Jesus’ own family has come in search of Him and are outside waiting. At this news, Christ raises two questions before the crowd: “Who is my mother? And who are my brethren?” (Matthew 12:48) Answering His own inquiry, Jesus says, “…Whosoever shall do the will of.
The home is filling up with people of all ages—from 2 years old to 85—who have found in the Home of Refuge a place to call their own. Read as we share with you some stories of the precious people God has chosen to bring.
The streets of Cusco filled during the months of June and July as large crowds gathered to celebrate pagan festival after pagan festival, led by the Catholic Church. I (Tony) could hardly navigate the streets, due to the masses, and my heart filled with sadness and frustration.
“Why this time around do you have it in your heart to build a home for the elderly? For over 20 years you have always worked to build homes for children; what happened to expand that vision?” That was the question asked.
I, Rosa, have just returned from another 2-week trip ministering in Peru, and Tony continues to remain there in order to finish the construction as soon as possible. The project is progressing smoothly and we are now approximately 3/4ths of the way through the chapel construction,.
Come with me as I give you a quick glimpse of the hungry believers gathered in Cusco.For a brief moment, allow my words to transport you into their amazing world, full of yearning for God’s Word and awe at His salvation. This is His Church—your new.
For years now, Rosa and I have focused our time, our energy, our finances, and our LIVES completely around ministry and missions. I can no longer count the times we have boarded planes, ridden in taxis overseas, purchased food.
Greetings from Peru, where we are officially under construction! Great things are happening in the Andes Mountains of Cardompata, Peru, and in Cusco. There is much to celebrate!
Cardompata is a mountainous community that four months ago had no church and no knowledge of the.
Here we are in February already. Amazing. With 2018 already in the making, we are very excited about this year and what the Lord has in store for us, and for you, and for Peru! I want.
(image) The year 2018 stands before us, each month like an open door waiting for us to walk into blessings and opportunities for expanding God’s kingdom. We hope you are as excited as we are! Each time we think about our.
…And all who were appointed for eternal life believed.” Acts 13:48
It feels like everywhere we turn in Peru, people are giving their lives to Christ! Rosa and I can only exclaim, “Glory to God” as we experience this incredible season.
(image) Our November trip.
“Fling wide the gates; open the ancient doors, and the great king will come in. Who is this great king? He is the Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, victorious in battle. Fling wide the gates; open the ancient doors, and the great king will come in.”.
Hearts in Peru continue to swing open wide to the gospel! We are experiencing a harvest everywhere we minister. Listen to the exciting ways that God is touching lives through the ministry of Home of Refuge.
(image) As of the writing of this newsletter,.
The greatest tool, the greatest weapon, the greatest power you have in your life is the Holy Spirit of LOVE, which is the power of God IN YOU. It is not by human might or power that anything of eternal.
This month Rosa and I stepped right into Acts 10…only the location was Cusco, Peru, and the “Cornelius” of our story is José—the man who first told us of the Inca descendants on Veronica Mountain. You may recall that our ministry to the indigenous people has.
God so loved the world that He gave us Jesus…so that ALL men could be saved, including the indigenous people of the Andes Mountains. This is my (Tony’s) desire: to bring these people to Christ. I am grateful to God for the door that He has opened to.
What does it take to bring the gospel of Jesus to the Inca descendants dwelling in the Andes Mountains? What does it take to change the futures of young boys living at the orphanage, and to support them through college to ensure that they have.
In the high altitude of Veronica Mountain, their tiny huts speckle the landscape. They live from day to day with no electricity or running water, their bodies beat down by the hardships of manual labor in the cold, wet climate of their agricultural setting. Their.
“You aren’t in your 20’s, you know!?!” one of our granddaughters said a few years back (which, of course, made us all laugh!) I, Tony, am now seventy-five years old and Rosa is sixty-nine. Certainly, there are days when we feel more aware.
Beautiful feet? Ours? Yes…or so Isaiah 52:7 declares: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation…” Isaiah 52:7 (NIV) To be quite honest, our feet felt more.
“Where is your brother…?” The Lord questioned Cain, who should have loved and cared about the well-being of his sibling. Cain’s response, less than honest or compassionate: “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”
“Am I my brother’s keeper?”
It’s an uncomfortable question for most..
It’s a noble resolution, especially for such a young boy; not a fleeting New Year’s resolution, but one that will take years to complete, provided he stays the course. This resolution comes from the heart of an 11-year-old with a vision for a better tomorrow.
