House of Blessing Beginnings

It all began at an orphanage Lee was trying to help while she prepared her heart to take orphanages into her own home. You can see from this photo of the orphanage that the care takers were not producing happy children. In fact they were taking advantage of missionaries and pocketing what they gave, not using any of it for the care of the orphans. Social Services discovered this and shut them down. They found family members to care for most of the children but 6 of them were left homeless. They brought them to the police station and just left them there. After a night there they were taken back to the orphanage to fend for themselves because the police didn’t know what to do with them.

After 3 days Patrick of World Relief with a couple of other missionaries who had been watching over the children came to their rescue. They had been terrorized by banditos and were very hungry. He called Lee and brought them over within 2 hours.

After a bit of food and a couple of hours of security they were happy and not afraid anymore; except for little Deonicio who was suffering from a life threatening disease. It took a long time to get this traumatized little boy to smile.

Lee had not planned to take in girls, just street boys, but Julia was in that precious 6 pack and changed everything. The Lord was watching the girls in Moz and His heart was for them.

In this photo you can see how they have grown and matured. These are the beginnings of House of Blessing 5 years later. From left to right: Deonicio, Zito, Dauce, Pascoal, Mangueze and Julia