Something very special happened here at Welcome Home in July when a team of dental professionals came from Madera, CA, to hold a dental clinic at the WHO facility. It wasn’t just about the many, many people who were served by the team. This special blessing involved a surprise reuniting of a family separated by an international border and the passing of decades.

Among that team of five were twin sisters, Janell and Janette Gaona, who work as dental assistants to Dr. Tim Peffly. As U.S. citizens of Mexican heritage, the hermanas (sisters) speak fluent Spanish and were excited to be able to visit and serve in the country of their parents’ birth.

Janell and Janette knew that their mother had lived and worked in the Baja as a child. They recalled her story of picking in the fields and carrying heavy buckets of tomatoes, and proudly testified of her strength to this day. Not knowing the Baja territory at all, they told us that she spoke of a town called Camalu and having relatives still in that area. Well! Camalu is just 10 miles north of our town of Vicente Guerrero! We encouraged them to get more information, like family names, hoping that we might be able to locate someone. They called home that evening to talk with their mother and picked up some more clues.

On the second day of the dental clinic, a woman came to be examined. Along with the many other clients, she waited patiently for her turn to be seen. As she was leaving, she asked Janell if she could add the name of a relative to the list to be seen later in the week. Janell was glad to take the name and the woman spoke the name of her relative: Virginia Gutierrez. As Janell heard that, chills ran through her body. Her mother had told them the night before that Gutierrez was one of their family names.

The morning of the final day of the clinic, a taxicab pulled up to Welcome Home with a special delivery. The twins’ great-great-aunt, Virginia Gutierrez, the sister of their great-grandfather, had come to visit, along with her 94-year old husband, her daughter and granddaughter. It was a tremendously emotional reunion for this long-separated family. Janell and Janette were overwhelmed by the unexpected course of events, and were able to see how God had put this entire plan into place.

The story gets better! The girls called their mother from the computer and asked her to have their grandfather with her when they called back later in the day. They set a time for a teleconference call — computer to computer, with video. At the appointed time, via the miracle of an internet video connection, they had the joy of introducing their mother and grandfather, sitting in Madera, California, to their long-lost relatives here in the Baja. There were more than a few tears shed amongst all of us who were privileged to share in the moment.

Praise God for His surprising blessings, more than we are able to think or imagine!

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