Can you give me a hand this Christmas? Children are depending on it. Just like the children in Venezuela and Honduras needed it, so the children of Peru are waiting. For the past 20 years, it has been you—our friends and supporters—who have “given us a.
It is November of 2016. This time 20 years ago, Rosa and I were embarking on this journey of rescuing orphans. We had been clearing the Venezuelan land for two years and were dreaming of children one day playing on its soil. Did we have.
“And He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?’”…Matt. 8:25
In this verse, Jesus asks the question and reveals the answer: to the degree that we trust God, we experience His beautiful peace. When our faith is smallest, fear quickly tries to.
His mom is in prison. His dad wants nothing to do with him. At merely ten years old, Eduardo found himself alone, facing a world of danger, poverty and uncertainty, with no earthly defender or protector. Only hurt, fear, and rejection faithfully accompanied him wherever.
No matter where in life you apply it, perseverance pays off. We all know it, whether in finances, physical training, or any other discipline in life, faithfulness bears fruit! But I cannot identify many other areas in this life that yield more eternal and valuable fruit.
“All the world’s a stage,” Shakespeare said. I can agree. In the timeline of human history, we each have our entrance and our exit, and in between them is our brief moment on life’s stage—our “fleeting shadow” of days, as the Psalmist writes—during.
While we in America move towards the “dog days of summer”, in the Southern Hemisphere the children of Peru are bracing for their fast-approaching winter weather. For us, it is the season to pull out flip flops, summer sandals, and tank tops, but in Peru.
Doesn’t everything have a cost? When you really think about it, it is true, right? There is a price tag on everything in life, from goods advertised in stores all across this land to relationships we “invest in” with our time and resources. No matter what.
“Tony and Rosa, we are with you for the long haul.” Those words were spoken to us in 1997, nearly 20 years ago, during a time when we felt the vision consuming our hearts to rescue orphans and to love the u
From immense confusion and dysfunction, thirteen-year-old “Ever” has come to the orphanage. To give you some idea of his previous reality, I ask you to imagine something with me for a moment. I want you to picture driving through DENSE FOG. Not a fog that.
“…So he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” These words, taken from Luke 10:29, make up the question from the “expert in the law” who “wanted to justify himself” before Jesus, the Bible says. You know the rest of the story. Jesus goes on to describe.
It is hard to believe that we are looking at 2016, but HERE IT IS…and we are looking forward to what it holds for the children and for all whom the Lord will grant this ministry to impact through your giving and love this.
As we approach the Christmas season, grateful for the miraculous coming of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, I want to take a few moments to not only update you on the children at the orphanage in Peru, but to also encourage your heart and.
2015? Undoubtedly, the beginning of another year comes as a shock to some of you. “Where did the last year go?” you may be still wondering. For some of you, though, 2014 is happily behind you and the anticipation of a new year and a.
We are certainly not saved by them. In fact, if we do good works outside of Christ Jesus, they have no more value than that of a dirty rag. But, according to(image) Ephesians 2:10, IN CHRIST JESUS we have been created to do good.
Certainly you have heard the proverbial statement, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” With a similar goal in mind, we are excited to introduce a bit of “animal husbandry in agriculture” to.
We have much to praise God for and to share with you this month. I (Tony) have just returned from the Santa Maria Children’s Home, where the chicken farm is progressing very well, and we have purchased the second batch of 300 chicks! I.
He’s new at Santa Maria’s and very playful…this 7-year-old boy by the name of Marco Antonio. But for a mere seven years of living, Marco (image) Antonio has been exposed to a lot of wrong things. Perhaps that exposure helps to explain why.
(image) Grace and peace to you as you read this newsletter. This month, I write to you a bit differently…a bit more straightforward about the future of the children…a bit more urgent about our situation. Why? Because I feel convinced that what I am asking of you has eternal.
That God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself,” the Scripture describes, and He has given us this same “ministry of reconciliation.” This month I want to lift the veil, so to speak, and offer you a closer look at how this ministry of.
As the sun peers over the horizon and the world awakens to a new day, the race against time begins once more. For many in the West, the dawning of a new day signifies one more chance to “beat the clock,” to accomplish the things that.
Diego is 16 years old and has never lived with his parents. In fact, only during a 2-year period in his life did he even see his mother, after which he never saw her again. Nothing is known about Diego’s father. “Raised” by his godmother and mistreated.
“We’ll pay you 250 soles a week if you’ll come to work for us in Lima,” they promised Ricardo. It was a manufacturing company, and they were offering him an excellent job opportunity; or so he thought. What 16-year-old living in the Amazon and wanting.
