Father’s Day at Casa Bernabé
Rony. Wilmer. Leonel. Mario. Juan Pablo. Dany. Luis. Sergio.
Our eight house dads are some of the most amazing fathers out there, and this week we celebrated them, along with the other men and father figures on campus. Welcome to Father's Day at Casa Bernabé!
If you read the newsletter from a few weeks ago about our Mother's Day celebrations, you know we go big at Casa Bernabé when it comes to celebrating and honoring the moms and dads who love our kids. After the men knocked it out of the park celebrating them, the women wanted to make sure to plan an equally fun day for the guys.
Early yesterday morning, all the men on campus loaded onto the bus and headed to Antigua for a day of fun and relaxation. They stopped for coffee before heading to a hotel with a breakfast buffet, nice pool, and an outdoor area for games. They spent the morning and afternoon eating, playing ping pong, swimming, and most importantly, playing soccer.
While the men were relaxing in Antigua, the women were hard at work back at Casa Bernabé setting up a dinner and coffee bar for them to come home to. They decided on a superhero theme, and the kids in our Vocational Program who are learning about party decorating helped create balloon arches and brought the theme to life. One of the house moms even used some creative AI prompts to turn each of the men into a superhero based on their unique skills and gifts.
When the guys arrived back at Casa Bernabé they loved looking at the photos and figuring out who was who.
Days like today are so fun when we get to honor the father figures of Casa Bernabé, but the real beauty of our dads happens every day behind the scenes. They fold clothes, wipe noses, hang shelves, run errands, teach kids how to kick a ball, go for adventure walks, bake bread, play cards, carry heavy furniture up all the stairs, lead worship, set early alarms, wash dishes, hold hands, push swings, bandage cuts, give high fives, wipe tears, speak hard truths, and cover our kids in prayer.
From changing diapers to the first dance at a quinceañera, the father figures at Casa Bernabé show up. For kids who for hundreds of tragic reasons don't have their biological fathers in their lives, the constant presence of these dads is often the first glimpse they have into the love of God as a Father to them.
As we did on Mother's Day, we asked Sara Salguero to share her thoughts on what it means to be a Casa Bernabé father.
In Psalm 65:5, David calls God “The Father of the fatherless.” For our children and teens this is especially important because for so many of them, prior to coming to Casa Bernabé, they had never experienced the love of an earthly father. Whether this was due to abandonment or abuse or just a plain absence of any male figure, most of our children never knew what a father could and should be.
But God, being the Ultimate Father, rescued them and gave them the opportunity to learn about Him being the Best and Most Faithful Father. And he has also given them the chance to experience tangible love from an earthly father at Casa Bernabé.
These are fathers who have sacrificed better jobs, better titles, and better money to be “all in” at Casa Bernabé and truly be present and available for each one of our children and teens. They have exchanged comfort in this world for treasures in heaven, truly believing that through their examples of what fathers can and should be, chains of dysfunctional families and absent fathers can be broken and futures changed for good.
Our fathers have said yes to God’s call to be fathers to the fatherless. They have said yes to sleepless nights, yes to long days and weeks without a day off, yes to playing the same board game for the 15th day in a row, yes to another hike in the woods, yes to another game of soccer, and yes to laying aside their own dreams and aspirations in hopes of helping these kids make theirs come true instead.
Our Casa Bernabé fathers may spend a lot of their time doing the very thankless and invisible jobs to keep this place running efficiently, but their examples of consistency, intentionality, and love in the lives of our children and teens are changing lives EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Our prayer is that as our children finally experience the true, unconditional love of these wonderful earthly fathers, they will finally be able to have a glimpse and understanding of their Heavenly Father’s eternal love for them. Our Casa Bernabé dads model this love day in and day out and are truly being used by God in ways we may never fully comprehend here on earth.
We thank God for each of them and celebrate the wonderful fathers they are today and always!