October 16, 2001
"HOUSE OF THE SHEPHERD" PROVIDES A LOVING SANCTUARY FOR ABUSED MEXICAN WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN IN A REMOTE AREA OF BAJA CALIFORNIA
Two single American women are devoting their lives to bring hope to those who have lost hope
By Dan Wooding
SAN VICENTE, MEXICO (ANS) - Lisa Heit and Jeanie Sue Phegley, who goes by the name of Juanita in Mexico, are single American Christian women who are devoting their lives to bringing hope to abused Mexican mothers and their children.
(Pictured: Jeannie (l.) with Lisa).
And it can be a dangerous task. They have faced an angry husband with a gun; another with a machete and even men who have threatened to burn down the Casa Del Pastor (House of the Shepherd) in the town of San Vicente, Baja California, Mexico.
But Lisa (42) and Jeanie (43), along with other volunteers, have not let these threats deter them from their God-given ministry that has brought the chance of a new life in Christ to women and children who have lost hope. Currently, they care caring for 11 mothers and 49 children in the ten dorms.
I met these extraordinary women recently at the Festival de Vida (Festival of Life) in Queretaro, Mexico, which was led by Pastor Mike MacIntosh, senior pastor of Horizon Christian Fellowship of San Diego, California. They had taken some time off from their duties to be part of the team of 324 Christians from the US, and 1500 Mexican believers from all over the country, who brought the message of God's love to the people of this city of 1.2 million.
Lisa explained how she got the burden for the abused mothers and children in Mexico. "I was born in Omaha, Nebraska and my father died when I was just 10 months old," she said. "My mom had a nervous breakdown and had to abandon his us children and we ere put with other aunts and uncles who could take care of us and at the age of 8 years old, we were taking from our aunts and uncles and separated as brothers and sisters and put into foster homes and that is probably part of my burden of wanting the mothers to remain with their children because Mexico is full of orphanages who have left the children there and they are out there somewhere, but they have no economic way to take care of them or the men that they married don't want the kids. I was then adopted.
"At 9 years old, my adopted family took me to California, and was raised in the Poway are of San Diego County and I managed a Burger King in the area for 14 years and that's when I moved to Riverside to manage another Burger King there.
"At the age of 21, I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior at the Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California. I was raised spiritually at Calvary Chapel of Moreno Valley."
She said that as a child, a missionary came to her church and told about the starving children of Biafra in Nigeria. "On hearing about this, I told the Lord that I wanted to be a missionary for him one day even though I wasn't yet a believer. At 22 I began to go out on the mission trips - to Africa, the Philippines, Mexico and Burma. All the time I was seeking the Lord about where I should go fulltime and the Lord just gave me a great burden for the people of Mexico.
"During my first years on the mission field, so many women came up to me and told me that their husband abused them and had abandoned her and that they no resources. We didn't have the home at the time so I prayed for them and that was it. That was all we could do."
Lisa said that the burden eventually became too much to ignore and so she approached her home church to see if they would give her to covering to start a home for women and children that had been abandoned and abused.
"It's been going since 1996," she continued. "I had bought a piece of property and that's where I had a 15' x 20' room. There was no electricity or running water. No bathroom. So for my first two years, I read by candlelight and took my spit baths inside my house and so it was on that same property that the Lord provided the finances to be able to build a five-story dorm and then behind that we had another five-room dorm and then we had another five-room dorm upstairs build with an eating area down below and in that home right now, we have 11 moms and about 49 children that eat from our table every day. The Lord is faithful and He is their Dad and also our provider and He has just been awesome to us.
DANGERS
"We live in a very quiet and calm community and as far as gangs go, but sometimes the abusive men will come looking for their women. We've had a man with a machete come and wanted to chop his wife into pieces as he was drunk or drugged out.
"My partner Jeannie talked him and said, 'We know you want to see your wife and so what are you doing with that weapon? He eventually left and we also had two men who threatened to burn down our house. In many tribal areas, that's how they handle their problems. They just burn people's houses down. They think that is the way to solve their problem. The Lord protected us from that.
"We also had a man who lay in wait behind our house with a gun, looking for his wife. Fortunately, our neighbor warned us about him. He also threatened to burn down the house, but the Lord intervened and the problem."
Lisa said the women that come to their home for help are "30 percent single, who have no husbands and about 70 percent have husbands who are abusive or have a drug or alcohol problem.
"Most of the mothers are in a terrible state when they arrive. We have the first meeting with them and we try to find out the situation in their life. Usually, they are in tears and they tell you the situation that has happed and that is the first opportunity to present the love of Jesus to them. And some of them accept the Lord right there and then and for others it takes time for them to see that we love them and we are not going to take from them, but we want to give to them.
