This is an informational blog to share a little about the ministry where my team lived and served in the month of March. Ministry name: Casa de Esperanza, or House of Hope Ministry type: Orphanage
Welcome to Casa de Esperanza located 15-20 minutes up a winding dirt road (by car) on one of the many, many mountains of the Yungas mountains, a subtropical mountain slope where the Andes mountains change into the Amazon Basin (Thank you Google).
Casa de Esperanza isn’t one building, it’s a property with multiple houses and other buildings on it. Five of the houses are homes to 8-12 children and two Tia’s/Aunts/House Moms each.
From here it takes about 40 minutes to walk down the mountain to get into town and to get back it takes about 90 minutes all up hill, of course. In total, it’s somewhere around 4,500 ft above sea level. It’s like it’s own little castle in the clouds.
This place was originally founded by two dutch missionaries but is now lead by a couple who are from Boliva. It was established with the desire to give children ranging from the ages of 0-4 who were being neglected or abused by their original care givers a permanant home until they reach adult age. While the children are living at Casa de Esperanza they get an allowance, they have chores, they have free time to go into town or play, and sometimes they even get taken on fun adventures like going to a camp that provides opportunity for outdoor adventure. Once the children reach adulthood, which is either 16 or 18, they have the option to continue on to higher education or, for the boys, join the military for a manditory year of service. Even when they are adults however, their ties to the orphanage remain because it is more then just a temporary home, the desire is to be a family.
All of those factors make Casa de Esperanza unique in comparison to most of the other orphanages in Bolivia. The norm is to move the children around from home to home as they reach different age brackets and then once they leave, they are on their own. It was incredible to get to experience a system that really seems to have the best in mind for the kids.
If you want to learn more about Casa de Esperanza simply type “Casa de Esperanza, Caranavi, Bolivia” into the Google search engine and explore the different links that pop up.
