Hope House has a home!

It has been 2 1/2 years of waiting on God, praying and planning for Hope House and we are now seeing the fruit! This week, we have been offered a house to use for Hope House. We also now have a civil association (that is like a corporation) that we can operate under here in Mexico.

Several weeks ago, we became aware that Centro Libertad (a men’s rehab center that we had worked with early on in our time here in Mexico) was no longer being run under their civil association since the director had just died (he was out in the streets doing drugs) and his wife had left and gone to Tijuana. Pati, who has been working with us to get Hope House established, is a board member for Centro Libertad and has given us free reign to use this civil association for not only Hope House, but also to bring Eliacim (men’s rehab center that Ricardo has been running) under it as well.

Joe also met with two pastors this week here in San Luis that God has been leading us to. Pastor Mariano and his wife Maria had this house that they used to have a feeding program in, but have since moved to different, more needy, area of the city. This house has been standing empty and they wanted it to be used for ministry. Maria’s desire was to see something just like Hope House and she is very excited about this. She has wanted to have sewing classes for women in that facility, but never was able to get that to happen. She even trained for a year in order to be able to teach sewing classes. They wired the ceiling of the main room with outlets where machines can be set up and plugged in. In the last couple of months, we have been investigating some different things about sewing classes, and a way to market the products, as being an avenue that God was leading us in as well. So they have generously offered the house to us for Hope House. They were hesitant because they felt they needed to get it ready before we took over, but we assured them that we would be happy to do the work needed to get it ready for habitation.

Joe also met with Pastor Sadoc Flores of Nuevas Generaciones, a church that we really like on the other side of San Luis. After sharing our vision with Pastor Sadoc, Joe found out that they have very much the same vision for helping women. They currently have a program to train women in sewing, as well as helping them body, soul and spirit. They do not have any facility for a live-in program, so he is very interested in participating in Hope House and working together to help the women in our city.

There is still much work to be done, both legally and physically, but we can see the beginnings now. There need to be changes to the constitution for Centro Libertad, but that is much less expensive and easier that starting from scratch (which is what we had been working on).

The house has one very large room to be used for dining and classes, a kitchen, two bathrooms, one bedroom and a storage room. And there are many projects to be done on the house before it can be livable. The very first of which is getting the electricity turned on. The electric box and pole need to be moved and replaced before the electric can be turned on. We also need to have walls built on both sides to secure the property. The bathrooms need shower stalls and a hot water tank. We need a stove and a refrigerator/freezer for the kitchen. The storage room needs a door and frame before it can be secured. There is tile for the bathrooms, but it needs to be laid. These are all small, specific projects that we need people and money to complete. If you have some time to spare this fall and would like to come and help us, just let us know.

We are hoping to be able to start having sewing classes in the building before the end of October (if we can get the electricity on). There are a number of ladies at La Sombra (Rich and Lori Barcelona’s church) that have begun to learn to sew and have been given sewing machines by a church in California, so we would like to continue to train them and specifically train them to produce something that is marketable to help provide income for them, as well as to eventually help support Hope House.

If there is a specific project that you would like to help with (either financially or physically), please let us know. We want as many of you to get involved as want to and you can really help Hope House come into reality in the next couple of months. We have several gals that would like to come and serve an internship here with us this winter, so we are looking forward to a very busy and productive winter, getting Hope House up and running, housing women and their children, as well as teen girls, helping them learn to live for Jesus and to be good mom’s and providers for their children.

Our hope is to establish an online company where we can sell items that the women/girls make in order to provide income for them, as well as Hope House. God has a lot of things in the works, and we are beginning to get glimpses of some of them. It is a very exciting time for us here in Mexico and we are also celebrating our 25^th wedding anniversary this month! So this October is turning out to be a hallmark in our lives and ministry.

Please let us know how you would like to be involved as we bring Hope House to fruition and begin to see the vision come into being. Don’t miss out on your opportunity to be personally involved in this exciting time!