"In time, their heart softens and the Lord does a healing and we have devotionals in the morning and we pray with them about whatever situation is going on in their life.
"As long as they work, they are allowed to stay until they get on their feet. It could be a year and some have stayed two. It all depends on their circumstances."
NOT AFRAID
Lisa said that she and Jeanie are not afraid of the possible dangers from angry men. "I believe that, as the Bible says, 'unless the Lord builds the house, we labor in vain that build it' and 'unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.' That was the Scripture that God gave me. He is the one who is watching over us and He's the one who is guarding us?"
She said, they also have a schoolteacher on staff, who tutors the children who need special attention - the others attend local schools -- and they have another missionary who does miscellaneous things around our home.
JUANITA'S STORY
Jeanie Sue Phegley, who was born and raised in a mid-western town in Illinois, is known as Juanita in Mexico. "I heard the gospel when I was a teenager, but although I received Jesus into my life at that time, I didn't receive any discipleship and kind of walked in the wilderness for years," she said. "The Lord brought me out to the Southern California coast and in 1983, and I committed my life to Jesus at that time.
"I was trying to figure out then what He would have me do. In 1987, I went down to Mexico on a short-term missions trip. I was very content in my ministry and the things I was doing at home in San Bernardino, California. And then in 1991, she and I were at her to be home and I was planning to come to Mexico, but I didn't know how or when, and Lisa shared a vision with me. We sitting in a mobile home and there were six of us girls were digging an outhouse for her property. She looked across at us and she said, 'I would love to see a home for Mom's. A place where mothers could have their children and raise them and live a life with their kids.'
"I thought this was cool as I love kids and I realized that this would be a wonderful ministry. I bought the property next door. At the time, were ministry to the local migrant work camps where men and women in these little shacks and they worked the fields.
"In 1994, Lisa left us. I wondered what was going on as this ministry that she had a vision for was not going to happen without her being there. But the Lord just brought it to pass that in 1995, it happened. She come down for work projects and I would pray with her and then, in 1995, Lisa brought a work team down with her and they little by little they began to build the home in San Vicente. We didn't have electricity. We had water on our property and so I lived in a camper for the first five years there. It was an interesting kind of life.
"In 1995, these construction workers came and built this house and there it was. It was so cool, because I was watching God's plan being put into place. Every night we would get together and pray. We are as different as night, but on the most critical issues of the Lord and the Bible, we definitely agree.
"In 1996, the Lord gave me an open door to leave the ministry that I was with and come along side her and just see God's hand in helping the mom's and kids and working with them.
A SLAVE
Jeanie then told the story of a young woman who had come to Baja California from the state of Oaxaca to get work. "So here's come a little girl, 14 years old with her elder sister, to work and spend six months during the harvest season and get money for her family," she said. "She was there and she was befriended by a woman who persuaded her to come to ranch and her and her husband kept her captive for the next six years and she was badly abused. By now she had borne three children and young and innocent and knew this wasn't the right life.
"Finally, she moved to another community and she found a missionary and brought her to us and asked if we had a room for her. She is a precious little 21-year-old child with four children and has lived a life of slavery to this man and now she's excited because she knows that the Lord is in her life. And she has received him as her savior and has really taken a responsible role in her children's life and she is seeking the Lord. She is so young and has had such a hard life and now she is seeing that the Lord is husband and a father to her children."
Jeanie said that the day starts with devotions from 6:30 -8:00 AM. "We read a chapter of the Bible and then we ask the ladies what in that chapter touched their heart and what does it mean to them?" she continued. "It is a wonderful time every morning to see women learn more about the Word of God. Then Shelly Skaggs, our other missionary, makes several runs to take kids to school."
Each Sunday, all of the women and children are bused to Ensenada to attend Calvary Chapel/Horizonte, which is pastored by Juan Domingo, an American who has changed his name and taken Mexican citizenship.
Now, a sister church is about to be planted in San Vicente with a member of the Ensenada church and so they will not be making the trip of about 40 miles for much longer. A new development is that next door to the church, the women will be opening an Italian restaurant called the Mona Lisa and so they will enjoy a spaghetti lunch after the Sunday morning service.
Said Jeanie, "This is the happiest time of my life. It is a blessing to be serving these women and their children."
I concluded by asking Jeanie what her message was to single women who feel that God can't use them.
"Don't doubt the power of the Lord because He can use you - if you make yourself available. That's the key. You have to be willing to take that step to do what he says you should do."
These two women have certainly proved that!
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