Orphans of the storm: Allegations of abuse, financial misdealings beset Baja facility
Vega, 20, and Becerril, 25, both grew up in La Puerta de Fe. And both ran away. For them, the buildings' bright colors are reminders of a turbulent past, one tainted by a brother's suicide, by memories of beatings and of childhood squandered.
Their lives, and the conditions they say they fled, contrast sharply with the intent of a pervasive yet little-known network of Baja orphanages and the goodwill of Southern California Christian groups that support them.
It is a relationship that requires trust on both sides of the border, and one that took a troubled turn with the conviction — reversed earlier this year — of an American volunteer accused of sexual misconduct with the children.
Each weekend, hundreds of Americans flow south across the border bearing toys and clothes, tools and building supplies, determined to help improve the lives of children clinging to the fringes of Mexico's inconstant economy.
Few of the children are true orphans. Some were taken by Mexican social-services officials from parents who neglected or abused them. Others were dropped off by caring but poor parents who decided their flesh and blood would have better futures without them.
Mexican authorities officially count 44 such orphanages in Baja, most clustered in the north, but American activists say there are at least 57. La Puerta de Fe, or the Door of Faith, is among the largest, with about 85 children.
Under the Mexican system, La Puerta de Fe and the other orphanages are privately operated but subject to inspections and oversight by local social-services officials. But there is no government funding. The orphanages rely instead on the network of international organizations, primarily Christian-based charities.
Considered among best
By most accounts, La Puerta de Fe ranks as among the best of Baja's orphanages, with its healthy $100,000-a-year budget coming primarily from the Door of Faith Foundation in Irvine, Calif. The orphanage is clean, the children well-fed and clothed, the staff attentive.
But the orphanage's supporters at Door of Faith have been forced to confront some unpleasant revelations about conditions there in the early '90s, ones that reverberate today: allegations that children were abused, that money was misused, and that when David Cathcart, an Orange County, Calif., benefactor, went to investigate, he was falsely accused of sexually abusing four young boys.
This spring, a Mexican judge ordered Cathcart, 59, released after 6-1/2 years in prison, concluding that four boys lied when they accused him of sodomizing them — statements the boys came forward late last year to say had been coerced by the orphanage's local director.
Social services officials had already begun monitoring the orphanage more closely following a report of possible improper touching in 1999. Though they found no further problems, the resurfacing of the Cathcart case led them this spring to suspend placing additional children at La Puerta de Fe, pending investigation by local prosecutors.
La Puerta de Fe began in 1959 as an act of personal ministry.
Curtis and Sylvia Freeze, an American couple, started the original orphanage in Tijuana, and three years later they took over the current site, a remote and mothballed dude ranch.
Two generations of Freezes looked after the children. They came to rely on a local man named Gabriel Diego Garcia, first as a handyman and then as the local head of La Puerta de Fe, under Mexican laws that require foreign-supported orphanages be directed by Mexican citizens. That requirement meant that La Puerta de Fe had a Mexican board of directors in place south of the border, and an American board raising funds north of the border.
When the second generation of Freezes retired to the United States in 1990, they handed control of the American board over to Latin American Child Care, an international relief organization tied to the Assemblies of God church. But within months, Latin American Child Care was ready to abandon the project, according to Homer Purdy Jr., the Freezes' son-in-law. The organization was concerned, Purdy said, that Diego was ignoring their requests for accountings of how donations were spent.
Fearing the orphanage would close, Freeze family members — including Purdy — and other supporters took over the American board in 1991. They ran into similar problems with Diego, Purdy said.
Meanwhile, Cathcart, a Laguna Niguel travel agent and grandfather, began to take the plight of abandoned Mexican children as his personal mission.
He made regular trips and matched children with American families with whom they would spend time on both sides of the border. One girl, diagnosed with leukemia, moved in with her patrons in Orange County, Calif., and remains there still, her disease in remission.
Cathcart also became close to the children at La Puerta de Fe. Sometimes he would bring kids to his family's home in Laguna Niguel.
Vega, who went on several of the outings, said Cathcart "was kind and cared about us. He wanted us to experience some better things in life. It was fun and carefree. We were allowed to be children. I treasure those days."
A financial dispute
Cathcart eventually took over from Purdy control of the group of U.S. supporters. Like the others, Cathcart had his suspicions about how Diego used the U.S. donations. Cathcart pressed the issue, refusing to send Diego money for such things as utility bills, opting to pay them in person during his regular trips to La Mision.
Cathcart believes his focus on the orphanage's finances led to the charges that were brought against him. In 1994, as Cathcart was pressuring Diego to account for expenses, Diego was taking some of his wards to local authorities, where they told stories of sexual relations with Cathcart. Some, such as Vega, say they refused. "I told (him) I wouldn't do it, because it wasn't true," Vega said recently.
Diego has steadfastly maintained that there was no problem with the finances, and that he did not play a role in coercing the now-recanted sex-abuse allegations that sent Cathcart to prison — despite the judge's belief that Diego was responsible.
Vega said that visiting benefactors such as Cathcart "who would come and help at the orphanage never had any ideas of what life was like for us there. They never knew about the beatings."
Diego has denied the children were beaten, although he acknowledges that corporal punishment was used.
A mixed record
Hundreds of children have been raised within La Puerta de Fe, and while no one has tracked them into adulthood, it is clear that some have flourished and some have foundered.
Like Vega, Becerril entered the orphanage when he was an infant. The painful memories of beatings are overshadowed by one of suicide: His older brother hanged himself just outside La Puerta de Fe's walls.
At age 15, Becerril ran away, but he had nowhere to go. For a time he lived under an old camper shell. Now he lives in the converted toolshed behind a small hardware store in La Mision.
He has no steady work and gets by doing sporadic odd jobs for the hardware store. He refers to his time at the orphanage as his "internment." Vega and Becerril's stories — and those told by others — are supported by a local social worker, Maria Cristina Garcia Rivera, who said she found evidence in 1994 of beatings and sexual abuse among the children at the orphanage. Her request for a full investigation by social services was ignored, she said.