Renie is a woman who has worked in Baja Mexico for over twenty years. Please take a moment to read her words that were written in an email to me a few weeks ago. They are touching and quite challenging to read. Renie has given me permission to share excerpts of this with you.

Hi Ryan,
My husband Ted and I have lived in the Ensenada area for almost 20 years. We moved to Maneadero about 16 years ago after working under a Mexican Pastor for 4 years.
I had felt led to work with sick children for most of my Christain life. My husband Ted and I prepared ourselves to serve by finishing our degrees for service in the mission field. Ted who had been a career military man for 20 years and then finished a teaching degree at Western Baptist College. I finished my RN after working as a Practical Nurse for almost 20 years.
Our first 4 years in Mexico we were involved in learning the language, the culture and the ways God would lead us to help.
We are each almost 65 years old.

We are ready to think about letting those younger and more physically able to take over, but there does not seem to be anyone who has a heart to lay down their lives for the most helpless of this society, profoundly handicapped and abandoned children.

The elderly and the handicapped are the forgotten ones in this society. When I first came to Mexico I was driving around the streets of Ensenada. I encountered an old woman sitting in the median of a busy street . She was a double amputee. She sat on the ground next to a battered wheelchair in sweltering heat, with a cup she extended to cars as they passed by. I was so shocked by this I stopped, picked up the old woman put her and her wheelchair in my car and drove her to her home, ( she directed me). When I got her to her home, her,”family” were not pleased with me. They had placed her there. It was her duty to “earn” her way in the family by begging. The elderly and the handicapped are not valued here. They are often considered a burden to the family, and their only value is how they can be exploited.
There is a place in Tijuana called El Refugio. At any time it houses from 60 to 100 elderly and adult handicapped whose family members have abandoned them. There are a few dedicated souls who work night and day trying to take care of a never ending stream of unfortunate elders and adult handicapped who suffer from dementia, malnutrition, abuse and exposure to the elements.They are turned out in the streets by their own families. The floors and the walls are filthy, the residents sleep on urine soaked mattresses on the floor, and the stench is unbearable…

…Most of the women that help us care for the children we serve are Christians. They are dedicated and selfless. They come to work during the rainy season when they have to slog thru mud up to their knees to get here. They come even when we cannot pay them for weeks because we have not received donations. That kind of dedication and value system is what they have learned in their local churches and speaks highly of the local pastors and what they are teaching…

Who will answer the call?