“Some neighbors complain to each other about it, but they didn’t take any action,” said Lopez’s energetic wife Adelita Santos López.
“The worst part is when parents give drugs to their children,” she added, noting that child prostitution, sometimes with children as young as seven years old, is also a problem in her humble colonia.
So five years ago, she and her six children and their spouses helped her husband Alfonso found a children’s project they named Brazos de Amistad (Arms of Friendship), which now gives 70 local kids a free hot meal every weekday, as well as sports and music activities, English classes and medical attention. Of course, children are not permitted to enter the facility with drugs or weapons.
“Kids who are members of opposing gangs have been in here together,” said the couple’s son-in-law Eugenio Delgadillo, who works full time in the dining project without a salary. “At first they wouldn’t talk to each other, but then we got it straightened out, and they understood.”
As visitors entered the children’s dining room on a recent afternoon, Delgadillo was speaking to the children assembled at tables awaiting dinner.
“Thank you Father God …” he began. “Thank you Father God …” the children repeated, following along to the conclusion — a prayer for the children of Africa.
Delgadillo also coaches the soccer team, “although I don’t know anything about coaching,” he laughed, adding that girls are admitted to the team. “They laugh at us until they see the girls score!”
One of the couple’s sons, Pablo, was outside in a chest-high hole, slinging a pick at a large opening he had dug in the sidewalk. Pablo works full time constructing a new dining room at the facility. Pablo, Delgadillo, another daughter, Silvia, and two more of Alfonso and Adelita’s children, plus their spouses likewise work full time and are paid only with meals. The family has cobbled together an impressive amount of support from vendors at the nearby Mercado Felipe Angeles (where they collect food every Saturday), the Dr. Simi group, Sirloin Stockade restaurant, the Canadian Embassy in Mexico City, and government and church entities.
“We still have many necessities,” Adelita Santos said. “For example, it would be great if somebody donated a salary for Pablo. He has two children.”
“We don’t usually ask people to donate specific things,” said Delgadillo as he gave a visitor a ride home in a Ford pickup that was given to them by a local government entity. “We like for people to come out here and see us, and decide for themselves what to give.”
The reader who is beginning to suspect that the Lópezes are no ordinary family would be correct. The elder López, who started the project, is a pastor in La Capilla Calvario — in English, Calvary Chapel — a denomination well known in parts of the United States but barely known in Mexico. The church he pastors in Colonia Campesina, which bears no sign and is barely noticeable on the cobblestone street, is the umbrella for Brazos de Amistad. Alfonso and Adelita live around the corner and presently use their home kitchen to prepare daily dinner for the children, along with volunteers from the church community, who only get paid with a weekly stipend of household basics, such as rice and beans.
The elder López, after being hit in Guadalajara many years ago by a drunken driver, is missing a leg and walks with crutches, although he is vital and articulate. After that incident, López left Colonia Campesina and went to Tijuana, hoping to cross in the United States. But he got to know a pastor in Tijuana, who inspired him to return home to Colonia Campesina as a missionary, along with his whole family, in 1999. (Some of López’s children had crossed the border illegally but after a few years came back to Mexico.)
All that helps explain why, although the López family is proud of the buildings and programs they developed and the new dining room they are constructing, they all say that instilling the love of God in children is their top priority.
“It was a very specific calling,” says matriarch Adelita Santos. “We prayed about it.”
“Our biggest accomplishment is that these kids love God,” the elder López emphasized. “Some of them have been coming for all five years and now they help out. And the parents have confidence in us. They know that when the children grow up they won’t be on drugs or in gangs.”
“It’s only 70 children,” added Delgadillo, “but we think we can make a little difference. They are the citizens of tomorrow. Our goal is for them to be better citizens and to have God in their hearts.”
Donations to Brazos de Amistad have come in the form of food and construction materials, as well as deposits to a bank account.
“We’re an associación civil,” Adelita stressed. “Everything that goes in and out has to be accounted for, so that the government can donate to us and anyone can see our books. It’s better that way.”
The family also focuses on the children’s education, trying to inspire them to get in school in the first place and then to continue through high school and beyond.
“Many kids in this area don’t go to school. We are going to the parents to ask them to make a commitment, not to us, but to their children, to get them educated. We want to help them get the basics they need for school, like notebooks and uniforms.”
One pretty teenager, Karla Montoya, has been in the program for five years, and now helps out in the kitchen and with setup and cleanup after dinner. She explained shyly that her father mistreated her mother and then her parents divorced, leaving her in bad circumstances. But with the help of Brazos de Amistad and the community, she managed to organize a quinceañera party for herself, with all the requisite trimmings, such as dress, shoes and salon.
“After high school I’m hoping to study business administration,” she said.
The couple noted that a police volunteer organization, DARE, does some good work in the area. But other than that, the official response to the neighborhood’s vices is part of the problem.
“The police should come out and stop people from selling drugs. It’s very open,” Alfonso López said. “They say the police get paid off.”
Brazos de Amistad, A.C. (project of Capilla Calvario), Calle Carlos H. Menendez 1492, between Calles Malecon, Jose Maria Sarmiento and Julio Rio, Colonia Campesina, C.P. 44760, Guadalajara. Tel: (33) 3333-0968, 3608-9969, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., www.brazosdeamistad.com. Facebook: “Brazos de Amistad.”