Carmen's Story
When Carmen Beteta walked away from the security of convent life at age 19 to care
for two frightened, abandoned girls, she took little more than the clothes she wore
and a key to her parents empty house in Tegucigalpa. She had no money, she had no
job. She had no idea how she would survive or provide for the girls' daily needs.
Yet neither her resolve nor her belief that God would provide ever wavered.
"God will never leave me" she told church officials, breaking her commitment to
the convent where she was a pre-noviate. Haunted by the sadness in the two girls'
eyes, upset by the failure of the institutional church to provide needed help, Carmen
walked away into a new life, one she never could have imagined in her wildest dreams.
In her mind, she was merely obeying God's call, a call she had heard her entire
life.
One of Carmen's happiest childhood memories was learning that her mother was pregnant
with her baby brother. As a young child she was drawn to babies with an irresistible
urge to hold them. "My mother would give me a hard time," she laughs. "She said
I had to be older before I could hold them." Today Carmen is mom to more than 190
children at Hogar de Ninos Nazareth, a home for abandoned children in Comayagua,
Honduras.
Born in 1966 in Colon, Honduras, Carmen grew up in a strong Catholic home. Carmen's
father left Honduras and went to the U.S. when Carmen was in the second grade. Her
mother left the following year. Carmen and her two sisters were left in the care
of her grandmother. Grandmother had argued that the girls should stay in Honduras
at least until they finished 6th grade. They did not think the U.S. was a good place
for children. When they finished 6th grade, Grandma lobbied to keep the girls until
they finished colejio, or the equivalent of high school.
While her entire family attended church each week, Carmen displayed a religious
devotion that far exceeded that of anyone else in the family. "I went to church
more than my sisters," she recalls, "and I loved going to Bible studies." Carmen's
church activities always seemed to revolve around children. At age 16 the church
leaders asked her to teach a group of children between the ages of 9 and 11. With
such a focused involvement in church work, "I never had time for a boyfriend," she
recalls. Her sister used to tease her about that. "She'd tell me that I should take
my bed to church," laughs Carmen.
The absence of a social life did not concern Carmen. Her hopes for the future began
to take shape. She thought about going to remote places like Honduran mountains--places
other missionaries wouldn't even want to go. She always thought about working with
children. As her church activity increased, Carmen talked to her family about her
desire to enter a convent to devote her life to religious work.
Her single-minded determination frightened her parents, whose dreams for Carmen
included college and a good job. "My parents got scared. My dad said I should finish
school and become a teacher. He said I did not have to be locked up in a convent
to serve God. My mom said I was still young and would probably fall in love and
forget about the convent."
As a compromise, her parents agreed to let Carmen enter a convent after she finished
her studies to become a teacher. They kept hoping that something would happen to
change her mind. Carmen, however, was merely marking time. "I did not want a career,
but I followed my parents' wishes." While she was in school she actively participated
in a variety of religious youth groups. In addition, she would spend weekends at
the convent. When she graduated at the age of 18, she entered the convent.
She had wanted a convent that worked primarily with children. Unfortunately, the
only religious order that was dedicated to children were the Sonascas. This group
of nuns worked in orphanages. In order to join this order, one had to go away "for
a long time" to study, including some time in Italy. In addition, these nuns wore
long, black habits. She did not like the idea of having to wear a long black habit,
especially when working with children.
She joined the Franciscan order and was assigned to work with young people. She
had the opportunity to teach. She was in Tegucigalpa for about 5 months then went
to Comayagua where she was to go through the pre-noviate and noviate stages of her
induction into the religious life. She was happy in the convent. For her it was
a peaceful, fulfilling environment.
Her parents, however, were very upset about her decision to join the convent. They
broke off all communication with her. No phone calls and no letters. Just a long
painful silence.
"All they wanted was for me to go to the United States," Carmen recalls. "My mother
used to beg me not to go to the convent and said I would have children of my own
some day. I would respond that in the convent I could do evangelistic work and teach
children about Jesus." Carmen's convent knew about her family's disagreement. "The
Mother Superior advised me to write to my parents anyway, even if I didn't get an
answer, and to pray."
It was a standoff she'll never forget. "I kept writing letters and praying." One
day an envelope arrived for Carmen. Enclosed in this single envelope, Carmen's mother
and father had written separate letters. "My mother asked me to forgive her and
admitted they had been wrong." My father said he just wanted me to take care of
myself the same way he took care of me. He also said that he gave me his blessing.
And the blessing of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I have kept these
letters. They are among my most precious belongings. This was a battle that was
won by God," Carmen quietly observes.
