If you’ve visited our website recently, you’ve seen many faces smiling back at you from the homepage. You may have wondered about the stories behind those faces. Read on to learn more.
Four Boys in Their Room
The new Residential Building has individual bedrooms, each with a ½ bath. This room belongs to four boys because they are friends and want to be together. At Tree of Life, some of the youth like their own room and most like to have one roommate.
The furniture pictured is made at the Rescue Mission of El Paso, Texas, in their highly professional carpentry factory of Oak Wood. The children at Tree of Life have their own clothes and possessions, so we provide them with wardrobes, chests of drawers and desks with wooden oak chairs to make it more like a home — hence, helping the residents have a sense of dignity, ownership, self respect and worth.
Carmen Walker with Tarahumara Indian Girl
Most people who have been to Juarez, Mexico have seen the Indian Children begging or selling gum or trinkets in the streets and on the bridges to El Paso. They are usually accompanied by an adult woman who is not necessarily their mother.
The Child Protective Services of Juarez asked us if Tree of Life (Arbol de Vida) would take care of these children if they had the police take them off the streets. After we asked several questions, the CPS assured us that they will find the mother and if possible the father, put them through rehabilitation if necessary, give them parenting classes and vocational training; and if the parents did not comply, they will keep the children with us until they do. Tree of Life (Arbol de Vida) now takes care of the Tarahumara children taken off the streets by the police.
Leaders
We started a Leadership Training Program. We initially trained those that wanted to help, showed a desire to improve, accepted responsibility and agreed to be a good example. As the program developed, the results were wonderful. It gives Carmen and John more time to improve things, because the Leaders are helping the other children with their problems in a loving way; and because the Leaders understand those problems having experienced great difficulties similarly, they are very effective. The Leaders also take care of many of the responsibilities. We think this great, and there are other children that want to become Leaders. It additionally helps prepare them for the responsibilities of employment. Tony, (pictured on the top in the middle), is now on the payroll and has his mother covered with medical insurance through the Mexican Social Security System – he is very proud of that. Thank you Jesus.
Teenage Girls Praying in the Morning before School
Most of the children at Tree of Life (Arbol de Vida) like to voluntarily pray, read the Bible, sing songs together and attend services in our Church. They find comfort, solace and healing from the things they have innocently endured.
Dr. Cano, M.D. is the Nutritionist at Tree of Life
Dr. Guillermo Cano de los Rios, M.D., Professor of Nutrition and Obesity at the University of Juarez, oversees the preparation of fruit and vegetable salads. Many of the children that come to us are malnourished or worse. Tree of Life considers it one of our major obligations to have plenty of food for healthy, nourishing meals and snacks. Dr. Cano is our nutritionist and instructs the food preparers, purchasers, and children on good nutrition and its benefits.
Children in The Tree
These three siblings are typical of the children we help. They were brought to us by the Juarez Police Department because they were left in their house alone with no food and it was dirty. We worked to get them into the public schools. And made sure they had plenty of food, clothes, new shoes, a nice room, love and security. After about four months, the Child Protective Services returned them to their parents.
We have helped more than 11,000 children in The Tree since we started: 9,000 children returned to Mexico by the U.S. Immigration Service (at a building the City of Juarez loaned us), and more than 2,000 in our Home facility.
Children and the New Residential Building
When we first started and we had just a few children, Tree of Life was like a Home and family for those children. John, Carmen and their family, together with the children from Child Protective Services, cooked, ate, cleaned, slept, prayed, played, cried, laughed, went shopping and went to school together.
As the number of children at Tree of Life grew, the family atmosphere declined. We had to house more children together in large dormitory type rooms; had a lot more children needing to use the same bathroom facilities; needed more people that did not live with us to watch and care for the children; and lost the intimacy that a family should have.
This decline in value grieved our spirit. And we knew that our Lord Jesus wanted a return to the family atmosphere.
The design of this building was on our heart. We knew that we could still help a lot of children simultaneously with the right facilities and still be like a large family.
John roughly drew it in pencil many times, until he met a retired architect, Bob Fouts. Bob did buildings for the University of Texas at El Paso and El Paso County. He did not renew his license when he retired because he did not want to do any more.
But, Bob loved Jesus and when he came to visit Tree of Life, he became involved. John went over to his house in El Paso several times. From his balcony, you can see Tree of Life.
Bob became inspired. You can see the results.
All of the children in this photo lived in the old facilities. We walked over to the new one for this photo. Within a couple of months, these children were living with us again in our new residential building and everybody had great joy.
Psalm 126: 2&3
Then our mouth was filled with laughter
And our tongue with singing.
Then they said among the nations,
The Lord has done great things for them.
The Lord has done great things for us.
And we are glad.