We all have heroes. My parents are and were my heroes. The Virgin Mary, Mother Teresa, St. Francis, and St. Clare of Assisi. And, when I was a young boy, Cantinflas. Cantinflas was a Mexican comedian, and my brother and I loved his movies (on the rare occasions that we went to movies), he was the source of endless laughter.

When I was about eight years old, my father was telling us about Cantinflas - about the kind of person he really was. He told us about a hospital he built for the poor people in Mexico - a place for families with no money to take their children for medical help. This stayed with me. For days I could not stop thinking about what Cantinflas had done. I started thinking about his movies, and while they were still very funny, I realized that each of them had a message about being kind to others, being fair and giving to those in need.

One day I was walking to school with my brother, kicking cans and rocks and my mind was still filled with Cantinflas' hospital for the poor. It was on that day, during that walk to school, that I decided that one day I wanted to build an orphanage and it would have a school and a chapel.

For more than forty years I never told anyone about it. It was a secret, something that I talked to God about, but no one else. Then one day almost three years ago, I told my best friend about my plans. By that time I had decided I would get started in about five years, and it would take another five years to make the dream a reality. She asked my why I needed to wait five years. I could not think of an answer. And so it began.

Part of my plan in this calling to build an orphanage was to find a professional painter to create a painting, which would depict Jesus and Mary, happily surrounded with the children representing the culture and spirituality of my country. I traveled to Guatemala, where I met Donna Marie Korba, an American sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. She is an artist who lived in Chichicastinanago at an Internado, which houses and educates close to two hundred young girls from indigenous towns in and around this mountainous region of Guatemala. We met after celebrating a First Communion mass for some of the girls at the Internado. I told her what I wanted to do. I talked about the painting. She very politely told me that I needed to find someone else. She said she couldn't do what I was asking. But by the time we finished talking, she said that she would do the painting, and that if I didn't like it, she'd do another, and another until I had the image I wanted. It took more than a year for her to complete the painting that hangs in my parish in Raleigh, North Carolina, awaiting the orphanage where it will finally be home. Sr. Donna wrote a description that explains the symbolism in the beautiful work of art she created.

It was on the same day that I met Sr. Donna that I learned about her calling - her work in Chichicastinango. She told me about the girls there that were there and how sometimes they did not know where the next meal was coming from. I told her that I didn't know how, but that somehow I was going to help her.

As soon as I got back from that trip I visited my pastor, Monsignor Tim O'Connor, and told him the story, and that is how the Children of God came to be. From the very beginning it has been a blessing.

It took just three weeks to find sponsors for the two hundred girls. We wired the first funds, and a couple of days later, Sr. Donna wrote that she and another sister had gone to the Catholic Food bank in Guatemala City, a three hour drive, only to find that the shelves were empty, because there had been an earthquake in El Salvador. So the long drive back was filled with prayer for the Divine Providence the sisters so often called upon, as they had no idea where they were going to get food for the children. Usually it takes about ten days for funds to wire into Guatemala, so they went to the bank with little hope that the money was there. They didn't know where else to turn. When the banker told her that the funds had just been transferred, Sr. Donna exclaimed, "What Divine Providence!"

And so we begin our efforts to raise funds for the new orphanage/school and chapel. One way we are raising funds is through the sale of Guatemalan coffee. Another is through the sale of t-shirts and reprints of Sr. Donna's painting. And we are very grateful for your donation. But we're not just getting started. As I've already said, this project has been a blessing from the beginning. Before the first shirt was sold, before the first can of coffee - we already have about six acres of land in a town called Reu, near the Pacific coast of Guatemala. The land is already wired for electricity and telephone, which may not sound like much to a North American, but in Guatemala, where in some regions less than fifty per cent of the households have electricity, it's a big saving. And there are two wells on the property. And without the sale of a single T-shirt or a single can of coffee, we have architectural plans for the buildings - the dormitories and classrooms and the chapel. And we have the blessing of Bishop Pablo of Reu.

Thank you for visiting our website and for reading our story. It is my prayer that as the story is told, and retold, that the dream, the calling will become a reality. May God's blessings be with all of you.