Life with the Franciscans turned out to be quite disciplined. Success in this convent
depended heavily on one's maturity and desire to serve the Lord. Carmen advanced
through the training more quickly than some of her classmates. She earned the respect
and trust of the Mother Superior. "This was a real growing period. I felt so peaceful
because I had a lot of time to spend with the Lord." Her church activities rotated
among a variety of tasks. One day she might lead prayers in church. On another day
she might work with children.
On the day her life changed forever, she had been assigned to care for the "capilia,"
a small room adjacent to the main door, which was used for prayer by the nuns. The
nun assigned this duty also had the responsibility of opening the door whenever
someone knocked. Very early that morning, a woman knocked on the door and when Carmen
opened it, she asked for the Mother Superior. The Mother Superior was in El Salvador,
but her assistant responded to the woman. The woman had two young girls with her,
one 8 and the other 9 years of age. Their mother had died of cancer and the father
had quickly remarried. The stepmother had children of her own, older boys who appeared
to be a threat to the girls. The woman felt the girls were at risk of being abused
by the stepbrothers and had confronted the girls' father. She had insisted that
the girls' mother had asked her to put the girls in the care of the convent. "I
am a poor woman. I don't know what to do with these young girls. Please, can you
take them?"
The assistant simply said that the mission of this convent did not include taking
in children. She left. Carmen told the woman to come back later that day. She said
she would do what she could. She then talked to the assistant, but to no avail.
The convent was not going to take in these girls.
Carmen could not get the image of the girl’s faces out of her mind. She prayed for
guidance. Finally, she decided that "these girls need me more than this convent
does" and decided to leave. She informed the assistant that she was going to leave
the convent that very day and take the girls to care for them. "I think the Lord
would rather me be with these children. I can't picture this--we sit here talking
so peacefully while they are out there in such need. I want to get out of here."
The assistant was appalled. "You can't do that. You don't have permission. It's
illegal." The archbishop was also out of town, so he could not arbitrate. Carmen
asked to see the Mother Vicaria who also insisted that one couldn't just leave the
convent, just like that. However, Carmen said she was leaving that day, with or
without permission.
Carmen's determination was founded on God's promises to care for the orphans. Even
without knowing how she would care for them, Carmen believed God would provide for
her. "I used to read Isaiah 55:1 to my sister, "You who have no money, come buy
and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost." For Carmen, money
simply was not an issue.
Carmen left the convent and picked up the girls. "I didn't have one cent. We didn't
even have toothbrushes. I found this man I knew. When he saw me dressed differently,
he asked what happened. I told him the situation and he gave me two dollars. It
was enough money to catch a bus to Tegucigalpa where my parents owned a home. I
had a key." Another friend, however, crossed paths with the three and drove them
to Tegucigalpa.
As soon as she arrived in Tegucigalpa, she and the two girls, Maria Elena and Alba
Luz, joined the local church Carmen had attended prior to becoming a nun. Carmen
approached a priest who operated a school for children of affluent families. "I
told him I needed work, and he turned every color you can think of," she laughs.
He said, “You're going to be put in jail for this. Don't you know it's illegal to
have children like this if they are not your own?” This is so crazy! I told him,
he could say what he wanted, but I'd already gotten past the most difficult hurdle--a
release from my convent. If I go to jail, well that's no problem.
Afraid of the legal consequences, the priest nevertheless agreed to give Carmen
a class to teach. Back in Tegucigalpa, Carmen renewed her acquaintances with a group
of mothers of children she had cared for previously. "They were so happy I was with
these two girls instead of the convent." This small group helped Carmen lay the
groundwork to form Hogar de Ninos Nazareth. "We took the first step and God was
always with us," she affirms.
The mothers kept her so busy in the next few days that Carmen had no time to begin
teaching her class. "People were always inviting me to their homes. The mothers
helped get clothes for the girls. They told me about some children whose mother
had serious mental problems. They had been taken away from the mother for a while
and placed in a government home about an hour away from Tegucigalpa. When she got
better they had been returned to her. Her condition worsened and now the children
were living first with one neighbor and then another. They were about 2 years old,
a boy and a girl, and they were ill.
Carmen prayed for guidance. "An orphanage? Is this your will, God?" That night,
as had become their nightly ritual she and the two girls opened the Bible to read
a passage. They opened the Bible to Isaiah, Chapter 55, and there she found her
answer. "I told the lady that if they were in need I could take them too."
She immediately began to look into what it took to establish an orphanage. She learned
that she would need a committee of support, a board of directors, and a way to show
that she had financial backing. She gratefully accepted the aid of an attorney with
the congregation and that of another woman who had worked in projects assisting
children. With their help, Carmen formed a board of directors and moved to a small,
rented house outside of Tegucigalpa. She was there almost two months. During that
time the six-year old brother of Maria Elena and Alba Luz joined the group. Meanwhile,
a nun from the Franciscan order Carmen had just left offered her a house in Comayagua
that she had inherited. It was a large abandoned house that had enough property
for Carmen to grow vegetables. Carmen jumped at the chance, so then Carmen and her
children moved to Comayagua.
