VALDOSTA — Vanessa’s grandfather no longer found her sexually attractive and decided to kill her. He shot her nose off, and she lost an eye. Her hand is gnarled from trying to protect her face from the bullet.
Vanessa is one of 43 girls, ages 3 through 18, who live in an orphanage in Bejuma, Venezuela, El Hogar de Muchas Manos (House of Many Hands), built and supported by Valdosta’s First Baptist Church. Patricia Guinand and her husband, Francisco, a former bullfighter, started the orphanage in their back yard and continue to operate it.
Gelana Goddard of Redland Baptist and Carol Mizell of Morven Baptist learned the story of Vanessa and others at the orphanage as they and others from Redland accepted an invitation to go on First Baptist, Valdosta’s mission trip there recently.
First Baptist is paying for Vanessa’s nose reconstruction surgeries.
“Every girl there is there because of an abuse problem,” Goddard said. “Two of the girls from the orphanage were found at the trash dump, naked and looking for food. They lived on the streets, barefooted, getting food out of the gutters because they were tired of their father’s abuse.
“Four of the girls in the orphanage have babies. They were brought there pregnant.”
Goddard said the court there approves of the orphanage, and children are sent there — whether there is space or not. The 43 girls live in an orphanage designed for 18. The men on the mission tore down a building to make room for an expansion.
The girls, who learn how to sew at the orphanage, were brought some sewing projects by those on the mission trip. Goddard had seen in New York a T-shirt with buttons on it that sold for $300 and decided it would make a great project for the girls. A Valdosta businessman donated 70 white shirts for the project and 70 blue shirts for another sewing project. The buttons were contributed by the women of Redland Baptist. (The church also gave 200 pair of white socks, and each family took an orphan’s name to purchase or make an outfit for her.)
“A little orphan named Luciana, in the last stages of cancer, had just received a chemo treatment, but she sewed her buttons on her shirt, and when she got tired, she laid her head on the table and continued sewing,” Mizell said.
“We were just so humbled by her persistence. All you could do was cry every time you walked near her.”
The women on the trip each had a different relationship with the children. Cindy Parker from Redland, whom the girls called “Barbie” because of the color of her hair, was like an older sister: She did their hair and make-up. One of the girls asked Vicki Edwards of Redland to be her mother. (They asked Redland Pastor Jay Watkins to be their dad.) Carol had the position of ‘Come to me, baby, and I’ll make it all right,’ and they called her “Caro.” Goddard was like a grandmother to them: “Everything was OK to me.” She spent her time loving on the girls, kissing them on different parts of their face each day, but Vanessa would not let her kiss her on her reconstructed nose. But by the end of the trip, Vanessa had come to know that Goddard was sincere, and she pointed to her nose for the American to kiss.
“They all needed such love,” Goddard said.
The trip not only shook the Americans emotionally, but literally as well. As the women took a little time for a shopping trip, the specialty shop they were in started to shake.
“Patricia grabs Ginger (Shiver of Redland) and took her out to the street, and Ginger grabbed me to go out in the street,” Goddard said.
“Women were screaming and crying because of what might be coming, but it stopped. It had hit near Caracas (three hours away) and was a 6.8 earthquake.”
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All shook up
Venezuelan mission trip shakes Americans both emotionally and literally
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