Luis and Mama Silvia

Mama Silvia’s Story

My name is Silvia, although today most people around Cayacoa simply know me as Mama Silvia.

My story began many years ago, in 1980, when I took an early retirement from my work as a seamstress in the United States and returned home to my country, the Dominican Republic. At the time, I had no idea where the Lord was going to lead me. I only knew that I wanted to be obedient when He called.

Not long after returning home, I had a dream from the Lord. In that dream, I saw myself building a church in a poor community called El Ranchito de los Vargas.

There was just one problem.

I had never heard of El Ranchito de los Vargas. I didn’t know where it was or even if such a place existed.

I began asking people around Puerto Plata, where I was living. A few days later, I met a woman who told me that not only did she know El Ranchito, but she had been born there and much of her family still lived there.

For me, that was enough. I needed to find this place.

Finding El Ranchito

Getting to El Ranchito wasn’t easy in those days. There was a river that had to be crossed on foot, and young men from the area made a little money helping people safely across.

When I finally arrived, I met a man who asked if I was looking for someone.

I told him, “No, I’m not looking for anyone. I’m looking for a small piece of land because the Lord told me to build a church here.”

Then I told him about my dream and why I believed the Lord had sent me to El Ranchito.

What I didn’t know was that this man, whose name was Manuel, was also a Christian. After hearing my story, he offered my husband and me a place to stay with his family while we searched for land and began the work.

With the help of my children, who were living and working in the United States, we were eventually able to build the little church the Lord had placed in my heart.

We called it Visión de Dios — Vision of God.

Manuel and I helped pastor the congregation during its first year.

I could have thought my work was finished.

But the Lord had other plans.

The River That Led Me to Cayacoa

One rainy day, the young men who normally helped people cross the river weren’t there. I couldn’t make it across, so I ended up renting a little place on the other side of the river in a community called Cayacoa.

At the time, it probably seemed like an inconvenience.

Today, I know differently.

While I was staying there, people began coming to the house asking me to pray for them. Eventually, some began asking if I could help build a church on their side of the river too.

I prayed about their request.

With help from my son in the United States, I was able to purchase a piece of land in Cayacoa. We had enough to buy the property, but we didn’t have enough money to build the church.

So we started with what we had.

I began holding a small gathering in the house I was renting, directly across the street from the land. Around fifteen children and young people started coming. Some of the older ones helped me with the little ones.

We didn’t know it then, but that little group of children was the beginning of something much bigger.

A Meeting on the Beach

One day, I took the children on an outing to the beach in Luperón, just a few miles from Cayacoa.

While we were there, we met a Canadian Christian couple named Bill and Colleen Cole. They had been praying and asking the Lord to show them how He wanted to use them while they were in the Dominican Republic.

Bill came over, looked at all the children and asked me, “Who are all these kids?”

I explained that they were the youth group from a little church we were trying to build in Cayacoa. Then I told Bill and Colleen the story and shared the vision with them.

They asked if they could come to Cayacoa the following day and see the property.

They came, and after seeing what we were trying to do, they became excited. They believed that helping us might be the answer to the prayer they had been praying.

They offered to help us build the church.

And they did.

Before long, the church was completed and filled to standing room only.

But the Lord still wasn’t finished.

“I Will Be Your Mother”

A few years later, I had another dream.

In this dream, I saw an abandoned house in a wooded area. Part of the house was still standing, but much of it had fallen into rubble.

Then I saw little children coming out from underneath the ruins.

I asked them, “Children, what are you doing in there? Where are your parents?”

Some told me they didn’t have parents. Others told me they had parents, but their parents didn’t want them.

Then they asked me if I could give them something to eat.

My heart broke for those children.

In my dream, I told them:

“I will be your mother. I will take care of you until you grow up and are able to take care of yourselves.”

When I woke up, I knew in my heart that the dream was from the Lord.

Behind our church in Cayacoa was an empty piece of land. As I prayed, I felt that this was where we were supposed to build a home for children like the ones I had seen in my dream.

So once again, we started building.

Fifteen Years of Waiting

Starting was the easy part.

Finishing was another story.

With the help of my children, we were able to build the foundation and put up some of the walls.

Then the money ran out.

And those unfinished walls remained there.

Year after year.

For almost fifteen years.

There were times when I became discouraged. My children had families, bills and responsibilities of their own in the United States. They helped me as much as they could, but completing a children’s home was simply more than we could afford.

People in the community saw those unfinished walls year after year. Some even made fun of me. They wondered why I kept believing that this building would someday become a home for children.

Eventually, even my own children began asking questions.

One of them was my son Giovanni.

“Mom, I Can’t Even Give It Away!”

Giovanni was living in the United States, and he had been helping me financially whenever he could.

After watching the building sit unfinished for so many years, he decided he needed to find another solution.

His idea was simple: if our family couldn’t afford to finish the children’s home, maybe we could give the entire project to a church in the United States. The church could have the land and the partially constructed building for free, with only one condition—it had to remain a home for orphaned and abandoned children.

Giovanni thought it was a pretty good plan.

So he called the missions department at his church.

They said no.

He called another church.

No.

Then another.

Still no.

Finally, he called me.

“Mom,” he said, “I can’t even give this building away! Are you sure you heard from God?”

I told him:

“Yes, son. I heard from God. And the Lord told me that I would run it. Maybe that’s why you can’t find anyone to give it to.”

“Okay, Mom,” he said.

But Giovanni wasn’t quite ready to give up.

One Last Phone Call

Giovanni found an organization on the Internet called Warm Blankets Orphan Care. They were helping children’s homes in different parts of the world, even as far away as Africa.

He decided to make one last call.

A secretary answered and listened to his story. She was very kind and told him that the CEO of the organization would get back to him.

Giovanni remembers hanging up and thinking:

“The CEO? I don’t need the CEO just to tell me no!”

After all the other phone calls, he was expecting another rejection.

Eventually, the CEO called.

And at first, it sounded like another no.

They explained that they didn’t want us to give them the building because that wasn’t the model they followed anymore.

But then he said something different.

They were willing to come to the Dominican Republic and see what we had. If our children’s home fit the kind of ministry they supported, they would pray about it. And if the Lord opened the doors, they would help us complete the construction and provide some support for the children.

They came to Cayacoa.

They saw the unfinished building that had been sitting there for all those years.

They listened to our story.

And they prayed.

Then God opened the doors.

Warm Blankets Orphan Care, known today as Kinship United, came alongside our family and provided the help we needed to finally complete the children’s home.

And they didn’t leave when the construction was finished.

They stayed beside us.

To this day, Kinship United continues helping us provide for the children who call Cayacoa home.

Looking Back

When I look back over all these years, I can see something that I couldn’t always see while I was living through it.

A dream about a church in a place I had never heard of.

A river I couldn’t cross on a rainy day.

A rented little house in Cayacoa.

Fifteen children gathering together.

A chance meeting with Bill and Colleen on a beach.

Another dream about children coming out from underneath the rubble.

An unfinished building that stood for fifteen years.

A son who tried to give that building away and discovered that nobody would take it.

And finally, one last phone call.

At the time, these things seemed like separate events.

Today, I see them as pieces of the same story.

The Lord wasn’t simply building churches.

He wasn’t simply building a children’s home.

He was building a family.

The children I saw in that dream so many years ago are the reason Cayacoa exists today. And the promise I made to those children in my dream is still the promise in my heart:

“I will be your mother, and I will take care of you until you are able to take care of yourselves.”

That is why, after all these years, they call me Mama Silvia.

And that is how Cayacoa Kinship Family began.