The first thing I noticed on arrival in Quito was the thin air, since Quito is up in the Andes Mountains almost two miles above sea level. The very next thing was the children. As soon as we left the airport they were there, begging for pocket change or offering to help us carry our packages for tips. This was a constant during our stay in Quito. Even late at night, 10:30 or 11:00, when we would stop at a traffic light, the children would run out into the traffic begging for change from the stopped cars. When the light would change they had to quickly scramble out of the traffic before being run over. Most of them were little 6 to 8 year old girls, with a baby strapped to their side or their back, papoose style. The missionary who was hosting us there told us not to give them more than a quarter, since it would increase their daily quota too much. Their parents would expect them to raise that same amount from now on and they would be punished for being lazy if they did not do as well the next day.

Traffic in Quito is like nothing in the U.S. People drive very aggressively and constantly honk their horns at you if you don't get out of their way; even if you're stopped at a traffic light. It's like a steady river of cars, trucks and busses flowing radically between the curbs, with no logical reason or pattern. For this reason, many of these children are killed in accidents, but their parents keep sending them out there. My heart really went out to them.

The first day at Remar home for girls we measured for the materials we were going to need and went out to buy them. I was expecting to see a lumberyard where we could purchase all of the wood we needed, but we had to go to one place to get plywood and a different place to buy solid wood. The tools and hardware were in another place yet. We are so spoiled with all the conveniences we have here at home.

The next day I started working on building and installing the cabinets. During the day I noticed one little girl, whom I thought was about 11 or 12, not realizing at first how much smaller Ecuadorians are than Americans. She was working in the kitchen, preparing food, cleaning floors, and washing pots and pans. She was very quiet and only said, "Buenos días," when I came in and greeted everyone. I didn't really think anything more about her, though until later that night while I was preparing for bed.

I had just finished reading in my Bible and was praying when a picture of this girl came to my mind, so I prayed for God to take care of her needs and to watch over her and protect her. I had no idea that God was planning to use me to accomplish it. During the night I awoke. I had been praying for her so intensely in my sleep that it woke me up. Her face was just burning in my mind and I was crying in intense intercession for her. I had never experienced this before. I have wakened myself up praying before, but this was not the same. There was such an intensity that my sides aches from it. The next day I found out her name is Mitzi. That evening I again prayed for her before going to sleep, but this time with much greater fervor. I didn't know her or what her situation was, but I knew that God had put this burden in me, so I would pray it through. Again that night, and every night I was there, I awakened several times during the night with the same intense intercession for Mitzi. By the second night I was starting to feel something for her, but, at first, I was reluctant to give my whole heart to it.

For the previous couple years, when I would see a man playing with his children, I would feel this empty aching in my heart. I longed for that again. I had not had this same kind of relationship with my own children because, out of my own selfishness and immaturity, I had left them and divorced their mother when they were small. After that our times together were very strained and uncomfortable for them.

I had approached my wife on the subject of adoption before and she absolutely wanted no part of it. Her father had killed himself when she was ten and, along with other things, it made her afraid to give her heart to some one that might be taken away from her again. For about two years we had discussed it with no change on her part. I had pretty much given up on the idea by now, but then God dropped Mitzi into my heart with such a passion that I knew this was going to go beyond just praying. I told God that if He was going to continue to do this to me He was going to have to also deal with my wife, since I knew that she did not want to adopt.

After the third night of this, I loved Mitzi so much that I was beginning to feel like a father to her. I knew I had to do something more than just pray for her. Jesus once said, "Whatsoever you have done for the least of these, you have done unto me." I knew I could not just walk away at the end of the week and pretend that everything was the same as before. I felt as if my life had been turned inside out and I knew things would never be the same for me again. It's hard to understand, but I was beginning to feel like I really was her father. God had placed in me a love for Mitzi that was equal to the love that a father has for his own natural children and I knew that from now on it was my responsibility to care for and provide for her, so I decided that it was about time I got to know her, since all I knew about her was her name.

The next morning I approached her at the orphanage and found out her full name is Mitzi Priscila Hidalgo-Gonzales, age 14. I then explained to her, through an interpreter so I would not be misunderstood, that I wanted to be her sponsor. She had no idea what that meant. We told her I would provide for her schooling, her health care and any other needs she had. I wanted to see that she got a good education and learned to speak English. Then she said, "¿Usted quiere a ser mi padrino?" (You want to be my godfather?) Padrino means "godfather" who is a very important figure in their culture. If the father dies, the godfather is the one who takes over the responsibility for his godchildren. He will pay for their education, their health care and be there for all of their important dates and functions, like graduation. He will also be the one to give away the bride on her wedding day. She said she would like that, so I became Mitzi's Padrino.

