COLOMBIA

La Providencia Seniors Home (Casa de Ancianos) Belen, Boyacá, Colombia

The town of Belen is situated in a beautiful valley in the mountains of Colombia. There you will find a home for old folds and some disabled persons who do not have anyone to care for them. Some have family but the family does not have the ability to care for them. The Sisters take these people in and provide for them. Otherwise they would be left to fend for themselves. 

Let me give you and example. 

A number of years ago, the local priest was told of a mother who was living on the side of the mountain with her extremely retarded and deformed daughter. They had been thrown out of wherever they had lived because the mother did not have money to pay the rent. So, they took what little they had and put a tarp over the branches of a tree and that became their home. They lived on a few potatoes or food donations that the local people gave them. The mountains are cold and rainy, and thus not a good environment. 

The priest asked the Sisters if they could care for them. The mother was an old woman and the daughter was not young either. The Sisters said yes, so they brought these two needy and abandoned souls to Providence Home. The mother, like any good mother, was concerned what would happen to her daughter after she died. Now the Lord Jesus, in His Divine Mercy had answered a mother’s prayer. The mother died a few years later, and Gloria, the daughter, is still here and is happy. The Sisters not only provide the food, a clean place to live, clean clothes and medical attention. They provide a place where people can live out the rest of their lives in dignity and with love. This is the work of the living Jesus. We help the Sisters to provide for these poor souls.

That which is made possible with the help from Miami… 

Hogar Montserrate is a refuge for children located approximately 50 miles northeast of Bogota. The Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Poor take in and care for approximately 100 young children that due to civil and economic issues in Colombia are left without parents to care for them. The challenges faced in Colombian society have led to many street children, or “gamines”. 

The children come from a wide variety of backgrounds and circumstances. Some have families that just are unable to care for them. Others are basically abandoned and there are many that have been abused both physically and sexually. Most have never known a stable home environment where someone is there to care for them. Many have always had to take care of themselves without any adult supervision or care. They all seem starved for love and that is a terrible thing for a child. At Hogar Montserrate, they are introduced to organized living whereby there are regular times to eat and sleep, and they go to school and someone is there to help them with their homework and actually cares if they learn. They wash themselves and have clean clothes and a clean bed but more importantly they are shown the love of Jesus Christ and this love changes many angry little people into normal loving children. The Sisters work miracles with them. It is not easy and most of us would not have the patience to handle this situation but the Sisters sacrifice their lives to help them and we help to make that possible.