If you could see “snapshots of life” from Ricardo, Jorge, and Dany before they came to the orphanage, you would understand the power of their answers when we “interviewed” them with a few questions in October. You see, before there was hope in.
Happy New Year from Home of Refuge! The calendar “page has turned” so to speak, and we are faced with a year of opportunity before us. For many people in our nation, the end of December is an evaluation time, while January and the ensuing months represent the “fresh start”.
I (Tony) give thanks to God for the opportunity to go to Peru recently, as it was a very timely and necessary trip for reasons that extend beyond our usual ministry there.
As we have mentioned in many newsletters, the director of the Santa Maria.
He was 26 years old—a simple man with a simple love for God—and he had a dream in his heart: to care for orphaned boys and give them a place to call home. How was he ever going to do that? He was not.
He was just a boy of four years when he first entered the Santa Maria Children’s Home. Scared and unfamiliar with what tomorrow would hold, young Will found refuge within the walls of the orphanage; refuge from the extreme poverty and hunger that had.
More than Many Sparrows
You matter. God hears your prayers. He sees you and is working on your behalf!
Ever just need to be reminded of how much God cares and just how powerful (and interested in you) He is? We all need to hear it, and too.
If your children were asked how they like living life in your household, you would hope that their answers reveal the many positive aspects you have dedicated yourself to provide them with, such as a loving and supportive atmosphere, fun-filled family moments.
God is big…and He is faithful. He has chosen to run His kingdom through prayer, and YOU have a voice before His throne of grace. He instructs you to cast your cares on Him, and to make your requests.
Having dedicated the last twenty years of our lives to rescuing and caring for orphans, it is very dear to our hearts when we ponder two of the greatest gifts that God has ever given: GRACE—our “unearned” salvation through Christ Jesus—and the Holy Spirit..
Luis, the director of Santa Maria Children’s Home (and my dear friend), finally saw the Lord Jesus face-to-face on August 6th, 2014. I can just imagine the homecoming it must have been as he looked into the eyes.
We are excited to share with you news from our most recent trip to Peru, which was an excellent time of impartation and blessing for the entire ministry at Santa Maria Children’s Home. Through your giving and God’s gracious supply, we were again able to fill up.
What a refreshing perspective it was! When asked, “How are you today?” the man at the Sam’s checkout line simply responded, “Infinitely better than I deserve.” And isn’t that the truth for all of us, really? Aren’t we ALL—no matter the difficulties we are facing,.
“On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.” (Matthew 2:11, NIV)
Christmas is nearly here!.
Thank You
Some of you can remember back when we first began in Venezuela 19 years ago. You remember the stories of the dump, the children we searched for and rescued from deplorable conditions, the mentally and physically handicapped children that we had taken in.
A Placa for Kenyi
Grace and peace to each of you reading this newsletter. We pray that it finds you well and experiencing the joy of the Lord. We are quite thankful, as we write, to be feeling a bit more “like ourselves” again…after both of us having returned last week.
God’s Unstoppable Faithfulness!
It just does not matter what the enemy tries to throw at us…God’s faithfulness is ever-present, and we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. A few years back we walked through some of our toughest ministry years, which.
“Can you give me a pair of shoes so I can go visit my mom in the hospital?” young Runaldo asked us as he looked up into our faces, scanning them for compassion. Looking down at his feet, our hearts were touched.
Keeping it Simple
It was one of those conversations that sticks with you, that you find yourself bringing back to mind again and again. “Just love God and be a blessing to people,” were the words the plumber said as he sat talking about how we often make.
We began in Venezuela many, many years ago because God opened our eyes to a need, and God touched our hearts with His love and zeal to meet that need. We worked in Venezuela for 14 years, rescuing children from horrifying circumstances and.
Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus
Each year in December as we celebrate the gift of Emmanuel and round the corner towards another New Year, we like to wish you more than just a “Happy” New Year. We pray it will be one of great revelation of Jesus, resulting in.
In the Heart of Every Child
During our January trip to Peru it happened again: the same thing that first happened in Venezuela years ago, and which continued to happen down through the years of ministering to the orphans in both Venezuela and Honduras. There I was, looking into the innocent.
In Honor of Our Son
This month, we share with you from hearts profoundly saddened by loss, and yet full of the HOPE that Christ offers us in times of deep grief. Forty-six years ago, the Lord chose to bless us with an adorable baby boy…child number three out of our precious.
Loving and Giving
It’s your testimony and my testimony. In fact, it’s the testimony of the entire human race: God did not withhold His most precious, because He saw we had a need. (Let that truth sink in for a moment)
He saw we had a need. He.