Before this time Mitzi always had her head down, but now I noticed she walked around smiling all the time and she really brightened up when I came into the room. She was having the same effect on me. I couldn't wait to get back to the orphanage each day just to be around her and see that she was okay. God was still working in my heart for more, though, so the next day I went to the social worker at the orphanage and we talked about Mitzi's situation. She wanted to know just how much I was willing to do for Mitzi. I said I would provide for her education, her medical care and any other needs she had. She then asked me if I had considered adopting her. Until this time I hadn't seriously thought about adoption, because I had been told the children in Remar were not available to be adopted, but when she said this something exploded inside my heart and I knew that was what I wanted. I immediately said, "Yes, if I can adopt her I will, if I can't adopt, then I want to take her to the States to live with us and get a good education. If I can't do that I will provide for all of her needs right here in Quito." But my true desire was to adopt her and make her my daughter, so she would be safe and no one could ever take her away. The social worker started working on it right away, to see if she could arrange for the adoption. I returned home and shared with my wife what God had done in my heart and she immediately agreed to have Mitzi come to live with us and, if possible, to adopt her. She knew that I could not have given my heart so completely in such a short time unless God was doing it.

When you adopt a child, both of the birth parents have to either be dead, or have abandoned the child. I had been told that Mitzi's father had been involved in a murder and was hiding from the law, so there would be no problem getting an abandonment decree for him, but she goes by the last name of her step-father, who was married to her mother when she was born. He is the one who raised her and is her legal father. Because of their deep poverty, Mitzi and her siblings have not been able to attend school for the last four years, so she only has a sixth grade education at age 14. This is the equivalent of the fourth grade in the US. I don't really know to what extent Mitzi has been abused. I only know that her mother and siblings had left the father and were in a place of protection from him. When the mother decided to return to him Mitzi ran away, choosing to live on the streets of Quito than to go back to him. This is a place where rape is a very common occurence. I thank God that someone found her on the streets, in that crowd of children, and decided that this child needed to go to Remar. Once again, it was the hand of God at work.

After some discussion and convincing from Nori,the social worker, Mitzi's mother agreed to give her permission for Mitzi to come live with us and be educated in the United States. I was ecstatic. We really want to adopt her and wanted the mother to grant this, but at least we were being allowed to bring her to live with us in America. Then, as we got further into the process we found out that it will be nearly impossible to get her an entry visa into the U.S. unless we are adopting.

About this time Chris Ranalli, another missionary in Quito, had volunteered to get involved in the process. He grew up half in Ecuador and half in the US and has been a full-time missionary to Ecuador for over 25 years. He has great knowledge of the customs and the people there. On June 21st, Mitzi's 15th birthday, He had a meeting with the social worker, the lawyer, Mitzi and her mother. He convinced the mother that it would in Mitzi's best interest for her to allow us to adopt her. She has agreed to sign papers allowing the adoption and immigration. I had been fasting and praying for this day and was overjoyed when I got the news. Mitzi is going to be our daughter. We started the process of working out all of the legal hurdles that have to happen to bring her to live with us in America. We have to have the adoption home study, which gets us approved as adoptive parents. We also have an attorney in Quito who is doing the legal work involved in getting her government issued identification card, called a cedulla, her birth certificate, her passport and the abandonment decree for the step-father. Once we have the approval from here to adopt, another attorney in Ecuador will handle the adoption. All of this is going to be very costly, a minimum of $10,000.00. We know that it isGod who started this and He will be faithful to complete it. We are completely dependent upon Him for this.

We have completed all that we have to do here in the US to adopt, and are just waiting for our approval, but on July 3, 2003 Ecuador had a big change in their laws concerning children's services, which includes adoption. They also changed all the people on the different committees involved, so right now the courts there are completely shut down. No adoptions are going through at all. It may take until March of 2004 to get them working again, so everything is on hold for now.

I just found out that an 11 year old girl from Remar ran away. They found her body nearby later. She had been sexually assaulted and murdered. This makes me more determined than ever to get Mitzi out of there.

The attorney waited two months before drawing up the legal papers for Mitzi's mother to sign so we could adopt. during this time she moved away from Quito back to her home town, which is a five hour drive. Once there, her family talked her out of allowing us to adopt. They do not want Mitzi to have her name changed. It's hard for me to understand their thinking. They would rather see her sit in an orphanage until she is 18, then leave there with no real education and no real hope for the future, than to have her name changed. I fail to see any love in that decision. If you love somone you want to do what is best for them. For now, at least, I am back to being Padrino. If there was any way I could bring her to live with us here in the US without adopting her, I would gladly do it. In the mean time, we are scheduling a trip to Ecuador from November 6th through the 22nd. While we are there we will install the water filter at Remar and rebuild their laundry center. It always smells of sewer gas and is full of mold and mildew. It is also back to back with the medical clinic and water soaks through the wall. The back wall of the clinic is full of mold and peeling paint. By rebuilding the laundry center we can stop both of these problems.

