Dorcas House links San Diego churches, Tijuana foster children

By Pat McCaughan, September 02, 2009 [Episcopal Life] It was a first introduction to most of the San Diego visitors, but Fernanda, Carlita, Alejandro, Cristian and a dozen other children from Dorcas House in Tijuana, Mexico, swarmed them seconds inside the gate, all smiles, hugging legs, shouting greetings, bouncing up and down, spontaneously pulling them into a joyous Ring-around-the-Rosie. Dorcas House is home to about 40 preschool through high school children.

Visible from inside the foster home's gates are the towers of La Mesa Prison, where more than 22 inmates died in riots last year. It houses at least one, sometimes both, of the children's parents.

First-time visitors Bill Martinez and Jill Duttenhofer, relative newcomers to St. Paul's Cathedral in the Diocese of San Diego, heard about the congregation's ministry and joined the June 20 trip to experience Dorcas House directly. The children had them at hello.

"It was such a warm greeting," said Martinez, a retired Bantam Books sales representative, who recalled his own experience living in an orphanage.

"This doesn't have the institutionalized feeling I remember," he said. "The concept [of Dorcas House] impressed me; so often we forget that prisoners have families. They're the ones most impacted."

Duttenhofer agreed. "The children are amazing. Sylvia [Laborin, the director] is amazing. You can tell it's a loving place. You don't get kids so well-behaved without a staff that's very loving. You hear orphanage and think no parents, but most of the kids do have parents.

"It's a nice thought that one or both of the parents will be rehabilitated and the family will be back together again. There's hope."

Hope is why St. Paul's parishioners and spouses Colin and Laurel Mathewson lead what has become a monthly ritual: gathering at the cathedral, carpooling to the U.S. border, walking across to Tijuana, stopping for carne asada tacos and other snacks and hopping a bus for the short ride to Dorcas House.

This particular journey included 23 visitors from the cathedral and three other San Diego area congregations: St. Andrew's, Lake Elsinore; Christ Church, Coronado; and St. Bart's, Poway. Colin Mathewson hopes to expand that number.

"We hope people will come back again. We hope they will tell their friends and family about it and invite them. We hope that they just see with a new lens, that they are grateful for what they have and, hopefully, find God in this experience and these kids." After Jean and Doug Amidon visited La Mesa Prison in 1996, they knew they had to do something to "break the cycle of incarceration," said Doug Amidon, 66, who joined the June 20 trip.

Built to house 600 prisoners, there were upwards of 5,000. "Of those, 500 were children," recalled Jean Amidon, 66. "They had one meal a day. People were going through the dumpsters in the prison, trying to get food. People were sleeping on the roof. It was unbelievable."

They organized a board of directors, rented the space and hired Laborin as director. "She immediately began visiting the prison and the families and telling them the children could live here free and still stay connected to the families," Jean Amidon said. "Sylvia is key to Dorcas House's success."

They began Dorcas House, known in Tijuana as Vida Joven de Mexico, with eight children. Now they have about 40, ages 2 to 18, about half of whom are in foster care permanently. Others live there during the week and visit their families on weekends "to reconnect," said Laborin.

For Laborin, supporting youth extends beyond the cheerfully painted white walls topped with barbed wire. "We tutor the children in the community, too," she said. She has managed to equip the children with computers, winning an award in the process through "Lea" (Read), a Mexican government computer literacy program.

Inside, nearly every room is multipurpose. The visitors packed the dining/TV/activity/game room, playing concentration card games, dominoes and checkers and reading stories aloud. On other occasions, visitors often accompany the children to local parks or a nearby museum.

A way to serve

"I've never been a part of a church that did anything like this," said John Hlebica, 27, a San Diego City College political science major. "This experience is helping me know what it is I can do to serve, to make myself useful." St. Paul's Cathedral got involved in 2006 and expanded the program. "That year, we were happy to pay the bills," recalled Teresa Mathes, the development director. "It costs $152,000 a year to run a foster home like Dorcas House for 40 kids, which makes it a very doable project."

It is doable for other, compelling reasons: like Monica and Gabby, the first of "our kids" to be accepted to college, Mathes said. Three other girls who had no literacy skills when they arrived at Dorcas House placed first, second and third respectively in reading levels in their second- and thirdgrade classes in January.

"This is a place where you can literally see the difference your efforts make in the world, and the difference has a name. It's Carlita, Pearla, Alejandra," said Mathes, who is married to San Diego Bishop Jim Mathes. "We have children who were born in prison or abandoned on the streets who are not only doing well, they're excelling."

Mike Angell, 27, a second-year student at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, coordinated St. Paul's Dorcas House visits from 2006-2008. Back in San Diego for summer break, "I wasn't really home until I came here," he said. "St. Paul's really wanted to witness to the family that we have across the border and participate in the life here in Mexico. It's really important for us to stand up against the walls that are constructed in our world and reach out and embrace the whole people of God."

But it was a bittersweet homecoming. He talked with 15-year-old Alexis, hovering near the gate on a skateboard. "When I left, he was the oldest boy here," said Angell. "He's really intelligent. He did very well in school, thanks to Sylvia's efforts. But he went through some pretty hard stuff. Now, he's not in school, he's not working, he's living with a friend. His sister is still here, and Sylvia is still trying to help him. He knows he can always come here."

And there is 4-year-old Carla, giggling at Angell's side. "Carlita," he calls her. "She came right before I left, from a really, really difficult situation. She was tiny; she didn't talk. She was total shyness and frustration. "Today, I almost didn't recognize her. I was so surprised to see her smiling, laughing, joking with volunteers. To see her playing and living a kid's life is wonderful. You can tell the power of love."

-- The Rev. Pat McCaughan is Episcopal Life Media correspondent for Provinces VII and VIII and the House of Bishops. She is based in Los Angeles.

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