Around 1990 we sensed a prophetic word in our
ministry: Open wide the doors of your heart. There is a harvest of souls,
waiting to come in. We discerned this as a call from God to work hard
at saving needy children in response to the call of Our Lady of Guadalupe,
whom
the Holy Father raised as a continental source of Grace for the deep human
problems we all face.
On March 18, 1993, Pope John Paul II urged the Latin
American bishops accordingly:
Never tire of insisting that the first right of children -apart from their basic
right to life -is to count on a real home where they feel welcome through the love
of their parents, and where they can receive a human and Christian education. In this
way it will be possible to avoid the tragedy of the high number of abandoned children
who mostly live in the large Latin American cities, subject to so many dangers.
A call in our hearts toward orphaned
and abandoned children began as Bob and Anna experienced
their own adoption process with their daughter in Mexico. "As we were
washing our newly adopted daughter we caught the heartbroken stare of an older
girl with a burn on her face. I could hear her crying out as if to say "Will
anyone ever come for me?". To this day we have never forgotten that child's
despair."-Bob and Anna Iatesta. 
