By Rick R. Redalen, M.D., Maverick Doctor
Recently we are hearing about all the families that are separated at our border and we feel so badly for them. Rightfully so. It is always sad when families are broken up. The thing to remember is we look at them as having the same values as ours and living life as Americans do. That is simply not true.
I am a Christian missionary, both medical and evangelical. I have traveled extensively through Africa, South America, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. I would like to explain what life is like there.
I photographed four babies in bassinets at the Casa Para Ninos Aleluya that had been found in garbage cans in only one day in Guatemala City, Guatemala.
Casa Para Ninos Aleluya means “Hallelujah home for kids.” Casa Aleluya is a home for children from newborn to college age who have been rescued from abusive and unsafe living situations. Many children are rescued off the streets of Guatemala where often times they are abused and have to beg, work, and scavenge to survive. Since it was founded in 1989 by Pastor Mike and Dottie Clark, Casa Aleluya has rescued over 5,700 boys and girls. The children at Casa Aleluya are not only given a safe place to live, but they are each provided with three warm meals a day, medical attention, education, and most importantly, hope and freedom in learning the gospel and experiencing the love of Jesus Christ.
We Americans cannot picture this. We do not see it daily. A professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota, one of my residents who worked for months in Honduras, told me the hospital where he worked had broken bottles embedded in cement along the tall walls surrounding the hospital. The purpose was to keep people from dropping their babies and children over the walls so the hospital would assume responsibility for caring and feeding them.
Please remember I am telling you about the facts of life in third world countries. It is not the American Border Patrol or ICE separating these children from their parents. It is the parents separating themselves from their children.
Dr. Rick is a retired American physician, entrepreneur and philanthropist who has done mission work around the country and around the world. He is on a mission to improve healthcare in America. Visit www.maverickdoctor.com or email him at [email protected].
