Here’s the second story from our Mexico trip, also found on the WTVM web site:

Second entry: Building the orphanage

I hope you enjoyed the orphanage story. It’s always uplifting to see happy children.  Being a dad, it brightens my day to see my daughter smile. It was a lot like that for me in Reynosa.

There are so many children there that need the love and attention of a parent.  When they can’t get that, they need someone else to turn to.  That’s one reason why Harvest Evangelism is doing so much to help those kids.

As you learned from the story, Elma Fonseca began helping Reynosa children more than 20 years ago. These children were living around garbage dumps, or other unfit places. A lot of the little girls had been sold into prostitution.  Just last year, the orphanage had a pregnant nine-year-old girl turn up. It’s a hard world for them on the street down there.

Mrs. Elma met Pastor Rick a few years ago, and the two hit it off.  Now the ministry is doing what it can to help her out. She founded Casa Hogar Mami orphanage in an old blue building.

The building is old, and when it rains, it gets wet inside. There are piles of stuff sitting on the ground in the back, and it gets really hot in the summer. To emphasize their mission, there’s a mural of Jesus reaching out to the children on the very back wall.

The original orphanage was very run down. We had to break the padlock to get inside the gate, but when we walked in, there was so much trash around. It had been emptied since they’re in a new building, but some stuff was still scattered about.

Walking halfway through the house, there’s a washroom with blue walls. It really grabbed my heart because on this wall were the hand prints of the children who had stayed there. The next room over was the kitchen, and the tile floor looked like a work of art. As it turns out, every tile is a different color or pattern because they had to use whatever materials they could get their hands on.

Mrs. Elma and Harvest Evangelism wanted to buy the old orphanage, but the owners learned about all the support they were getting from the United States.  They figured they could get more money from the Americans, so they raised the price of the house. Mrs. Elma and the group decided it was too much, so they looked for another place.

It was just a few streets away, but they found this old vacant lot. It was basically a garbage heap, but they bought it for a fair price. They began building the new orphanage, and it truly is a sight to behold. It’s like a mansion compared to what they were living in.

Over the last couple of years, about 10 churches from around Alabama have chipped in with labor and money.  From what I’ve been told, First Presbyterian in Opelika is a major donor for this orphanage. I know they’re very thankful to all the people who help out.

The children are especially grateful. There are about 56 little girls living in the orphanage. When we got there that Tuesday morning, their eyes lit up, and they were hugging everyone. Once we all got settled in, they lined up and sang praise music in Spanish. They were so much fun to watch and listen to.

They’re hoping to add another floor to the orphanage. That will allow them to take in more boys. There is a day care on the bottom floor, and the toddlers were amazed at how many people were in there. Paulie leaned over the wall to film them, and one little boy grinned and started pointing at his camera.

The men from Harvest Evangelism began tearing down other walls. They were making matching classrooms for the day care, and it didn’t take them long to plow through.  One thing I noticed about the day care area is it was air conditioned, and there were murals all over the walls.

The kids sleep upstairs, and there are homemade bunk beds everywhere. The bathrooms had hanging sinks on the wall, but the men tore soon tore them down and installed new sinks on top of cabinets.  They’ve made a lot of improvements there.

It wasn’t long before it was lunch. Mrs. Elma and some of the other ladies fixed us an authentic Mexican meal. We had great lemonade, and I think we ate a few too many tacos.

A lot of the people there handed out candy to the kids, and some blew bubbles and played games. It was hard to leave that place, but I’m very thankful Paulie and I got to experience it. As I’ve mentioned before, it really opened up a different way of thinking for me. You see the poverty and hear about these people on the news, but it’s completely different when you see it in front of you.

It was an awesome trip for us, and I hope you enjoyed seeing it and reading a little about it. I also hope one day we can go back to see the progress. It’s humbling to know we have so many people from west Georgia and east Alabama that care enough to look after those less fortunate. We are blessed, and we can be a blessing.

I was asked to post a journal on our station web site about my recent trip to Mexico.  You can find the first part here, but I’ll also include the text below.  It’s lengthy, but I hope you enjoy it.

First entry: Handing out shoes

Our trip to Reynosa, Mexico, began in May. Lyndsay Copeland, a freshman at the University of Georgia, was a member of the track team. However, she decided to devote her gifts elsewhere after working for years with Harvest Evangelism.

After many prayers, she decided to run from Athens, Georgia, to Opelika. Pastor Rick Hagans, the founder of Harvest Evangelism, has become well-known for walking across entire states raising shoe donations for the needy. Lyndsay decided to take that mission to the next level, and she ran 200 miles to raise shoes for people in Mexico and India.

She expected to collect about 400 pairs when Pastor Rick contacted Soles4Souls.  They are a non-profit organization, and their ministry is to send shoes worldwide. Major shoe companies donate to Soles4Souls, and they also accept donations from the public.

They immediately said they would donate shoes for Lyndsay’s cause. When Lyndsay made the final leg of her journey into Opelika, Soles4Souls and Harvest Evangelism were waiting at the finish line with news of more than 40,000 pairs of shoes.

We were the only media outlet there that day, and Pastor Rick asked me if we wanted to tag along to Mexico in mid-July. They would be there for two weeks, and we could join them for a few days. I knew it would be a special story, so I told them I’d ask our news director.

My photographer, Paul Therrien, and I were given the green light, and we started making plans. We decided to join them in McAllen, Texas, on July 16. We had a delay in Houston, and my bags (as usual) didn’t get to town until the next flight that evening.

Pastor Rick picked us up at the McAllen airport on a very rainy night.  He told us the average rainfall for that city is about 13 inches per year.  Most of it fell that morning.

