Every Child Deserves a Loving Home
The Bates Family, 2020
(Right before our first service trip to Mexico)
Our mission is for all children to be raised and educated in a loving environment that inspires them to grow into their unique potential.
*We are a non-profit organization
The Beginning
Our family of 10 had the opportunity to visit an orphanage for the first time in 2020. We all fell in love with the kids who so wanted to be loved and to love you back. They were kind, hard working, funny. They had so little but wanted to serve us in any way they could.
Even though not everyone spoke the same language, we all developed some of our most genuine friendships
The Concern
We have returned again and again to visit and have developed a growing concern about how many children are growing up in these institutions and how much they long to belong to a family. In Tijuana alone, there are over 100 orphanages
We also saw many youth who aged out of the system and did not have somewhere to go or a solid plan for what to do. Sometimes younger children get adopted into a loving family, but teenagers rarely do.
The Need
We knew someone needed to provide a family environment for these youth.
We knew they needed a career or business path they could study while they worked and lived in a safe environment.
We also knew that every child has the need to feel deeply loved in order to reach their unique potential and make a difference for good in the world.
What We're Doing
We decided to create a home and a school where we can provide an inspiring environment for these teens and young adults (and their younger siblings whom many of them feel responsible for).
We will provide concurrent enrollment, entrepreneurship, career, tech, agricultural and manual training tailored to each youth's interests.
We want to exemplify principles of education and growth in our home/school and teach others how to implement them in schools, orphanages, and in their own families
Why Mexico?
Our grandma grew up in Mexico as an orphan. Her story deeply impacted us as we caught glimpses into what she went through in that environment. We want to do for others what we wish someone had done for our grandma when she was a little girl.
We have also come to love many orphans in Mexico and want to provide a place for them to go to when they age out of the system or do not fit well into the system.
What Now?
We purchased land in Mexico in August 2022 and are currently fundraising to begin this project. See the phases below.
If you have connections to businesses or others who would like to donate to a non-profit dedicated to a great cause, or if you or your friends are willing to help us make this happen, we can begin. We have the builders ready to go as soon as we have the resources to pay them.
The Phases
Following are the projected phases of this project. Inspired by George Müller's biography, we are relying on God to inspire others to help us in this work.
George Müller was able to open up 4 "orphan homes" which cared for over 10,000 orphans in his lifetime, but he never asked people directly for money. Instead he prayed to God when he needed resources and the people would come to help. He had a donation box at his church...
So we decided to create this webpage to be our "donation box."
Right now, we mostly need help to get the home/school built. Our goal is to have the first 3 phases funded by January 2023 so we can work on building them during January and February.
Eventually we would love to have volunteers come serve the children, youth, and young adults. We will also need volunteers to help us build, plant, teach, recruit, share the message (through video and social media) and join us for service trips.
Phase 1: Home/School
Right now the 12 acres we purchased in Solferino, Mexico are just jungle, but with your help, we plan to build a home for the kids who will stay with us and a school with a library; workshops for instruction, labs, and projects; and a study/computer area so that the children have the resources to get a quality education.
We will use the Find Your Path Program to teach the kids to make and keep inspired goals in all areas of their life through daily practice.
We will use community (workshops, business training) and online resources (such as Concurrent Enrollment and BYU Pathways) to teach the youth trades, entrepreneurship, or careers.
Estimated Cost for the First Building: $180,000
Phase 2: Book Gardens
Gardens are a great place to learn principles of growth and abundance.
We will plant book-themed gardens that use permaculture principles so that the children not only learn principles of growing food, but also principles of growing their character and impact (including starting and growing a business).
We will eventually want to turn these gardens into a mini-golf or croquet course so that others can come learn these principles as well as be inspired to read great books in a fun way (see phase 5).
Estimated Cost: $5000
Phase 3: Ropes Course
To thrive, children need to know how to work with a team and be willing to get out of their comfort zones to challenge themselves to grow.
We have been running a school at a ropes course for a few years and have seen many children gain confidence, overcome anxiety, and learn to work together towards a common goal.
We will set up a zip tour, adventure park, climbing wall, low/high course activities, and more in order to have transformational learning experiences with the students, provide jobs for older youth, and also raise money to help in this work.
*Benjamin Allen at CLAS ropes has graciously volunteered to build a ropes course for us at just cost for the materials which is why this is so economical.
Estimated Cost: $70,000
Phase 4: Store/Activities
We will make a large greeting area with a store where the kids can sell their creations, art, food products, and handicrafts.
We will also have an outdoor theater for plays, performances, and other events to build community and develop talents.
We will teach the youth entrepreneurial principles so they can practice these skills in this safe learning environment.
