The woman pictured above is a beautiful example of what service to God could be. Her name is Mama Carmen, and she and her family run an orphanage in Guatemala, spending their lives taking care of children no one else wants. On her property, she also had unfarmed land that was perfect for growing coffee. Members of a local congregation, New Heights Church, visiting on a missions trip were incredibly impacted by her story and made the decision to help her prepare that land for coffee plants to grow. That coffee is bought by Mama Carmen's Espresso Cafe, among others, and then the profits used to take care of the orphanage. She and her daughter recently took a trip to Northwest Arkansas to see the coffee shop in Fayetteville that was opened to give her that other source of income. While visiting, she took some time last Wednesday night to share her story. What an inspiring story it turned out to be! Needless to say, I should NOT have worn mascara (for all you men reading, mascara is not a good thing to be wearing if you're going to do a lot of crying).
She shared stories of her children, like the little girl named Urie who was left on her doorstep as an infant. She had been placed in a cardboard box, wrapped in newspaper, and left with a note that read, "Here is this child. If you don't want her, you can throw her in the trash." The little girl was taken to the hospital and stayed there for three months, all the while with the doctors telling Mama Carmen that the damage from neglect was too great and the girl was a lost cause. She was never going to be able to talk, or walk, and would never develop properly. Mama Carmen responded with prayer, lots and lots of prayer. She sang hymns to Urie, and prayed over her, and threw herself into caring for her. Today, Urie is eleven years old, and is walking, talking, and attending school, and was referred to as "a miracle" by the same doctors that wanted to give up on her.
There were more stories of children that were shared, and what amazed me was that even watching Mama Carmen share at a distance, in a different language (she was sharing her story in Spanish with the help of a translator), you could immediately see the immense love she has for these children. You could hear the tears in her voice as she shared their pain. There were over 90 children, and she knew them by name. The most amazing thing to see was her humility. As people applauded her, after sharing the stories of her children, she stopped and told us, "That applause is not for me, but for God. I am simply an instrument that He chose to use." It wasn't a false humility, or an act to look more 'holy,' but simply a statement that she made, a fact that she truly believed about her life and its impact.
What impacted me most was Mama Carmen's story about how she got started in this life of service. Her 13 year-old son had been taken by a rebel army, and she frantically looked for opportunities to find him. In her search, she was told of a house that could be housing children taken by that army. The house was hiring a woman to do laundry, and so she showed up and asked for the job. As she was there, she wasn't allowed any freedom to look around. She was followed by an armed guard most places, and was shown various locked doors and told never to go through them, or even try. She continued to show up and do her job, day after day, never seeing any children, and slowly starting to give up hope of ever finding her child. Finally, one day, she prayed to God for the opportunity to do more exploring. She asked him for just one more day, or else for her to quit that job and start looking somewhere else. She showed up for work, and washed the clothes, and as she was hanging them up in the courtyard to dry, she ran out of rope to hang the clothes on. She turned to the guard watching her, and asked him to go ask the woman in charge for more rope in one of the other houses. As she was unsupervised, she walked over to a wall of the courtyard with a door she had been told to stay away from. She placed her laundry basket on top of the wall, and pushed it. She could hear it start rolling down a hill on the other side and waited until she heard it stop at the bottom. She then went and knocked on the door. She knocked and waited and knocked and waited until finally, a smaller window in the door was opened, and the barrel of a gun stuck out. A guard on the other side asked her what she wanted. "I'm just the laundry lady," she assured him, "and I lost my basket over the wall. Could you get it for me please?" He began to yell at her, and told her no, but she kept persisting. Finally, the window closed and the door opened. The guard pointed his gun at her, and told her, "I can't get your stupid basket. Do you see all those stairs to the bottom of the hill? Now look at me. Do you see my crutches?" Mama Carmen looked at the guard and pleaded with him to let her down the hill to get the basket. He looked out the door to see if the other guard was there, and told her to hurry, and not to talk to anyone or tell anyone about what she would see. He pointed his gun at her, and kept it trained on her head as she walked down the hill towards another house where her basket had landed. As she approached the house, she heard crying coming from some windows in the basement level. She smelled excrement that had been left to pile up. She glanced in the windows, and saw imprisoned children, children that began begging and pleading with her the moment they saw her. "Please, ma'am, I haven't eaten, do you have bread?" "Please, ma'am, can you tell my mother I'm here?" The voices continued to follow her as she got her basket and went back up the hill, her heart breaking all the while.
As soon as she left that house, Mama Carmen ran straight to the police department and told the officer that was in charge of her case for her missing son what she had seen. She asked him, "Please, there are children, my son could be in there. Get officers and go there now!" She was told to wait, and that there was nothing the police could do until they got a judge's order. That would take 48 hours to obtain, so she was sent home to wait. Three days later, early in the morning, there was a pounding on her door. A messenger left a telegram from the police telling her to meet them at the house, that they had gotten permission for two cars full of officers to raid the home and find the children. When she arrived, they began pounding on the door. They pounded for almost an hour, getting no answer, until finally the officer in charge gave the order to break down the front door. When they went inside, there was no one there, or even a hint that there was ever anyone living there at all. Everything was cleaned out, the main house, the courtyard, and even the basement where the children were held. At that point, the officer in charge began yelling at Mama Carmen, and calling her a liar. She remembered she had left her wallet there in a shirt the last day she was there, and looked around for it. The shirt she had left happened to be hanging nearby, and she rushed to get her wallet and show the officer her ID card. She needed to prove that she really was there before. The officer took her ID, looked at it, and proceeded to rip up the card. He grabbed her and forced the pieces in her mouth and began to hit her and call her a liar and troublemaker. She began to fear for her life, and started praying. He continued to beat her, and called on his other officers to join in. They began hitting her, and kicking her when she hit the ground. At one point, he asked his men if they wanted to 'have some fun with her,' and said he would be the first one to rape her. At that point, she began praying even harder, "Please, God, no! Don't let this happen!" An officer that was hanging back spoke up, and asked the man in charge, "Sir, why would you want to do this? You've had so many women, beautiful women, strong women, why would you want this small, little woman? Why would you soil yourself like that?" The officer agreed, and they dragged Mama Carmen outside instead. The officer pulled out his gun, and pointed it at her head, meaning to finish the job. The same man that had defended her spoke up again, "Sir, why would you kill her? You've killed large men, strong men, men that mattered in this world? Why would you shoot this housewife, this laundry woman? She wouldn't even be worth the bullet." The officer agreed again, and threw Mama Carmen to the ground, landing some well-placed kicks and leaving her for dead. Just before she went unconscious, Mama Carmen prayed, "God, please, if you bring my son home, I will dedicate my life to helping any child you bring to my door."
Mama Carmen spent 38 days in a coma, before waking and telling her family of the vow she had made to God. Six months later, her son came home, and today she has been a mother to so many children.
Personally, this story convicted me more than anything. I have a tendency to give up when things get hard, or when the outcome just isn't as clear cut as I would like. Then I hear stories like this, where God takes pain that is inflicted and turns it into something redemptive, and I'm reminded of why perseverance is so important. "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:2-4)"
Mama Carmen's Espresso Cafe is located in Fayetteville, AR at 2850 N. College Ave., across from Shake's. Be sure to check out their Global Restoration Trading Company, a section of the coffehouse where various fair trade items, such as handbags and jewelry, are for sale.