I have also scheduled a time to take Mitzi to see her family. Maybe a face to face meeting with them will let them see my heart in this matter. If the name change is all they are concerned about, I will offer to pay to have her name legally changed back when she becomes an adult.

I just received a letter from Mitzi. She still calls me Papa. She says she is still going to English school in the afternoons, but she is working so much in the kitchen at the orphanage the rest of the time that she doesn't have time to study and practice. I hope I can remedy the situation while I am there.

The courts in Ecuador are only doing old adoption business that came in under the old system. Nothing is starting yet under the new system.

I just got back from two weeks in Ecuador. It was a very eventful trip. I had not told Mitzi I was coming, because I wanted to see her reaction when she saw me. I had concerns that she might have reverted back to being afraid of me in my long absence. My fears were for naught, because when she saw me she immediately threw her arms around me with great joy. I could not stand to be away from her. I wanted just to be there to look after her and protect her. She is just now starting to understand what a father's love is like. It is something she has never experienced before in her life. She is like a different child. She used to be so sad and always had her head hanging down. Now she is so full of life and hope for the future, because she knows that I am there for her. It is amazing the difference it can make in the life of a child when they know that they are loved. I pray that I will always be able to be there for her. I know that I will do everything within my own power to see that come to pass.

Our trip there was two-fold. The first week was missions work at Remar, the second week was for adoption business. Five of us went down to correct some very unhealthy conditions at the girls' home where Mitzi is. The laundry center always smelled like sewage and was filled with mold and mildew. The water, even though it is from the city of Quito, is contaminated with bacteria and parasites. We took a ceramic water filter with us. It is the same type they use in the space shuttle. I installed a 20,000 gallon capacity carbon block filter ahead of it, as instructed, and it completely plugged up in 24 hours. The ceramic is reusable, so I put the ceramic ahead of the new carbon block. After about five minutes I removed the white ceramic filter and it was completely covered with green algae. No wonder the girls were always getting sick.

We also installed a concrete drinking fountain out in the yard for the children so they would always be drinking the filtered water. We ripped out everything in the laundry center and completely rebuilt it, installing all new plumbing, redoing the electrical and installing a new tile floor. We also left enough funds for them to have new wall tile installed. The last day the team was there we had a circus party for all the children of Remar. It was such fun for them. Two of us, and Mitzi, dressed as clowns. We made animal balloons, did magic tricks, and had hot dogs and sodas for them. They all had a wonderful time. The whole team cried when it was time to leave. The children here had made such an impact on them. They have so little and we have so much, but all they really want is our love.

After the rest of the team left I stayed for an additional week to take care of adoption business. We had to travel down out of the mountains to one of the coastal towns called Ventanas. Three of us went along. Chris Ranalli (the missionary,) Nori (the social worker), and myself. We did not take Mitzi with us because she said they would try to keep her there and we would not be able to prevent it. I knew that I would die before allowing that, and I had no intention of putting her in any danger, so we went without her. She wrote a letter to her mother explaining how much she desired for me to adopt her and bring her to the United States with me.

Ventanas is a coastal town, where life is much different than here in the US. It was not too long ago that this area was still jungle. There are open-air markets with fruits, vegetables and even meats just sitting there, or hanging there in the heat, without refrigeration. Dogs and cattle wander the streets along with the people. Disputes between neighbors, and sometimes even amongst family members, often are settled with machetes and guns, many times fatally. It was into this community that I had to go to try and convince someone to let me take their daughter as my own and bring her to the US. I had told Mitzi I would die protecting her if I had to. Now it looked like I would have to prove it.

We located the family's house, a plain, unpainted concrete block row house in the downtown area. There was no glass in the windows, just bars. Mitzi's mother came out and was soon followed by her husband, Mitzi's stepfather. My Spanish is not very good, so I was having difficulty following the conversation, but I could tell that the stepfather was not being very cooperative. During the conversation with Chris the stepfather had said to his wife that his brother lived right next door and if he knew we were out here he would come out shooting. As the other two continued to talk with him I began to pray. After a while I knew that I must talk to him myself, so I asked Chris to interpret for me as I began sharing from my heart. As I talked I saw his countenance change and I knew that he had been convinced. This was only the first hurdle, though. The ystill could not give their permission without getting the entire family upset and angry. The person we had to convince was Mitzi's grandfather. He is the head of the family and unless he agrees, there will be much trouble, so we had to go find him and try to convince him also. At this point Chris warned me that, if things did not go well we might not make it out of this place alive. All three of us believed this was God's will, so we went in search of the grandfather.