We will also build a large palapa for dining and activities, a music/theater area, and a sports court.
Estimated Cost: TBD
Phase 5: Miniature Golf
Most of the children we have met in Mexico do not have a love of reading. We want to create a miniature golf course that winds its way through our themed gardens so that each hole will "take place" in a different book.
Each garden will be themed after a classic work and will display quotes and other inspiring details from that book. This will inspire curiosity and a desire to delve deeper into these great works.
The revenue will help us maintain the school and the course maintenance and management will give the older students jobs so they can raise money to help their families, continue their education, and start their own business.
Estimated Cost: TBD
Phase 6: Growth
As we are ready to grow, we will build additional homes for kids and volunteers. We hope each home will have a volunteer couple as caretakers over 10-12 kids so that the kids feel loved and nurtured as part of a family unit.
We will also build volunteer quarters for those who come to volunteer temporarily or groups who want to do family reunions, retreats, service trips, or corporate events.
Many kids in Mexican orphanages have parents who cannot care for them due to addictions or a lack of education.
We plan to provide addiction recovery programs for these parents as well as educational opportunities. We will also teach parenting classes.
Our goal is to reunite as many children as possible with their parents into a loving home.
Estimated Cost: TBD
If You Could Meet Them...
Here are some videos and journal excerpts from our last trip to the orphanage so you can begin to know these kids. We so want to provide a safe, loving place for them. Many kids run away from the orphanage around the age of 14.
It's harder to want to help when you don't personally know the children you are helping. We hope to have many of these kids come to us for High School or College, but we know that will also be serving different kids that we have not yet met. However, these faces and their love is what motivate us to do all we can to make this happen.
Journal Excerpts:
July 18, 2022
Some of my kids were not as enthusiastic about my idea that we live at this orphanage for a month this summer. They worried about what they would miss and what it would be like.
But they are now so glad to be here. We are all
learning so much from these amazing kids. And we all feel so loved.
I love watching my kids interact with the kids here as they all help each other out.
The kids who live here have a lot of chores. My kids are learning to work harder as they watch these kids work and as they jump in to help.
At home, my kids would come to devotional, but weren’t super excited about it. Here, the kids get up early so they can do their morning jobs before devotional at 8 so they can earn the privilege of going (the caretakers won’t let them go if the jobs aren’t done).
They share incredible insights during devotional too. Yesterday did an activity where each child had to grab a paper ball without leaving a circle (representing the earth). They had to help each other to accomplish it.
Then we talked about how God loved us before He sent us to earth. Then I asked, “Why would a Father who loves us so much, send us to an earth where things can be so hard and where bad things happen?”
They impressed me with their answers to a question that many in the world struggle with:
“So we can grow”
“So we can learn to love each other.”
“So we can learn to be kind”
“To help us learn to take care of our environment”
“To learn to forgive”
We talked about how no family is perfect, and each has problems, but we do have a perfect family waiting for us in Heaven and that they (and our family members who have gone before us) are close by, guiding us through this earth if we will let them into our heart.....
If these kids choose to, they will do amazing things in life. They have the work ethic and the resilience to do anything well and succeed. I so hope they see that and don’t settle for less.
July 23, 2022
It’s risky to love so much.
I loved the analogy that one of our volunteer friends gave this evening. He said “Life is like a camping trip. It’s short, we’re not supposed to settle down and get comfortable, we’re supposed to live, get dirty, and truly experience it.
It is scary to love these kids so much. It’s hard to not know how to help their situation and the difficult things that happen to them here. It’s hard to see them have to hurt....
Teaching Opportunities
Among other things, this video displays some of the activities we designed for the kids over the summer to teach them about trust, their individual worth, working as a team, kindness, and Christ-like love.
Come Serve with Us!
Service Trips:
Find Your Path Academy in Provo has scheduled some service trips to an orphanage in Tijuana to do some building projects and spend time with the children.
Service trips to our home/school Find Your Path in Quintana Roo will begin as soon as we get the volunteer dorm built (phase 1). Join our Email List to Stay Updated.
There is a $100 nonrefundable (but transferable) deposit to save your spot on a trip. Once the trip is full, you can sign up to be on the waiting list.
On each trip you have the option of doing a 5 day or a 7 day trip:
- 7 day trips (Saturday to Saturday) are $425. Families of 4 or more are $400 per person.
- 5 day trips (Tuesday to Saturday) are $365. Families of 4 or more are $340 per person.
- Young children who are willing to share a twin bed with a family member or who can sleep in playpens are $200.
- Nursing babies are free.
- Price includes lodging, meals, and will pay for our work projects
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
© 2022 - 2025 Made with Groove.cm. All rights reserved.