Date: Fri 18-Dec-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: JAN

Quick Words:

Costa-Rica-Holton-Smith

Full Text:

Remembering The Rewards Of A Mountain Ministry

(with cuts)

BY JAN HOWARD

Members of a local church group have returned home from a successful ten-day

ministry in the mountains of Costa Rica, bringing with them the satisfaction

of having helped some children and what Debbie Holton-Smith of Newtown terms a

"pothole in our hearts."

"We still feel a void. We all wanted to take four or five kids home with us,"

Ms Holton-Smith said this week.

It may have rained nine of the ten days the group was in Costa Rica, but its

members have only sunny memories of their stay at the Roblealto Child Care

Bible Home, located three-quarters of the way up the volcano, Barva, just

outside San Jose.

"We were told we were a special group because we spent so much time with the

children and workers," she said. "We were almost like family. We feel like

we've left important people behind.

Ms Holton-Smith was one of 12 members of the TentMaker Ministry of Walnut Hill

Community Church in Bethel, including two other Newtown residents, Bob Denzel

and Mike Bos, who made the trip. TentMaker, a short-term missionary group led

by Ted Huizinga of Danbury, is a division of the church's Missions Committee.

"We are all committed to staying in touch with the children. Even the men

cried, during our stay and when we were leaving," she said, noting one member

went back twice to the house where he stayed to say goodbye to the children.

Funds for the mission, approximately $14,000, were provided by a fund-raising

auction and private donations. Over 80 local businesses donated quality items

to the auction.

The Costa Rican trip is the first the group has made out of the country. The

group worked on local projects to prepare for the mission.

While in Costa Rica, the group members purchased and installed a much needed

walk-in cooler/freezer for the Bible Home, including a tube steel and steel

bar cage to house the condenser/compressor units to prevent theft.

Ms Holton-Smith said there are bars on every window in the Bible Home's

residences and school to keep drug dealers and thieves out because the poverty

is so phenomenal there.

The group members, with the help of the children, also poured two 12-foot by

50-foot concrete patios where clothes lines will be hung, and painted the

exterior of the school building. They also did some carpentry work in

conjunction with installation of the cooler/freezer.

The members also did a lot of hugging with the children in addition to

playing, singing and communicating with them.

"We did a lot of hugging, loving, and sign language," Ms Holton-Smith said.

Communication was somewhat limited at first because most of the TentMaker

members knew very little Spanish, but they communicated through their

translator, Evelyn Melendez, a handbook of Spanish/English terms, and hugs.

Hugs And Smiles

While at the Bible Home, the group members lived in residences with about 12

children and the house parents and their families.

The first morning was the hardest, Ms Holton-Smith said. "We couldn't speak a

word of Spanish. I woke up to 12 pairs of eyes waiting for me to open mine. We

had only three hours sleep."

During her stay, Ms Holton-Smith met for the first time, Delroy, a 6-year-old

kindergarten student, she has sponsored.

"Delroy was very shy," she said, "but he gave me big hugs and huge smiles."

She said the group members had "no less than four kids glued to our hips as we

walked anywhere."

She said when members were painting the school, "The kids kept waving to us,

with their faces up to the windows, saying ola (hi)."

As one of her personal projects in the house where she stayed, Ms Holton-Smith

decorated the Christmas tree with paper snowflakes and candy. "The children

liked the snowflakes best," she said. They have never seen snow.

The Roblealto Child Care Bible Home houses 70 plus children in seven

buildings. They are schooled and fed from the main center.

Each child lives as a family unit with house parents who serve as role models.

Some of the children are orphans, but most of them have been abused or are

from broken homes.

Ms Holton-Smith said it is not unusual to find three siblings in one of the

homes.

"All these children were well disciplined and exceptionally helpful with

chores," she said. "They are very caring and look out for each other. They are

very loving to each other.

"If you didn't know their stories, you wouldn't know they had a horrendous

history," she said.

Ms Holton-Smith attributes that to caring by the house parents, who are a role

model for what a family should be. The house parents are there for four years

and on an annual contract thereafter. "It's a 24-hour job," she said.

"Everyone from cooks to the men who work in the yard have great patience with

the children," she said.

She said the children have seen more than what most adults have seen in their

lifetime. "It's not all good," she said.

Despite their backgrounds of abuse and neglect, the children are pretty

phenomenal, she said, noting those in her home proudly showed their few toys,

a plastic robot that no longer worked, a partly inflated basketball, and a

checkers game. "They made each day bright with nothing," she said. "We played

many games of checkers.

"Basically, the children play with each other," she said. "I think they're

happier than kids here because they don't have material needs."

She said the children are very well nourished. "Rice and beans are served at

almost every meal," she said, adding that the meals are very creative.

Returning Kids To Home

The goal of the Bible Home is to get the children back to a stronger home as

soon as possible. Because of a family rehabilitation process, which includes

vocational and counseling programs, approximately 95 percent of the children

eventually return to the homes of their biological parents.

With the help of the Bible Home, Delroy's mother is learning how to pull

herself out of the slums, Ms Holton-Smith said. "The kids go back and help

their parents," she said.

Ms Holton-Smith said the group would like to go back to the Bible Home in two

years to do a hydroelectric project.

"We have some engineers interested," she said. "They have a huge river they

could use. They could use the electricity for the home and to sell to the

local area to be self-sufficient.

"It's a big dream, but it's not impossible," she said.

Latin America Mission, an organization in the US, helps fund the Roblealto

Child Care Bible Home and has directors there. The Roblealto ministry was

founded in 1932 by Susan Strachan, the co-founder of the Latin America

Mission.

Roblealto also sponsors three large day care centers, which serve about 600

children of working mothers. The ministry also works with teenagers who have

graduated from its institutions. Altogether, it serves approximately 700

children at any given time.

To sponsor a child, call or write Debbie Holton-Smith, 19 Tunnel Road,

Newtown, 06470. The cost is about $30 a month, she said, 100 percent of which

goes to the child.

To donate to the Roblealto Child Care Bible Home, send checks made out to

Walnut Hill Community Church to the church at 156 Walnut Hill Road, Bethel,

Conn. 06801.