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Casa Timoteo

Orphanage in Sonora, Mexico

Paul Washer: This is a powerful message!

Willis Ehnle, one of a few missionary preachers from our denomination

Friday we took our girls to the airport for a trip home to Francesville. They plan to stay with grandma for 3 weeks and go to Bible School and camp this summer. We brought back a van load of much need food and supplies that were donated. We thank the Lord for providing our needs just in time!

Dentist Dick checks the childrens’ teeth

We were also blessed by a visit from some dentist friends who are caring for all our teeth and also brought more food and school supplies. We are so thankful for these partners who are critically important to the success of Timothy House!

Judy, with George, makes dental records for each child

Mike tries out our newly installed speed bag

Looking forward to this summer, Bob thought the boys might enjoy a punching bag. Maybe now they will hit it instead of me and each other!

Construction continues on the school and finishing touches on the main house.

We just finished putting the roof on the school

Here is the new patio and walkway for the rear laundry area

Here is the front porch and the sidewalk leading to the undergrowd water storage tank

Adela, our house parent, is suffering with her daughter, Gaby, as Gaby’s husband was sent to jail. Gaby’s husband Goyo, has no car, so he hitched a ride with a stranger who had a traffic accident. His leg was broken badly, but even worse than the injury and resulting surgery was Goyo getting blamed for the accident and sent to jail for several years. No one knows how many.

While Goyo and his family fought his injuries in the hospital, the driver of the car, in order to avoid any liability, said that Goyo was driving. In Mexico, if you are found to be at fault in an accident, they put you in jail until you pay all the damages. So they arrested Goyo and told him he needs to pay $30,000 - which would be about 10 years wages for him.

Gaby, Adela, her children and granddaughters

This story is particulary tragic because Gaby just had her 3rd child. They are a very poor family, but they are honest, hard-working people. Their children are beautiful and so precious to all of us. A simple ride with a stranger, something so common here, has turned into an un-ending nightmare.

Evidently the driver of the car had a friend in the court, and within days of the accident Goyo was found guilty. The case was closed, without Goyo ever being contacted or knowing what happened. Adela and Gaby both were in Hermosillo at the time, struggling to get proper care for Goyo. It is unbelievably difficult to get proper care in the hospitals here. These ladies literally had to sleep on the cement park benches outside of the hospital for weeks at a time while they worked around the clock to organize blood donations, appointments, etc. They went without food and other necessities just to get Goyo’s leg properly set. And then endured the horror of watching the police haul Goyo off to jail.

This was especially traumatic for Adela, who vividly remembers her husband being hauled off to jail when she was a young mother. She said, they were beating him and calling him every bad word in the book as they hauled him off.

They have asked friends and family for funds to hire a lawyer to try to undo this injustice, but it is very difficult to do and may take years. In the meantime, the family has no income and no way to pay rent or school expenses for the children, etc. Adela says that Gaby visits Goyo in prison and that Goyo’s leg is causing him problems. It is not healing right. Also that the other prisoners have beaten him and stolen his clothes.

I share this in order to ask you to pray for this family, for the resolution of this injustice, for Gaby and her children in this time of need.

Three months ago Ivan (age 25) came to us looking for peace with God. He had hit bottom in his life and was broken. He has since repented of his sins, and has dedicated his life to serve the Lord. It is amazing to see how the Holy Spirit is changing his life as a result of his faith in Christ.

Ivan (in the colorful striped shirt) brings his cousins to church services at Timothy House

Ivan shares how when he was 13, he began using drugs and living on the street. He lived in various places, a short time with his mother, then with his father in a different town, and then ended up with his grandmother. He was very rebellious as a teenager. With visible sorrow he confesses how his selfishness harmed others.

But now all that has changed. Now Ivan has a desire to try to right those wrongs, and share the love and peace that he has found by reading the Bible, praying, and trusting in Jesus Christ. Ivan recently told me,

“I used to dream in my sleep about getting high. Now I dream about sharing the gospel!”

We praise God for the wonderful conversion work He has performed in Ivan’s life.

We have discouraging days. And then there are days like today when one of the children says something that really is encouraging.

Today Edgar’s mother visited him for the first time in about 9 months. Edgar (age 13), his mother, and I were talking about whether he could go visit his mother this summer. I explained that children with experience living on the street can easily lose themselves to the street again even during a short visit. Carlos, for example, went home last summer supposedly for two weeks, but never came back.

Naturally the mother would like for Edgar to be able to visit her, and I know that Edgar also would like to see his old friends and stomping grounds again. I tried to explain why visits are risky, then I turned to Edgar and asked him what he thought.

He smiled and said, “Whatever you think is best.”

That was it. No complaining about wishing he could go, just trust and confidence that trump his own desires, and even those of his mother. I marveled at his “not my will but your will attitude.”

Edgar with his “Uncle Bob” a few months ago

We continue to praise the Lord for how He is working in the lives of the Timothy House children! Thank you for your prayers on their behalf.

