CHILDREN'S HOME
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The home is called Wurmbrand after our dear brother the Rev. Richard Wurmbrand and his beloved wife, our dear sister Sabina. This beautiful couple suffered physical and pyschological torture and imprisionment for more than 14 years, firstly at the hands of the nazis and then at the hands of the communists in Rumania, his country, for having committed the " crime" of preaching the holy bible under their regimes.
In Peru, up to a short time ago, we suffered the presence of the communists divided into two groups, M.R.T.A. and Sendero Luminoso. This presence meant the destruction of properties worth in total millions of dollars and the tragic loss of over one hundred thousand lives, originating the displacement of half a million refugees, mainly farmers. This tragedy has brought on not only increased economic poverty but also the loss of moral and spiritual values.
As a result of this dantesque drama suffered by Peru, thousands of children have become orphans following the cruel massacres of their parents and relatives. These children aged 11 to 12 years old, have suffered serious pyschological traumas made worse by the hard process of leaving their homes in the countryside and having to adapt to living in poverty stricken circumstances in the provincial capitals and in Lima, the capital of Peru.
These orphans have since come face to face with the cruel reality, that in the city of Lima, with more than 7 million inhabitants, who pride themselves in their " christian religion" , no one has come forward to wipe away their tears of suffering or to give them an affectionate look or a kind smile. On the contrary it seems that they receive only incomprehension, rejection and scorn, attitudes which can be seen every day on the crowded streets of Lima.
These children are dispersed throughout the country, but survive in Lima by grouping together and facing the cruel reality of daily life using only their own poor resources, a fight for survival which has made them child-adults.
Unfortunately life has proved too difficult an enemy to face honourably by cleaning cars or shining shoes, continous hunger and hard street conditions have obliged many of these children to become street beggars or thieves and in many cases child prostitutes, conditions which have led them to consume cheap alcohol and drugs as a manner to forget their daily suffering.
Police authorities quite often pick up these children from the streets and take them to government run homes where in many cases they are treated either as little wild animals or hardened criminals, with little care offered them, and even less affection.
Other orphans have been taken from the streets to reformatories, the first step to prison, where they have been turned into unscrupulous criminals and a threat to the society which rejected them in their childhood.
What have we done to these children? Our neglect has created callous delinquents, we have destroyed young lives and condemned souls.
Children aged between 3 to 6 years old, born in the aftermath of a cruel wave of violence, are growing up in the midst of the worst economic, social and moral crisis in the histroy of Peru.
The parents of these children lived in anguish and fear of being either murdered by Sendero Luminoso or M.R.T.A. or forced to join their ranks, having to leave their wives and 5 or 6 children to fight for survival. These abandoned women, many of them made widows, have lived in desperation with their tears permanently lining their faces from so much crying, and the same ever present question wounding their minds and their hearts: " How am I going to feed my children? As their resources have gradually diminished, this pain and anguish has grown, and turned to desperation when their children have become sick, and no words can describe their pain on seeing their sons and daughters die for lack of food or medical attention.
It was under these crucial circumstances that " HOGAR WURMBRAND" was founded, to shelter orphans and defenceless refugees. As practising christians we cannot and must not be indifferent to the pain of the weak and unprotected, to the everyday tragedy lived by the children. There is no justification at all that any self called christian can deny a little love and kindness to these children who have neither mother nor father. Those of us who work in this children's home consider ourselves as good christians and we are determined to care for, protect and love these children as if they were our own.
"HOGAR WURMBRAND" provides hot food, clean clothes, a bed and above all a solid academic and spiritual formation to the children. This care and attention converts these children into respectable adults and most importantly into good christians, as they receive the word of God from their childhood.
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