Called to Honduras:the Welton Family

Journal

Journal Entry #9 What’s in a Name?

Our Ne w Family Group

Dear Family and Friends, May 10, 2013There have been a lot of exciting changes going on in the last 9 months at Rancho Ebenezer. Many

of you have seen the WGO newsletters explaining some of the changes, and we’d like to elaborate on

important details from our perspective.

Changing the Name In order to rescue as many children as we possibly can, we have been

transitioning from a family-style orphanage to a mixed-style orphanage. Under this new model, our

position has changed from “House Parents” who do in-home foster care, to “Mentor Parents” who will

not live in the home with the ministry kids, but rather work daily with them alongside “Counselors”

who live in the houses with the kids. There are many reasons for these changes, and we feel they will

significantly benefit both the ministry kids as well as the missionary families.

Under the new model, the children will be divided into “Family Groups,” with each family group having

a house of girls and a house of boys. An advantage of this new plan is that

siblings will now be able to live in the same family group with each other.

Each family group will have 3 Counselors working in the homes. Their role

is to teach the children basic living skills such as household chores, as

well as personal hygiene, like brushing their teeth, bathing, and potty

training. The instruction provided by the Counselors will be essential in

preparing the children for independent living in the future.

In addition to the Counselors, each Family Group will be assigned to a

Mentor Parent couple. The Mentor Parents are responsible for

therapeutic mentoring both individually and in small groups,

helping the kids with school-related activities and homework, and

managing discipline issues beyond what can be handled in the home

by the Counselors. Until WGO can fully staff the Mentor Parent

positions here at the ranch, our family has been temporarily

assigned to two separate Family Groups. It has been quite an

interesting transition, as we have moved from 3 ministry children

to 10, including 6 boys and 4 girls! We now have some older children,

which has been challenging at times but also very rewarding. The

children we have been working with since the transition in October

are Angelica (16), Enmanuel (11), Jafeth (10), Jennifer (10), Kati (9),

Cristian (9), Darwin (7), Eunice (6), Olman (4) and Angel (3). During our mentor times with them, we try to

do activities to help them work through issues they have. For example, with the older children (10

and up), we try to do games that improve their math skills, as well as games where they must trust

each other and be trustworthy, which are two of their significant issues. Likewise, with the younger

children, we do activities that help them improve their ability to work together and follow directions.

We also meet individually with the kids as often as possible to help them with specific struggles. One

of our boys has an extremely difficult time dealing with emotion. He will

bottle it inside and never show that he is upset until it overwhelms him

and then he has an entire week of extremely bad behavior. We are working

to help him find healthy ways to express his feelings. This new model

allows us to address emotional and developmental issues with the children

in a more focused and intentional way.

Benefits of the New Model There are many goals for this new

model. One of these goals is to have siblings spending more time together.

In the previous model, the siblings would be on the ranch but they really

wouldn’t do family things together. In the new model, siblings will be in the

same family group for the entire time they are on the ranch, even if the Mentor

Parents or Counselors change over time. They will have at least two set times

Jennifer, Angelica, Enmanuel & Jafeth

House of the Rock

House of the Rock &House of Aaron (Combined Family Group)

Counselor & Angelica helping w/Spanish Homework

Game night with the whole group

each week to do family activities together with the entire family group. They

are also able to eat all of their meals together.

Another reason for the change in models is to create greater stability on

the Ranch. In the past, when there was a staff change (e.g., a missionary

couple returned to the States), the child’s whole world changed. They would

be in a new house, with new siblings, new house parents, new ways of cleaning,

new foods, new discipline styles, and the list goes on and on. That kind of change would be difficult for

just about anyone. Under the new plan, we will be able to maintain a much higher level of consistency

even when the inevitable staff changes occur.

The new model will also allow for greater longevity for the missionary staff. We have found that

working in a foreign country with multiple foster children who have significant backgrounds of abuse

and neglect is difficult, high-stress work. Many families who come with good intentions soon find the

experience to be more than they can handle long-term. In fact, in the past 14 years, there has been

only one North American family able to stay on-site longer than 4 years. The design of the new model

helps to balance the workload of the missionaries and will hopefully make it possible for more families

to be willing to come and to remain in the field longer.

In addition to bringing greater stability, the new model helps us to use resources more efficiently.

Because we are a charitable organization running solely on donations, we always strive to make our

money stretch. In the past, each family would buy their own groceries, and WGO would reimburse us for

the ministry children’s food. As part of the current changes, the ranch opened a cafeteria to provide

centralized dining for the mission kids and their Counselors. The cafeteria not only allows siblings

to eat together, but also provides a more consistent diet for all the children and saves money by

allowing the ranch to purchase food in bulk. These savings will be used to bring more kids to the

ranch. With the housing we currently have available, we are hoping to have 80 kids

here in the next few years. This definitely isn’t an overnight process, but we

want to reach as many abandoned children as we possibly can.

Finally, the new model also gives missionary families (like ours) a lot more

autonomy. In coming to the ranch, one of our desires was to continue to provide

nurturing, godly parenting to Jesse and Alex alongside our role as parents to

the ministry kids. This was extremely difficult under the old model, where we

were only getting 4 days off per month. Under the new model, missionary

families will have more time off (2 days per week) and have their own

houses. These changes provide more time and flexibility to Mentor

Parents, giving them the rest and the strength needed to serve well in

the unique challenges they experience on the ranch.

We are optimistic that the changes that have been made will help to

further the work that God is doing here. Please join us in continuing to

pray God’s promise for all the children at Rancho Ebenezer:

“...that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.” Philippians 2:15-16

Blessings in Christ, The Welton Family Group

Jim with Jesse

Jim and Cristian at the Festival

Festival of Talents, Olman with his class

Silliness with Jennifer, Angel and Wendy...

...Say Cheese!

For more info:WWW.WGOREACH.ORG

or email us at:Jim.Welton@wgomission.orgWendy.Welton@wgomission.org

Health – pray that we can get Wendy’s allergy

issues under control.

Vehicle – our car in the States, which we kept to use

while in Phoenix on furlough, has died. Please pray

that we can find another car.

Staff – pray that God would quickly meet our need for

Counselors and Mentor Parents at the ranch. We are still

looking for one more set of Mentor Parents in addition to the

two families who are now fundraising. Please pray that

they will find sponsors quickly. We also need additional

office staff and Social Workers as more children are

brought into the program. If you would like information

about any of these positions, please contact Pete Raineri

at this e-mail: hr@wgomission.org.

“You can be sure that God will take care of everything

you need, his generosity exceeding even yours in the glory

that pours from Jesus.” Philippians 4:19 (NLT)

Prayer Requests:

Angel, Jafeth & Darwin

...opening Christmas gifts.

The Mule, dressed as a warm weather reindeer

Water Fun Day

Kati ’s birthday cake...YUMMY!!