Two acquaintances were recently killed in what appears to be violence related to the ongoing drug war. Both were shot the same day. One was the former chief of police who was set to become the chief again. The other was the boyfriend of our neighbor’s daughter. I have few details as people here are generally scared to talk about it.

We sure appreciate all the prayers offered for our safety and the continued protection for the ministry.

Wednesday morning while I was preparing a Bible lesson some Christian friends of ours arrived at our door with a very sick boy in their arms. They said, “we found this boy and felt led to try to help him. We have no way of helping but we thought of you, that you might be able to do something.”

Ishmael has gradually become paralyzed and is not getting enough nutrition.

This isn’t the first time that people assume that because we are Americans we will be able to find someone who will help in seemingly hopeless situations.

The couple explained that the boy’s father is not able to care for the boy because of the seizures that he gets. In hushed tones they tell me that they believe the attacks are caused by demons. They invited the man to hear a sermon and as soon as the pastor started to preach, the man threw himself on the pavement and bloodied his face.

Ishmael with his father whose face shows the injuries of a recent attack

While we discuss the boy’s condition and how God might be able to help, the boy’s father informs us that he feels an attack coming on in his gut. The couple grab the man and both begin to pray loudly. The man’s eyes fill with hatred and I can hear his teeth grinding above the prayers. I’m just standing there on the front porch dumb-founded, watching the Christian woman hold the limp child in one arm while trying to restrain this man with the other. Her husband is trying to restrain the man with both hands.

The man begins to growl like an animal, and the couple urges me to pray too. I sense real fear in their voices, so I grab one of the man’s wrists and we all three beg the Lord to intervene for this man in Jesus’ name. This is one of those rare times when I choose to pray with my eyes open. The wild man breaks away from us and storms off.

The Christian man looks relieved and thanks God that the attack was not severe. He says that the man sometimes tries to grab your neck and choke you. At this point I am not happy that they brought this man to my door. Thankfully Joy and the kids are not home, but what if he came back when they were?!

Next they suggest that I take this man and his son back to their home, so that I can know where they live. That way, I will be able to take them whatever help I am able to gather for the child. That immediately brings a vision to my mind of this man grabbing my neck with demonic force while I am trying to drive — and this frail child dying in the resulting accident.

I am able to talk the couple into taking the man back home and I follow them. What we discover is something that unfortunately we see too often here in Mexico, a family suffering from the sins of the fathers — as Exodus 34 says the “iniquity of the fathers is visited upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” We meet a grandmother who had 10 children. She said her husband was not a Christian man and none of her sons work. I did not count but there were at least 20 people sitting around her small home, most of them children. A couple were handicapped, including Ishmael.

They seem to think that evil spirits have attacked the boy and his father, because they both began having the seizures at the same time 3 years ago. Before then the boy was healthy. At this point I don’t know what, if anything, we will be able to do to help. I am still looking into what options are available.

In the mean time, you can pray for innocent Ishmael who is silently suffering for the sins of his fathers. And pray that the boys at Timothy House can grow up to be different — responsible, godly men with a good purpose.

Pictures often communicate more than words. Here are some recent photos of the children…

Click Here for the Complete Timothy House Photo Gallery

Some say that Mexico is a great place to be a child, but not so good a place to be an adult. Maybe they say that because of “Dia del Niño” or Day of the Child. The tradition is to give children gifts, like Christmas in the Spring. It is a pretty big deal and activities for the entire week, such as parties and piñatas, usually focus on the children. This year some friends of Timothy House brought down gifts for the our children.

Mike and Edgar with their gifts

Joel and Roberto

Miguel and Alexis

Work on our school building is continuing. Here are some pictures of the pouring of the cement floor.

Mike, Alexis, and Edgar help the masons mix concrete

The school building taking shape

Bob and Joy with their candidate class in Seattle, new ACTION missionaries to Africa, Mexico, Philippines, and Brazil

Joy and I spent the first week in May in Seattle Washington getting to know some wonderful people from Action International Ministries. We started Treasures in Heaven Ministries two years ago in order to process tax-deductible receipts for donations. Unfortunately since 9/11 the IRS has made running an international non-profit difficult to say the least. So we began looking for another solution that would allow us to spend our time serving rather than dealing with the IRS.

The Lord led us to Action International (ACTION), a ministry that specializes in rescuing children in crisis. Not only will ACTION be able to process donations and provide the accountability and credibility associated with that, they also can provide counsel based on their many years of experience working with children ministries around the world.

ACTION is a humble and Biblical organization. The offices and the people are very common and conservative - nothing fancy. They have mature leadership and the focus on Christ is obvious. Many of the staff are volunteers or are supported by individuals. They have developed useful processes and policies based on a long history of experience. ACTION has about 250 missionaries in some 25 countries. Their roots date back to missionaries in China before WWII.

We trust that our association with ACTION will be well received, but if anyone should have a question or concern, please do let us know. It will take some time to convert everything over, but we wanted to let you all know what to expect in the coming weeks.