(image) 13-year-old Marcos did not grow up with a father to provide for him, guide him, give him love, and teach him how to become a man. Because of this lack of supervision and guidance, there were times when Marcos “disappeared” into the streets for days. Of course, school.
(image) Pressing on Towards the Goal
Juan de Dios had a rough beginning in life. While yet in his mother’s womb, Juan’s parents tried to sell him to a family living abroad. This, however, never materialized as they had hoped, and so Juan was born to parents.
“…the worth of something in terms of the amount of other things for which it can be exchanged…”
We, mankind, sure do seem to have things backwards. What God esteems, we seldom value, what He looks at we most times ignore, what He calls eternal we rarely give time to, and.
The Kingdom of God exists anywhere that God’s Word is obeyed and He is honored as the supreme King. This fantastic statement concerning the Kingdom of God succinctly iterates a simple truth, and we are witnessing His kingdom at work in Peru, right within the walls of the.
“Jesus answered them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.’” (Matt. 5:31)
Our society would call them healthy individuals. You know the folks I mean…the people who go through life with relatively positive memories of their childhood years. They enter adulthood with.
Imagine the scene…children of all ages and sizes sleeping soundly in warm beds, with the sun breaking over the horizon as a new day dawns, and the delicious aroma of baked bread filling the air. That is how each day begins at the Santa.
As we look forward to this new year and jump in with both feet, I believe the promises of God for 2012—that He will continue to allow us the blessing of feeding the hungry, providing for the poor, loving the orphans, and sharing His.
(image) It is not an overnight change, to be sure. In fact, the process is often long and requires much patience, but love IS patient…and it perseveres. And so, at the Santa Maria Children’s Home, they are patiently loving Eber and his siblings while they undergo the.
(image)
In John 4:34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” I start this month’s newsletter by praying that the will of God be done in everyone that reads this newsletter and.
(image) I Wouldn’t Trade it for Anything in the World
“The tickets are too expensive,” I told Rosa as she searched online for air travel to and from Peru this past month. “The children need our help desperately, but how can we supply for them if.
(image) Giving Them a Taste of God
We have all heard the phrase, usually used to describe an unpleasant person or event: “that left a bad taste in my mouth.” For young Aron and his Peruvian family, life up to this point has certainly left an unfortunate aftertaste. .
How Your Giving is Saving Lives
The Santa Maria Children’s Home is literally being sustained month to month by your giving. It is hard to verbalize just how critical your financial support has been to them, but perhaps in this newsletter we can convey just a few of.
In My Father’s House
Have you ever paused all activity and forced your thoughts to settle upon this single meditation: “What would it be like to have no place to call home?” What would it really be like if you had no home…anywhere, not even a relative or friend’s home from.
With Christmas just around the corner, we have come to the time of year when there is a lot of focus on gifts. And deep inside, something feels right whenever I give—whether that is a physical gift I have been blessed enough to purchase, or any.
My heart is very grateful for the incredible joy that Tony and I were able to bring to the children in Peru this month, thanks to your generous support. With each visit, the Lord enables us to provide the Santa Maria Orphanage with much needed food and supplies…and this.
“I wanna be Your lover so show me how to go lower,
For in the depths I will find YOU
Where You’re serving my brother.”
Misty Edwards, from the song “Servant of All”
Where would Jesus be found today if He again walked our earth.
The Children Rejoice
I am very thankful to all of you for your rich supply of finances for the children in Peru. After we shared with you the children’s need for shoes, we watched God’s faithfulness again through your response. I am happy to say that we were able to take.
Summer is in full swing in the United States…a time usually associated with opportunities for relaxing in the sunshine, playing in the water, and family vacations. Do you recall summers gone by while children played barefooted in the sprinklers, or the rain, or just ran around.
I want you to think for a moment of the hopeful eyes of a young child who awakens the morning of his birthday, fully confident of a promised party and birthday presents. Such elation fills the heart! Such anticipation of good! Though the sun’s rays are merely peeking.
Tony and Rosa are very faithful, reliable, honest people. They are the hardest workers we have ever seen; their leadership qualities have encouraged many people to help others. Whatever Tony and Rosa decide to do, they do with excellence and perseverance. They are great people and we are privileged to know them.
Ed and Mona Shirley
Mountain High Christian Center
Conifer, Co.
Home of Refuge International, Inc.
info@homeofrefuge.org
Phone: (239) 290-9313
P. O. 68
Buckhead, GA 30625