We went to the camp where the rest of the group was staying. There were people from His Place, Hosanna Home and Hope’s Inn, all of which fall under Harvest Evangelism in east Alabama.  There were also people from New York, Tennessee, Florida and even a gal from Australia.  It was truly a worldwide group.

We all stayed at a school for missionaries.  They come there to learn Spanish as Mexico is less than 10 miles from the camp. Monday night was dinner and listening to the group as they sang praise songs and gave personal testimonies.

We got up Tuesday morning, and as soon as we got ready, a big tractor trailer was sitting in the camp. It was loaded with 15,000 pairs of shoes from Soles4Souls and a couple of other ministries. Everyone gathered around and started unloading it.

It was an awesome sight to watch as the walkways around the chapel began filling up with hundreds of boxes. Paulie ran around getting shots of everyone in action, and it wasn’t too long before the truck was empty.  I imagine there were about 80 people or so at the camp, so there were plenty of helping hands. On a side note, they were expecting another 100 or so the following week.

After all the shoes were unloaded, they began sorting through about 300 pairs to take into Reynosa. Paulie and I jumped in the truck with Roy, a retired pipe fitter, and Ruth, a college student from Dallas and our interpreter.

We were the first to head to Reynosa.  I was a little nervous about getting across the border. I’ve been out of the country before, but never across the southern border. Even during my three-year stay in Texas in the Air Force, I never visited.

We crossed the Rio Grande, and got the okay to pass through to Reynosa. As soon as you cross the border, it’s different as night and day. The first things we saw were political posters everywhere. If you think signs on the side of the road are bad here, it’s equally cluttered there.

Roy pointed out many men driving altered carts pulled by horses and burros. They are the city’s garbage collectors. They earn about $4.00 a day, and we never saw an empty cart.

The first stop we made was at an orphanage, but I’ll write about that more after that story airs on Tuesday. After we spent some time there, we went to an area called “the canal.” It’s a six-mile stretch of dirt road that will completely shatter your heart.

The canal is basically a sewage canal.  There are houses all along this road, but in American standards, you wouldn’t think of them as homes. They are tiny shacks that resemble old wooden sheds left for dead in an old country field. The difference is there are many of them next to one another, and people live in them.

When it rains on these houses, there’s no way to stop the water from coming in. Kids climb out of soaked beds in the morning and immediately put their feet in mud. They build these houses with any piece of scrap wood they can find.

We passed by one house made completely out of wooden shipping pallets. Many had billboard materials wrapped around them in an effort to keep the weather out. Some were made of particle board and rotten wood.

Harvest Evangelism had built about 50 new houses in the canal. You could easily tell them from the rest as they had fresh paint and tin roofs. They consult preachers in the community to determine who will get the next house. They want to build everyone a new home, but it takes much time and money. They can maybe build one or two houses each trip, and they cost about $3,000 each. Compare that cost with the fact these residents only make about $2,000 a year, and you can imagine their desire to have one.

There is no running water, no sewage and no electricity along the canal. There are outhouses scattered throughout the community, and they have huge drums full of rain water. One thing that surprised us is they have stores here.  They are built much like the houses, and you can buy a few things.

The guys from Harvest Evangelism bring portable trampolines for the kids to play on. I counted at least 15 on it at once. While other kids bounce, workers hand out candy. Some start unloading shoes from the van, and others paint a new house orange and blue. After all, this is an Auburn ministry.

I got a chance to look at the kids as they ran along rocks, dirt and wood. The majority of them were barefoot, and the bottoms of their feet were as hard as can be. They’ve never known the comfort of a shoe, and that’s when the purpose of this mission trip really sunk in.

Pastor Rick said they come down to Reynosa several times a year. They make a special Christmas trip and bring shoes and toys.  He told me they toss the toys aside just to get a pair of shoes.

After all the shoes had been loaded onto a central trailer, Pastor Rick and Ruth stood on the back and preached to hundreds of people. He told them that they brought the shoes because Jesus Christ is in them. He wanted them to know they were there to help them out because they were commanded to go out and serve the world.

After the small sermon and prayer, they started handing out the shoes. Many of the people from our area didn’t speak Spanish, so it was a sight as they walked around trying to match people up with their sizes. Kids were sitting on the dirt road trying on shoes with the happiest looks on their faces. They’ve never had anything as nice as a new pair of shoes.

The sky grew cloudy, and we had to leave before the road turned to mud. As we left the canal and made our way back to Texas, I had a lot of time to think. This is poverty like I’ve never seen before. There are constant debates over illegal immigration, and it never hit me until this trip as to why they try to come into the United States. No matter which side of the fence you sit on in that debate, there’s no denying how good we have it in America.

It was one of the most eye-opening experiences I’ve had. I thank Harvest Evangelism and our management here at WTVM for letting us go along on this trip. It was one I won’t soon forget.

This is the first part of our trip to Reynosa. As I mentioned earlier, we’ll bring you the final story about an orphanage and how it’s changed because of people in our area. I’ll give you a personal look in this journal as well.

I hope you’ll check back here Wednesday, and I hope you’ll also check out our second Mexico feature Tuesday, July 31, at 11:00 p.m. EDT.

I hit 31 today.  I can’t believe I’m fully into my 30s now.  But my daughter’s present to me this morning made it all worth while. She’s been trying to make sentences for the longest time (she’s now 17 months old), and she nailed it on my birthday.

She looks up and says, “I love you!”

How can it get any better?  The best present by far!

Nah, I’m not going bald. But you should check out this clip from “Whose Line Is It Anyway.”

The first of my three sweeps pieces runs tonight at 10:00 CDT.  Pray I can get in there and get it edited with no problems this afternoon.  Our bureau’s transmitter (or repeater tower) crashed last night, so hopefully they’ll get it fixed today.  I don’t feel like driving to Columbus.