Father Norman Built Shelters
from the Storms
for Thousands of Children
Dying on the Streets
from Poverty and Disease
"JOY IN THE MIDST OF SORROW IN SANTA MARIA ORPHANAGE!"
by Judy Joy Jones
One of the most important journeys in my life began when a tiny note posted in a church grabbed my eye. It said a priest with an orphanage in Mexico badly needed help. I will try if possible, to help anyone caring for children in need, regardless of religion or no religion. Children are our future leaders!
I immediately called the number on the note and the person who answered excitedly told me that Father Clifford Antonio Norman, the founder of Santa Maria Orphanage in Colon, Mexico, urgently needed help for his 300 children. I hung up and made plane reservations to go and meet the priest the following day.
As soon as I arrived in Mexico City, a stranger came up to me and asked if I knew the area. We talked briefly and Ron asked if he could come with me to Santa Maria, as he had dreams of one day founding a school for homeless youth. I was extremely grateful to have a friend on the long journey, as I had never been to an orphanage in my life.
Several buses and many hours later, we arrived at the doorstep of Santa Maria Orphanage. Many young children ran up to us, grabbing our legs and pulling our arms down to them, all begging to be touched at once. They had been abandoned on the streets of Mexico City and never had an adult to hug and love them.
I felt overwhelmed, grateful, and guilty all at the same time — grateful and guilty that I had parents as I thought all children did. My sheltered life was coming to an abrupt end. Part of me wanted to run away from what I was seeing as fast as I could, but I knew there was no going back.
Even with 300 orphans already living at Santa Maria Orphanage, Father Antonio Norman always had an extra bed and after hugging my new friend and I, he showed us to the young peoples dorms where our beds for the night were.
Some of the children were sleeping on box springs even though there were mattresses all around. They had no adults to put them on their beds.
The children were all running up to us, trying to hand us combs for their hair, books for us to read to them — anything to be touched and loved by an adult that cares that they are alive.
A young person in a wheelchair stretched out his hand towards me with a dirty cup in it. He wanted water and could not talk. Another tiny, crippled child was sitting on the floor trying to push himself around. I looked for a spare wheelchair to put him in, but could not find one.
An adorable two-year-old boy with a huge smile named Cesar, was lying on the box springs on an upper bunk bed with no help to get his mattress on his bed. Cesar was badly crippled.
Looking into his eyes, I promised I would oneday find help for him. Two years later, I took a doctor to the orphanage and she took Cesar to Mexico City to a physician she knew who performed Cesars much-needed surgery.
I know I was guided to see young Cesar at the moment I did and to meet the doctor. A woman who lived at the orphanage and helped the young children told me she had been praying around the clock for Cesar to get his much needed operation.
Angels are constantly guiding us to answer one anothers prayers, yet it is sometimes very difficult to follow their guidance. When I do let go in pure faith and listen to the holy spirits beautiful song, miracles abound!
Laughter and singing could be heard throughout Santa Maria’s hallways. In the midst of intense suffering, great joy can be found, and these kids have it. What they don’t have are adults to hug, love and nurture them.
Many of the children have no names upon arriving since they have no parents to name them.
Some children have hopped freight trains to Santa Maria to escape violent families. How many frightened children have found refuge in the arms of Father Norman will never be known.
The following morning, Father Norman took me into his office and showed me a check that had just arrived. It was from Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. He explained they had never before had they sent his orphanage donations. Since I was doing volunteer work at Mother Teresas around the world, I knew I was seeing the mysteriously beautiful interwoven spiritual tapestry of our lives.
My journey with Father Clifford Antonio Norman had begun. I first visited his orphanage in 1988 and would continue until his death in 2013. He passed away on May 3, 2013, at the age of 82 at his home in Colon, Queretaro, Mexico.
I never expected to be involved with 300 orphans and a priest for over 25 years. And little did I know at the time that he would call right before he died and ask me to come to his deathbed and help him write his memoirs. I was not able to do so, but will always be extremely honored he asked me.
Mexico City at that time had an estimated 20 million homeless children; and Father Norman, who was in his fifties with only a dollar in his pocket, struck out all alone to house, feed and clothe, as well as educate, as many homeless children as he could before he died.
He had dreams of building big schools for his children, wanting the best for them like any father would. But God sent him some of the most unwanted children on earth and by the time he fed, housed, clothed and hugged them nonstop, it was difficult to accomplish all of his dreams.
Father Norman said that at least once a week, he would open his door and find a child, badly needing a bath left on his doorstep. Looking into his eyes. the children knew they had found a father and he knew he had a new child.
At any given time, this amazing priest not only housed over 300 orphaned children, mostly from the streets of Mexico City, but he also took care of 20 homeless elders in his own house and had started a home for children dying of Aids disease. And he ran a weekly soup kitchen in the village that fed many people.
Father called me often. His huge laugh spilled through the phone and he always asked me, “What do you want to do when you get to heaven?” He told me he wanted to play the piano! If we could measure a heart’s capacity to love, this priest’s would be off the charts!
Father Norman sent me a letter once, saying I would one day sell a painting for a million dollars! And, he said, I would then go to another country to volunteer. He loved my art and did everything possible to keep me painting. Amazing: all those kids, and caring for the forgotten elderly, and yet he never forgot to call and write me, asking about my art.
Always trying to spread the word about the needs of Santa Maria, I put a notice in a church bulletin that said: “Open Hearts and Arms Needed for 300 Orphans”. A woman called and asked what I meant by “open hearts and arms.” I tried to explain that there are some things money cannot buy — like helping to put mattresses on box springs on their beds, combing a child’s hair, reading them a book and hugging them.
Another time, Father Norman called and asked me to come see him. So I held a fundraising art event to get the money to travel to Santa Maria. More importantly, I was spreading the word about the needs of the 300 children in any and every way possible. If not you and I doing it, who will?
I have found in life that where one person leaves off, another comes in and carries on. Mother Teresa’s sisters told me of a priest in Haiti that had started an orphanage on top of a mountain for several hundred children. Our journey through life continues through eternity.
I live in San Francisco, a large city where homeless people die on the concrete streets, while people walk by pretending not to notice, and pretending they don’t see them eating out of garbage cans. Without souls such as Mother Teresa and Father Norman, it would be impossible for me to deal with what I see.
The people that hear the cries of the homeless, the orphans, the forgotten elderly, and open their arms and hearts unconditionally to helping them in whatever way God is asking; keep my heart open.
Father Clifford Antonio Norman of Mexico and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India, taught me the saying on a shirt I was given after donating blood is true;
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