Welcome Home!” to their children who have been separated from them due to poverty?

What if we were able to provide ongoing support and follow-up care so that throughout the transition of having their kids reunified with them, they have a team to process and navigate each bump in the road until they are a sustainable family unit?

What if we could see families together?

We think that would be really REALLY cool because we believe that families belong together. 

Fifteen years ago, I would have told you (confidently) that I was going to build an orphanage to take care of orphans. I knew that solutions were needed to provide the best possible care for kids, I just didn’t know that there was a clear and better alternative solution.

My methodology is vastly different than what I first encountered, but I am still confident that kids need security, support, and love. 

The difference is that today I believe that by supporting families, we will be able to help more children than we ever imagined and ensure more holistic and meaningful care to these kids that gives them what they deeply need.

We have a lot more to say about this because we're really excited, so be prepared to be getting more emails from us! 

But for now, you can find out more about the Reintegration and Family Preservation programs that we are launching in Honduras by going HERE and decide, if you have not already, to become a monthly donor to support these families by donating HERE.