The house was in disrepair: windows without screens, no water, no electricity, and
it was infested with bats and rats. It had been damaged by a hurricane and had a
problem with the water supply from a small creek. Within three days of their arrival
in Comayagua, the family grew to 11. "I don't know who spread the word, but within
a week I had another six children," she laughs. "I was always happy to help them,
and the kids were happy because they had more friends to play with. But while we
had a safer place for them to live, we had only three beds in a house that was infested
with bats."
Carmen and the older girls scrubbed the house from top to bottom. Approximately
20 days later, American Air Force personnel learned she was there. On their off-duty
time, a number of soldiers volunteered their help. "We got a water tank. We received
so many canned goods and clothes." The Air Force volunteers brought damaged mattresses,
16 metal beds, and built some makeshift bunk beds. "They weren't very good," Carmen
recalls, "but they worked.". The Air Force volunteers also provided the manpower
to cook, clean, and perform numerous tasks needed at the home. It was help that
was sorely needed. Twenty-five days after her exit from the convent, Carmen was
single-handedly caring for 17 children.
"God provided for us," says Carmen. One day she found herself down to the last of
her food supplies. She did not know what she was going to do. So, she sat down with
the four oldest girls and told them that the following day they would have to go
with her to offer their services to a local farmer who was harvesting onions. The
farmer was hiring, there was plenty of work and they would work the day to get the
money they needed to buy food.
Later that day, a man came to the door, asking if they had a cart he could use.
He had promised God that if he had a good harvest he would donate food to E1 Hogar.
He had five 100-pound bags each of beans, corn and rice, as well as an assortment
of vegetables. "God opens the way, God provides," says Carmen with a smile.
Volunteers continued to miraculously enter Carmen's life just when she needed them.
Carlos Yuja, a very well respected local business man, who owned a hardware store,
started visiting the home every weekend after learning about the project from a
friend. He brought bread each week and played with the children. Carlos recruited
even more people to help. A year after the move to Comayagua, Carlos introduced
Wayne and Char Merz and Brian Kamstra to Carmen and the children.
Wayne, Char and Brian were in Honduras scouting locations where they might bring
American teenagers to work on service projects. When they arrived at Hogar de Ninos
Nazareth, the pieces all fell into place. In 1989, they brought the first group
of teenagers from Michigan and Ohio to work at the home. The work team found plenty
of home repairs and other tasks to keep them busy during their stay. They, however,
had bigger plans for their ministry. They wanted to build Carmen and the children
a permanent home.
Carmen petitioned the local government for some land. In 1990, three teams of teenagers
traveled to Honduras to build a new facility closer to Comayagua. Carmen could not
have been more excited about the development. Work continued every year through
efforts of numerous teenage work teams from the Christian Reformed Church. Today
there are two locations, a farm for the older boys, including classrooms, a wood
shop, welding shop and farm animals. The main complex, for all the girls and the
younger boys includes classrooms, play areas, laundry facilities, sewing room and
a room where the children can learn crafts. Now a gifted staff provides a warm,
loving, Christian atmosphere at both locations where the children can flourish.
"That is the biggest challenge," Carmen says -- making the children feel like they
are in a family rather than in a facility. She makes sure the children spend time
together as a family, such as the daily prayer time after dinner. Carmen and her
staff intentionally shower the children with affection they never would have experienced
had they not found their way to the home.
The army of volunteers remains as fiercely committed to Carmen's ministry as Carmen
herself was the day she walked away from the convent. A nonprofit organization was
formed for the children of Hogar de Ninos Nazareth with Wayne, Char and Brian as
founding members. Today that organization, All God's Children (AGC, Ltd.), offers
a sponsorship program to those who desire to provide on-going education, spiritual
development, food, clothing, and medical care for an individual child. Sponsors
get to know one of the children through letters, pictures, and the exchange of small
gifts. Sponsors may also participate in a work team, volunteering at the home and
meeting the child they sponsor.
Carmen accepts the flurry of activity around her ministry with gratitude, but also
with a deep sense of how God is keeping his promise to care for the orphans of the
world. While the number of children passing through her doors continues to grow,
Carmen focuses on the unique needs and individuality of each child. "I could write
a book about each one," she smiles. From her children Carmen has learned to "be
happy, and to fight because they are fighters, and to be courageous. Whatever I
give to them is nothing compared to what they give to me." For Carmen, the rewards
of her work are simple, but invaluable--"My biggest reward comes when a child is
given to me, when I get that first smile, when a baby says 'mom' for the first time."
When a six-year-old child walks up to her and says, "Mother, I love you." She never
would have imagined.