San Jose, Costa Rica - Susan Strachan could not have known what the future would bring. But she knew that there could be no more beautiful a spot. The grass-covered slopes provided a breathtaking vista of Costa Rica's lush Central Valley below. Susan, wife of Harry Strachan and co-founder of Latin America Mission, had a vision that was no less breathtaking and one that is still growing and expanding far beyond its simple beginnings.

Susan's heart broke for the hurting children of Costa Rica. And on one day in the early 1930s, she stood upon God's provision of this beautiful mountainside tract of land, marveling at how lavish His love was for those children.

Susan's vision to bring hope and restoration to needy and hurting children had begun some years before. Down in that valley, many children were dying of disease and malnutrition. The Clinica Biblica, or Bible Hospital, began as one of the first products of her vision, and an answer to the immediate needs of many sick and malnourished children. But it was not enough. Once the children were nursed back to health with medical care and good food, they would return to the abysmal living conditions that had necessitated their hospitalization to begin with. Something had to be done to meet not only the immediate, but also the long-term needs of Costa Rica's impoverished children.

Hogar Biblico opens

The next stage of Susan's vision was realized in 1932, when the Roblealto Bible Home opened for eight hungry, needy children. And they grew. And Roblealto grew. More children came. Five years later, the Bible Home opened the Enrique Strachan School to attend to the educational needs of the children.

Boys and girls, who had suffered the deprivations of poverty, the cruelty of abuse and the terror of abandonment, were now enjoying good food, a solid education and the love of people who cared for them. Children at risk became children at play. The love of the Lord Jesus Christ was becoming a reality in their wounded lives.

But the vision was not done growing. Over the next few decades, the Bible Home increased its capacity to include nine houses and nine sets of houseparents, each one capable of accommodating 10 children.

The costs of such an operation were becoming significant. In 1967, a philanthropist named Brooks Herman helped establish a small chicken hatchery to generate income for Roblealto, and provide food for the children. Today, this hatchery is one of the largest and most successful in all of Central America. It generates enough income to cover a portion of Roblealto's operating costs, and provides much-needed employment in the community.

But still the vision was not done growing. Many of the children who lived at the Bible Home were not there because of willful abandonment, but rather because there was no one to take care of them during the day.

The typical scenario depicted a single mother who had no recourse but to leave her children alone at home while she worked to feed them. Children as young as five were often left to care for their younger siblings for many hours each day. Daycare centers were largely unknown in Costa Rica at the time. This, however, was about to change.

Daycare centers fill the gap

In the early 1970s, Roblealto was incorporated as a non-profit Costa Rican association. Around this time, the first Roblealto daycare center, Hogar del Niño Feliz (Home of the Happy Child), was opened to 30 children in a poor neighborhood of the capital city of San Jose. It quickly grew to accommodate nearly 100 children. A few years later, a second daycare center, Quince de Setiembre (15th of September) opened its doors to many more children in another needy neighborhood. Yet a third daycare center, El Manantial (The Fountain), which accommodates over 220 children, was inaugurated in the mid-1980s.

With more than 650 children and their families now benefiting from the services of three daycare centers, one might think that the Bible Home would have become something of an anachronism. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The advent of the Roblealto daycare centers has allowed the Bible Home to focus its attention on those children who need to be physically separated from their families because of abuse or other dangers, or those who have been abandoned outright.

Even so, the end goal of the Bible Home is not to divide families, but to strengthen them; during the children's stay at the Bible Home, their families receive individual counseling and training, with the expectation that when the children are eventually reunited with their families, they will return to a safer, healthier situation. In many cases, they return to a home that has been miraculously transformed by the love of Christ.

All Roblealto children, whether they live at the Bible Home or attend a daycare center, receive spiritual training and encouragement from people like LAM missionary Margaret Weir, who serves as Roblealto's Chaplin. Parents also receive spiritual instruction, and training in practical matters, parenting skills, budgeting, health, and so forth.

Children living at the Bible Home continue to attend the Enrique Strachan School, which, besides its general education program, has an excellent program for children with special needs.

School-age children in the daycare centers attend public schools, but also receive extra help from education professionals and volunteers from many walks of life, who tutor them and assist them in their studies.

Roblealto social workers are on hand to work with individuals and families with special needs. And nursing staff look after the physical health of Roblealto children and their families.

Plans to expand

Still, the vision has not stopped growing. Nor has the need lessened. Another will be relocated to a piece of land donated by a Costa Rican foundation, which will allow for the construction of a larger facility that will hold many more needy children. The Bible Home is growing, too. One new house that was recently finished will accommodate 10 more children, and the construction of another house is expected to begin next year. This will bring the total capacity of the Bible Home to 90 children.

Roblealto, Spanish for "tall oak," is an appropriate name. When Susan Strachan was looking for a place for "her" children, she found a tract of land with many trees, including a large, beautiful oak that stood at the center of the property. That oak tree is still there, even taller than it was years ago. And children are still playing under it and climbing its branches.

It is an appropriate name, too, because just as the oak's humble beginnings give no indication of the height to which it will grow, so it is for the Roblealto children. Indeed many of the children who have played in its shade have grown tall. They are businesspeople, teachers, doctors, and pastors. They are also factory workers, fruit vendors, and street sweepers. But whether they are university-educated professionals or unskilled laborers, they love the Lord, and are serving Him.

What does the future hold for Roblealto? Susan Strachan's vision, a small acorn planted by God, has grown into a thing of beauty. As Roblealto looks toward the future with eager expectation of God's provision for His children in Costa Rica, we have no doubt that many more acorns still in the ground will one day become tall oaks.