David McCormick

I am back in New Orleans chilling with my three favourite ladies in the whole wide world. Hanna and Sophia are nearing 10 pounds each and have grown so much over the past three weeks. Andrea looks like a supermodel and my jaw drops thinking about how deep and thick God's grace has been over us in this season.  The past few weeks in Guatemala a bunch of my boys and I have been working hard in our house. Every time I ask if any of them want to help me, there are at least three that jump up and are ready to go paint, garden, clean, scale the walls and make me laugh; they have been amazing. They are so excited to meet the girls and feel like they are pitching in by getting the house ready for their little sisters.  Yesterday, before leaving Guatemala, I also able to see three of my boys off to their first day of work. Thanks to a few local businesses, we were able to get them a job for the months of November and December. One of the boys gave me a hug before leaving...

I am currently in Guatemala, taking care of these 11 boys that have somehow managed to become like family to me. This Friday, two of them will be graduating from Junior High (Middle School) and I get to watch them walk across the stage and receive a piece of paper that marks quite an accomplishment in their lives. In Guatemala, where the majority of the population never get past 5th grade, I rejoice that these little boys of mine are en route to becoming professionals with a high level of education. One of them wants to be a mechanical engineer and has already picked out the college he wants to attend here in Guatemala. Looking back over this year, waking up these two guys everyday at 4:30 am to get ready for school, staying up with them as they worked on their incredible amounts of homework, taking them to tutor classes, soccer practices and other events, I am inspired by the DRIVE they have. Now, there were certainly days where they were PARKED, but it is beautiful to reflect and ...

I wrote this on my plane ride to New Orleans, hours before Sophia and Hanna were born … As North Americans, we certainly do love our programs. We see some sort of need or problem and our forte has been to perfect a series of steps to detect, evaluate, assess and critique in order to respond, address and consequently provoke change. We hear about children dying of preventable diseases in Africa and we create sponsorship programs to meet a need. A rise in adolescent suicide rates? We create a catchy publicity endeavor and a 24-hour hotline to boot. Our kids have needs that we can’t meet? Church programs. We can’t lose weight? God bless Curves and Biggest Loser initiatives. Too much trash in Texas? We accoridnly all learned that we “DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS”. We love programs. Most often they are very appropriate and quite necessary. Considering this culture of programs that we have so efficiently and globally implemented, I have been thinking about the true needs that I see around...

It is hard to think of what to write that will not sound cliche at such time as this, having babies and all. But, I suppose that the way it all came together is anything but cliche. I woke up that September 16h at 4:30am, to wake up my boys for school. One of them unfortunately missed the bus and I so had to drive him to school and got back to the orphanage at around 7:30am. I still had a bunch of things to get done in the office: leave reports written for the upcoming hearings, update the director's agenda among other things. I had also scheduled to take my car into the shop where I would then get picked up by a friend of mine who was leaving on the same flight to Houston at noon. I managed to get everything in order, dropped of my car and was on my way. Andrea wasn't due for another two weeks and I was excited to see her and relax a little. I arrived in Houston uneventfully and was pleasantly surprised by the lack of people there. As I proceeded to my gate I decided to se...

I think most missionaries would agree that our goal is to one day see the nationals raise up and fulfill the needs that plague their countries. In Guatemala, my biggest fight is to be an advocate for our children that have been abandoned and abused, and it is thrilling to see huge steps being taken towards raising awareness of the plight of the orphan; calling Guatemalans to reach out to those children in need. Last week we had a large event put on by the Christian Alliance for Orphans (www.christianalliancefororphans.org) in an effort to raise awareness and call Guatemalans to take practical steps to help out children in need. As a result of this event, there were 5 families that turned in their paperwork to adopt children. My heart was so full that day seeing people respond in brokenness and newfound convictions as they came to see more of God´s heart for the orphaned child. After the event I came home to my house full of 11 teenage boys, and I was filled with gratitude. Many Ch...

I hope you all had an amazing summer. These months sure do fly by here at the orphanage as we have a busy season of groups coming down to visit. Also, it has been a busy time of changes as we approach our due date for a two little girls that are nearly here! Andrea is now in New Orleans and I will be joining her in the next few weeks to be there for the birth.  We are finishing up our last few months as house parents as we will be moving out of the house once we come back with the girls. The boys have been very supportive and we are all excited about having this new addition to our family. I have had many talks recently with different boys in our house, and one of the most satisfying things is that there are a few of them who have genuinely come to see Andrea and I as their parents. Just last week, I went to one of their schools to pick them up from tutoring class, and one of the boys presented me to his friends. He just said "this is my dad" and when his friends looked ...

Happy 2014! Andrea and I stayed here at the orphanage for Christmas and New Years where were able to spend our first few days as house parents for the teenage boys. We have been blessed by a fairly smooth transition, and although there are adjustments we are making and lessons we are quickly learning about sharing a house with a dozen teenagers, we have experienced God's grace every single day.  Last weekend one of our boys' amazing sponsors took our whole house to the beach for a few days which was an incredible way of spending our last few days before the dreaded first day of school! The boys officially started school on Monday morning meaning the new wake up time of 4:40 am, making lunches, getting school supplies in order, staring down pimples in the mirror and everything else that going to school implies for adolescent boys. After such an amazing trip to the beach, it has been nice to settle into a routine again with the boys and they have been excited to get to g...

Things have been busy for us with all our kids back into the school routine and with lots of court hearings lately. Yesterday I had to travel to a court that is five hours away and had to hand over a little girl that has been with us since she was a little baby. I am reminded that a huge part of our work down here is to be interceding for those kids that go back with their families as we often have no way of helping them out physically or emotionally anymore.  I have been able to have lots of talks with the different boys in my house about how they are doing spiritually and emotionally, and I am reminded so frequently that being a teenager is just plain hard sometimes. There are days that everything seems to be great in the world and other times it is just the opposite. I would ask you to continue to pray for these 12 boys that we have right now and that in the midst of these turbulent years that they could come to find a deep sense of peace and a true faith in who God is. The...

I am actually writing this update sitting next to two of my dedicated teenage boys who are up past midnight still doing homework. We actually just got back from our final for the soccer league we play in and were able to beat the other team tonight which landed us with a large plastic trophy that will now garnish our house. It was a special moment with the boys especially as one of my littlest guys even played and was able to outplay grown men who are twice his size (literally...). In December and January I shared with you all a need in the lives of one of the boys who was acting out in very destructive ways. I wanted to share with you all that looking back over the past five months, God has truly transformed his heart. The other day he actually broke his arm playing soccer which gave us a solid eight hours of quality time as we sat waiting to get an x-ray and cast put on (God bless the Guatemalan health care "system"). After the cast was in place, we went to get somethi...

I hope you have all received the news that Andrea is pregnant, and with  twins no less. It was definitely a big surprise for us as neither of our families have history of twins, but we see it as a huge blessing that God has given us and which has been a source of so much joy throughout the past few weeks.  Over the past month or so we have had so many kids return with their families; quite a bit more than normal actually. In any court hearing there is always a tense moment when the judge finally orders that the child return to Casa Bernabe or is to leave immediately with their family. As the child is not present when the decision is made, it is my job to tell the kids what that decision is. There are many more recent stories I could tell where this is a truly traumatic experience, but I wanted to tell you all about a little girl named Aida who was able to be reunited with her mother.  After a small dispute with her mom, 10 year old Aida stumbled ran away from hom...