#354 Our story

By Mike and Dottie Clark Jun 15, 2019 3 Min Read

The children had a concert tonight.

I received the sweetest note from Emma who was adopted by Paula years ago. She just graduated and is on her way to college in Ohio. She thanked me for taking her in as a young child and for her receiving Christ.

My heart is so full as a young man raised at Casa & now married with a child emailed to tell me that he was grateful that I hugged him when he came by Casa 3 weeks ago. God is pulling at my heart strings.

Aroldo with Griselda. Thank you for praying.

1/10/2002. A new teenager, Desde, arrived. School begins Monday so Carlos and Polly took a few days off to rest. The older teens we have now are good, faithful leaders.

1/11. Today we returned to court to try and finish the trial against the man who sexually abused one of our girls and killed her mother in front of her. But the courthouse was a circus. Scheduled to begin at 8:30am it was 10:30am before the trial could start. There were dozens of men that had to be removed. The man is a gang leader and thus the many men there supporting him. The judges removed everyone but the lawyers and me.

Her testimony of drugs, rape and murders was chilling. She stood her ground against the ugliness. As we were approaching the end of her testimony the judges called in 7 policemen to stand around her. The man was found guilty and given a death sentence. The 7 policemen and a group of soldiers accompanied us to Casa. I was instructed to never take her anywhere without having a policeman with us.

This teenager would eventually graduate from high school and was able to get a job where she was unknown. Today (2019) she is married with two children.

1/12. Incredibly the same court called me today about a girl who is both an American and Guatemalan citizen who was also under a death threat. I accepted her but she will not be going to court to testify. The person most responsible for abusing her was killed in the raid on his home where she was found.

I went and bought school supplies for the college students and it cost so much that the owner of the store was curious and asked why I was buying so much. When I told him about Casa he immediately gave me a 20% discount and told me that I would have that 20% discount from then on. The bill was $4000 so that $800 discount was welcomed. We had two dentists come who filled teeth. Anyone can pull teeth but they wanted to save teeth instead.