Morgan City woman trades career for volunteer work

Morgan City business owner Gretchen Crappell has closed her painting and papering company to pursue a new purpose in Guatemala at an orphanage.

After 22 years of self-employment and at age 52, Crappell decided to volunteer for a year at Casa Aleluya Orphanage. The orphanage currently houses over 400 children.

Before making the one- year commitment, she spent three weeks refurbishing baby cribs, cooking for children and staff members, and sorting through clothes and jewelry for distribution at the orphanage. She wanted to know if volunteering at the orphanage would be a good fit before committing on a long-term basis.

While there, Crappell recognized the orphanage’s need for people to help care for the children.

When Crappell returns to the orphanage, she will serve as a project manager, helping to organize visiting volunteer teams with performing construction projects.

In September 2014, Crappell was attending Word of Life Church in Patterson. Mike and Dottie Clark, founders of Casa Aleluya Orphanage, visited and shared with the congregation about a vision to build a hospital on the orphanage grounds.

“Not only am I a painting contractor, I come from generations of contractors. I grew up in the construction field,” Crappell said.

“I have a degree in civil engineering and my brain said, ‘I can go help with that."

Many children at the orphanage have received transplants or are on dialysis. With over 400 children housed at the orphanage, getting to doctor’s appointments and receiving hospital services on campus makes transporting kids more convenient.

Within one month of being in the States, the Clarks received enough funding to begin building the hospital. As of now, the construction of the hospital continues and is in the equipping phase, Crappell said.

As of last Monday, a full-time doctor is now on staff at the orphanage.

Crappell said every little detail of her life has been in preparation for her volunteer venture in Guatemala.

“I just know to the bottom of my soul that now is the time if I ever want to do something like this, now is the time,” Crappell said. “Because life can get nuts on you.”

The hardest part for Crappell is missing her family.

“I just hope that God will not make me very emotional about leaving my family,” Crappell.

“Gretchen’s heart has always been with children and even at one point she had dreamed of opening an orphanage herself,” Word of Life Family Church member Joan “Joanie” Guidry said.

Crappell recently discovered that her mother, who died in 1996, worked at the Morgan City pregnancy crisis center, which sought to give pregnant women alternatives to abortion, Guidry said.

In addition, the crisis center donated money monthly to the same Guatemalan orphanage during a time Crappell did not know the orphanage even existed.

In October 2015, “I consciously started looking to make a change in my life,” Crappell said.

“I went on a couple of job interviews. And I just started praying with the words ‘a new purpose for my life.’ And honestly, the orphanage was on the back burner. I never made any conscious effort to go visit.”

She was looking for project management and quality control management jobs.

“I woke up one morning and thought about the orphanage,” Crappell said.

Crappell wanted to be at the orphanage for two or three months. But she was advised to go for a week or two with a team to do volunteer work.

There were no available teams from the U.S. going to Guatemala any time soon.

With the Clarks making their yearly stop at Word of Life, Crappell was able to contact them and travel to Guatemala when the Clarks returned to the orphanage.

Crappell stayed for three weeks.

During her stay, she met with Mike Clark and told him she wanted to make a one-year commitment.

“Honestly, I didn’t consider the trip life-changing,” Crappell. “I knew what to expect. I’ve done traveling. I knew the level of poverty that’s in some places. I just saw the need for people to go there and work.”

The orphans’ stories were hard to hear.

“I guess the thing that affected me the most was hearing the stories of why some of the children were there. It’s appalling, and I haven’t even repeated some of it to anybody. I wish I could clean it out of my brain.”

Crappell’s one desire is to get the hospital a dialysis machine, which costs $35,000.

“I find it hard to believe that this community cannot raise $35,000 to buy one dialysis machine,” she said. “And that’s my one desire.”

Crappell will live on the compound, which will be free. Other than that, she will be responsible for supporting herself while there.

“I just knew and I know that I can contribute and help,” Crappell said. “That’s pretty much why my decision is to go back.”

Crappell leaves for Guatemala Jan. 27.

“I don’t think you’re living unless you feel like you’re jumping off a cliff every now and then,” she said.

Donations can be sent to Build Your House on the Rock, Attn.: Gretchen Crappell, P.O. Box 12764, Lake Charles, La. 70612-2764. There is also a gofundme.com account online to help with expenses.