Familia Gomez – A Family Reunited

Last year the oldest daughter contacted me via facebook and informed me that she had gotten married in the temple and had immigrated to Brazil with her husband and kids. She and I have stayed in contact ever since.

Her brother also contacted me and informed me he was leaving Venezuela also because things were getting very difficult. At that time, I discussed with him the possibility of helping him, but my resources were limited and was unable to facilitate that effort. He was eventually able to leave on his own accord.

The Youngest daughter (Nairobis Gomez), now in her early 30’s, contacted me this last week. She informed me that her husband had gone to Peru 6 months ago. She has 3 little girls and has been waiting for paperwork to leave the country. In the 6 months they have been able to save $100, which is a significant amount for the situation that they are in. She received information that the elections in 2 weeks would result in a complete stop on all children leaving the country, and could keep the family separated potentially for years.

Her church ward has formed a plan for several of the families that are in the same situation that she is in. There is a member that has connections to a travel agency that can get people out of the country without a passport, it is equivalent to what we use to be able to travel to Mexico and Canada with. It is some kind of legal declaration that can be used for limited travel. The group plans to travel to Colombia, and those families that cannot afford to go on to their final destination will hope to get help from the Red Cross when they get there, until such a time that their family members can send for them.

Along with the help from your donations, I was able to commit to help her get passage for her and the three kids all the way to Peru, where they can be reunited with her husband. This is dangerous for many reasons, but she assured me tonight that she is traveling with honorable men from her ward and stake. Some of them will travel all the way to Peru with her. The danger comes in the path that they are taking, which is safer in many ways, but it includes the passing of boarders from Venezuela into Colombia, then from Colombia, down into Ecuador then from Ecuador down into Peru. This is several locations that the paperwork may be called into question. Once they arrive in Peru they will file for political asylum.

I was able to get a Facebook voice call with Nirobis. Before the internet failed, she told me that she was packing to travel within Venezuela to the meeting destination where they will need to be at. They will take very few possessions. They will start over when they get to Peru, but they will be a family again. I will likely not hear from her until she is in Colombia. At that time she will work with members of the church in Colombia to contact me and I will send her the needed money via Western Union. At that point she and her girls will travel with a smaller group down to Peru. They will be crossing the first border on Tuesday evening. Please remember them in your fast and prayers.

I chatted via facebook messenger with her this morning and she informed me that she was staying in the home of another member near the area where they are meeting to leave the country. I am unclear on what part of Venezuela they are in, but as I understand it, they are still planning to cross the border Tuesday evening. There is a rumor that by next Monday the military will shut down the border completely. I don’t have any official information that would support that. The elections are May 20th, but this has increased the urgency. “Elections” is a term used lightly, as the people really have no say over who runs the country. There are a lot of moving pieces here, please keep them in your prayers.

I’ll update again when things change. Currently, I have not distributed any of the funds that have been sent.

May 16, 2018

I am excited to give this report today, it has been a little crazy to communicate with Nairobis, but I have great news. Here are some of the details to the past few days.

My plane for Germany left on Sunday morning. A few hours before I was to fly out, and just after I finished packing, I got a Whatsapp video phone call from Nairobis. The connection was good for a few minutes. I could see the kids jumping around in the background, and she explained that they had made it to Ecuador. She indicated that they got separated from the group at the border and were waiting for them to come to the hotel where she was currently waiting. She said that they did have some problems getting across the border. I don’t know all the details, but they essentially were forced to pay $290 get over the border.

I have traditionally planned for these types of “setbacks” and this is one of the reasons I try to stay in contact with families as they travel. I think it is important to note that I recognize that there is room for someone to take advantage of our efforts, so I am typically cautious about this type of situation, but I have always felt like this was going to be the situation with these travel plans. There were simply too many places in the plan for this not to happen. Nairobis indicated that she would work with the other members of the group to make sure her kids got fed. I didn’t have a lot of time to talk with her, so I got what information I could. I informed her I would make another drop in her friends name to Ecuador so they would have it to finish their trip. I then sent the drop. I then got a few hours of sleep before I left on my trip to Germany.

I got a brief message from her sister sometime later (the past three days have basically been one long day so I don’t really remember when it came in), saying that she had received information that Nairobis had made it past the final border crossing and was now in Peru, but had not been reunited with her husband yet.

I still had not been notified by Western Union that the drop had been picked up. When I woke up this morning, I had several messages from Nairobis, along with the attached photos.

I have since chatted with her briefly and learned that they tried to pull the drop out of Western Union, but were informed that they had a cap on the funds. Because it was more than the cap, they were unable to retrieve the drop. They were told by Western Union to wait several days or they could request a change in pickup location at a later time. They could not wait, so they pulled what money they had together and headed toward the final destination. I will try to work with Western Union to change the country pickup so that they can hopefully recover the money to give back to the other families they have had to borrow from (who also desperately need the money).

She and her family are together in Peru. It will not be easy for them, but they are together, and they at least have a chance. She said that her husband was able to retrieve the money I sent him earlier, and he was able to cover the rent for this month with it. It is getting to be cold down there, and they will need some winter clothes.

For those that are committed to the donations made, I will keep any remaining funds for the future opportunities that I know will present themselves in the near future. I have been in contact with other missionaries that I worked within Venezuela, and there are other efforts underway. We are working to combine efforts a little, but I am not sure how that will play out. I am also still working with Alahin and his family, to hopefully reunite them soon. If permitted, I will keep some for his family when the opportunity presents.

When I was doing money transfers, I had Nairobis send me a photo of the passport of her travel friend to whom I was going to send the money to. Here is the photo.

It made me nervous because she had sent me several photos but I had never seen this friend who she wanted me to send the money to, and because I had communication with her from various facebook and Whatsapp accounts it made things suspicious.

Before I sent the first drop I felt like I needed to figure this out. As I thought about it and examined the photos, it dawned on me that she had sent me several photos of her friend. However, due to the circumstances in Venezuela, her friend had lost a significant amount of weight. That was why i was unable to put his photo with his passport….
here is one of the photos she sent me with her friend.

July 10, 2018

I received more contact from Nayrobis. She is taking a self-sufficiency class from the LDS church. She is starting to learn how to start a business. She has put together some pretty good business plans for a nail salon. She has proposed a loan to get started. I recently received repayment from another Venezuelan family for a loan I helped them with. It happens to be the same amount that she is requesting, so I will pass that loan on from one family over to her.

Thanks for everyone’s donations that have made this possible.