Mitzi's mother and stepfather took us way outside of town. We turned off the road and went back into places where I was glad we had a Land Rover. We would have been walking otherwise. We finally reached a place where they were clearing a field for planting. It looked like we were right on the edge of the jungle. They got out of the vehicle and walked out of sight. The three of us continued to pray and trust in God to have His way in the matter. After 45 minutes to an hour they returned and you could see the look of surprise on their faces. The grandfather had left the decision totally up to them. We had won. We took them to lunch in one of the local establishments that passes for a restaurant and afterward they signed the papers to allow us to adopt Mitzi. I was so overcome with joy that I cried. You could tell it was very difficult for them. Mitzi's stepfather has become a Christian since Mitzi left home. He said he knew that he had made some terrible mistakes which made it impossible for her to live with them again, so he now had to put his trust in God and in me for Mitzi's sake. We all were quite emotional at this point. I told them I could feel their pain and I assured them that I would do everything in my power to make sure that they never regretted their decision.

Nori had told me their other children, three boys and a girl, were not in school, so I asked them what it would take to get them back to school. I was too late for them for the school year, but they can start again next September if the family has the funds to send them. There is no free schooling there like in the US. I found out that it would only take $50 a month to be able to send all four of the other children to school, so I agreed to provide that for them. I love Mitzi with all my heart. How can I not provide for her brothers and her sister. As we left there, Chris told me that now he knew beyond doubt that this was God's will. He said, knowing the culture and the people, that this would never have happened if God had not been at work in it.

Now that we have their agreement, we still have to finish our adoption approval here in the US and through Immigration. Then we have to get the whole thing started in Ecuador. The normal adoption process there can take anywhere from two months to two years. We are hoping that we will be able to bypass that whole process and just go before a judge with the statements from the parents and have the judge make the final determination. Only time will tell.

Nov. 28, 2003 .....We just heard from Ecuador. They say we will not be able to bypass the regular adoption process and the courts will not be accepting new applications for adoption for at least three months and possibly as long as six months. We ask for prayers that God will move in the situation there to speed up the process. It is very hard for me to just sit and wait while she is living under those conditions. I have done everything I can do to make life better and safer for the children in Remar, but conditions there are still very bad. Every afternoon after school the students at the university start protesting and throwing things at the police, like rocks, bottles and molotov cocktails. The police respond by firing tear gas at them. This is only one block from Remar, so on days when the wind is blowing toward Remar they all get doused with the gas. I experienced this while I was there. My eyes, my sinuses, my lungs and the skin on my face felt as if they were on fire. This is a regular occurence to these children.

In this situation we can only pray that there will be resolution to the protests soon, but there is one more situation I hope to be able to correct very soon. In order to pay the utilities and the phone bill at Remar they send the older girls out to sell items on the public busses. They are putting them at great risk, but they do not see any alternative. The girls are afraid, but they go out and do as they are told. The staff all agree that it is a bad thing to do, but the funds are just not there if they don't go out. What I propose to do is to build them a store right on the Remar property. They are in a very busy section of the city, right next to a university, so I believe they could do very well. The girls won't have to leave the security of Remar, which is a walled compound that used to be the British Embassy. And they will be able to raise enough money to more than meet the present need. If you would like to help in this effort, funds can be sent to:

There were a couple of items that immigration wanted more information on and we were all set for our approval to adopt. Then we just got word from the agency handling our adoption that they have not been able to get their approval to work in Ecuador, so we have to get another agency to take us on at this late stage of the process. We're praying that this will not set us back a great deal and that God will connect us with the right people to represent us and Mitzi in this process. Please pray with us.

It has been a long haul and we are still working toward the adoption. Mitzi goes before the judge along with her mother and stepfather to dissolve their parental rights to clear the way for us to adopt her n April 15th. The courts in Ecuador move so slowly. This appointment was suppose to be in January. We also have had a change on our end. I have accepted a position as associate pastor of a new church in Daytona Beach, so we have to update our home study before we can get our approval from U.S. Immigration to adopt. All of this has to happen before Mitzi turns 16 on June 21st. Our update will be done tomorrow, but we do not know how long Immigration will take to finish our approval. The last delay from them was two months. We can only pray that this one will be faster.

The day for the appointment with the judge came and the parents refused to attend. Now we need a real miracle or we will not be adopting. We will still do everything we can do to bring her to live with us in America. We just have to find a way to do it.

Mitzi turned 16 on June 21st. I have been unable to communicate with anyone in Quito since April. Email has been our only link, but I get no response from anyone there.

June 20, 2005: We just received word that Mitzi has run away from Remar. Someone has seen her in an area known as Mitad Del Mundo, The Middle of the World, and said she looks okay. We have now lost all contact with her. We have moved to the Daytona Beach area and have given up on getting Mitzi here. We are instead going to become foster parents with the goal of adopting. I think it is time to close the chapter on Mitzi. I pray that she will be okay and find joy in her life even in the place she is. I still hope someday to hear from her again. For more about our continuing adoption story, go to: http://www.forgodskids.org/adoption.htm or click on the link below.