It’s not unusual for people’s lives to change after retirement, but for John and Brenda Powers life has changed much more than they ever expected.
Rather than spending all their time on the beach or the golf course, the St. Albert couple found themselves spending a great deal of their time at a Mexican landfill. Five years of their time, in fact.
“When we moved to Mexico, we were there for seven years, pretty well straight,” John said. “We gave up our family, we gave up our home here in St. Albert, and we were living down there.”
It all began when they were vacationing near Puerto Vallarta shortly before selling their business, and there was a display in their hotel lobby about a Christian mission called Families at the Dump, dedicated to helping local families whose only means of income was scavenging at the local landfill site.
Not long after visiting the site and learning what the mission was doing, the two became dedicated to the cause and decided to work with the mission full-time.
“We felt it was a calling. Before we sold the business we went down there on holidays, and rather than sitting on the beach, Brenda wanted to go and do something,” John said. “When we weren’t down there, she’d be here making diapers, or fundraising, or buying school supplies, then she’d bring it all down to Mexico.”
Families at the Dump’s work was successful; after several years of working with the families to get the children in school and establish alternate sources of income, the mission switched directions and was renamed Families of Hope.
Rather than continuing with that project, the Powers switched directions as well with Brenda and a friend starting their own mission after meeting a family in dire need of support.
“A couple years ago a friend had called me because she heard about a family of orphans and I felt compelled to help,” she said. “That was the beginning of it.”
A family with 10 children in Bucerias, a city just outside Puerto Vallarta, lost its mother in a car crash. The oldest sister, who was just 17 years old, was looking after 12 children, including her siblings and their own children.
Brenda and a friend established Loving Arms A.C., a charity aimed at giving these children a better life – the kind of life full of opportunity that Canadians want for their own children.
Four of the children currently live as foster children with Brenda, while others have been fostered to other families in pairs, and the whole family is able to still meet up semi-regularly.
While it’s difficult on the family, given the circumstances, the four youngest children are off to school for the year and the entire family is able to set their sights higher than they would otherwise.
“One of them wants to be a teacher and one of them wants to be an airline pilot,” she said. “They’re very young, but there’s no reason why they can’t do that if we’re able to see them through this journey.”
Meanwhile, John is back in Canada returning to work to help fund the work that he and his wife have been doing in Mexico. He said it was a difficult decision, but the new mission is Brenda’s calling, not his, and he wanted to be able to spend time with his children and grandchildren in the St. Albert area.
“I love her and I support her fully, and by doing what I’m doing I support her,” he said. “I want to go back in the wintertime as well to be with her, but I didn’t want to start a mission. This is her calling.”
Even prior to retirement, the Powers had an interest in charity and giving back to their community, with John having served on the executive of the St. Albert Chamber of Commerce for many years, and they were involved with SAIF Society as well.
“We were business of the year, we were volunteers of the year, we did everything we could to support the community,” he said. “Any event that was going on, we tried to support it.”
Anyone interested in learning more about the Powers’ work can visit lovingarms.ca or find them on Facebook page “Loving Arms A.C.”
