For what it's worth, here it is...

Many of you may remember that I was getting ready to make a major announcement that would really change our lives. Now for the outcome...

As many of my readers know, we were very involved in an orphanage in Mexico. We had retained an attorney and were going through the process of adoption. I was hoping that the major announcement would have been that it went through and we had legally adopted the boy we sponsor.

As you have noticed, I have not blogged about the orphanage in quite sometime. But Patty and I have continued going down once a month, Patty sometimes twice a month. In the very beginning we were going with a group, but then the group stopped going down and I'm not going to get into all of the specifics about that at this time. At that time we had a meeting with the Director of the orphanage and he told us that we were welcome to come down anytime. So we continued going down and bringing food for the kitchen. We donated a freezer and Patty bought the groundskeeper a brand new weed eater. We were regular visitors to these kids and brought them love and attention that so so dearly accepted and gave back twofold. They have enough abandonment in their lives.

So fast forward to October now, after we had been going down for quite awhile. A bit prior to that my wife Patty received an email from a lady (I'm not going to mention her name) from Tucson about her disrupting a church service there or something to that effect. This was an out and out lie. This lady was not even there and where she received her information we do not know. We have had many problems with this lady. Not only us, but several others as well. The emails she sends out to people that ask her questions are very condescending. For whatever reason, she did not like us going down there and even told my old pastor some outright lies. My wife was hurt by this email but it was only the beginning.

While I was on my work trip in October she received an email from this lady in Tucson that said we could no longer go to the orphanage and would be turned away at the front gate. We then received an email from the Board of Directors saying the same. I replied with a formal letter by snail mail and email but have yet to receive a reply. This lady told me not to speak with the Director of the orphanage as it was out of his hands. Whatever that means. Shortly thereafter we received a letter from our boy, Jesus Guadalupe, that was sort of a goodbye/thank you for being my sponsor letter. It appeared to us that he was forced to write this. This, after we had just seen him and spent time with him and making sure that he wanted us to adopt him.

My wife was just devastated. She went into a deep depression. I became very angry that these people hurt my wife so badly. I can't even begin to describe what it did to her. We have been through a lot in our 21 years of marriage, but this has to take the cake for the worst. My wife was so dedicated to these kids and we did absolutely nothing wrong, and for them to just yank it out from under her is one of the most evil things they could do to her.

Now as to why this happened? I have some ideas, but cannot be totally sure. I think this lady in Tucson was upset that we were regular visitors in these kids lives and felt threatened to some degree. I also think that us wanting to adopt may have played a part in it also. Mexico has a lot of corruption. I question where our money was actually going each and every month. We were down there once, sometimes twice a month. Only recently had some improvements been made to the orphanage itself. There were concerns about where stuff was going if you sent something to the child you sponsored. Sometimes they would not even receive it.

God calls us to take care of the least of these. The poor, the widows, the orphans, the prisoners. We did this with love and dedication. It was taken away by some selfish people that get off on power trips or something. My wife is doing better and we have pretty much given up. She can't go through this emotional roller coaster any longer. I could definitely sue for defamation of character due to what has been said about my wife. But what would that do? In the end, it is those kids that will suffer. All we can do now is pray for them and pray for those that have wounded Patty so badly.

So instead of making a happy announcement about us adopting a child from the orphanage, I regret to inform you that we will no longer be going down. We were blessed tremendously by being able to love all of those kids and we will never forget them.

To those that think you have accomplished something by taking this away from us...you have accomplished something alright. You have wounded my wife more than you will ever realize and for that I hope you feel good. We have the Lord as our Peace and our Comfort. He alone will get us through this, and He has already begun.

Patty is doing much better, but it was tough for awhile there. I had never seen her in that condition. We will heal. We will move on. We are in a great place right now with loving people all around us.

I had to share this and get it off my chest. It is absolutely incredible to me how people can treat other people sometimes, but it's a cruel world sometimes. We can only try to make it better by spreading the love. So just spread the love folks. Do something nice for someone.

Peace!