Rosalinda Camitan’s childhood was marked by tragedy.

Though the Filipina had been born to parents who had doted on her dearly, her life was completely shattered by the time she turned 12.

On Christmas Eve the year she was seven, her father was murdered in a business dispute. Five years later, her mother was killed in a hit-and-run accident.

Even though she had many relatives on both sides of her family, none of them were willing to take her in due to their own poverty.

She was eventually placed in a Christian orphanage, Kids With Purpose International, for long-term care.

“I felt hopeless. I felt disappointed. I felt the pain of abandonment,” recalled Rosalinda, now 36.

Like Rosalinda, many children in the Philippines have been orphaned, abandoned or neglected as a result of widespread poverty, lack of basic education, natural disasters and teenage pregnancies.

Statistics from Philippines Without Orphans revealed that up to seven million children – a staggering 1 in 6 – in the nation are currently without the care of their families.

Seeing from God’s eyes

On the cusp of her teenage years, her heart brimmed with anger, bitterness and sorrow.

She hated the man who had killed her father. She grieved over the death of her mother. She railed at God, demanding why He had not taken her life too.

“It was unfair to me that the Lord had spared me. All the difficulties that I was left to endure … if He could just have taken me with my parents, that would have been better,” she recalled, choking up with emotion.

Yet, though she was angry with God, she held on to Him – simply because she did not have anyone else. “He was the only One I had,” she said.

And as she clung to Him in her deep pain, God met her and gave her a glimpse of His perspective.

Since they informally adopted Rosalinda (second from left) into their family when she was 18, Lito and Marisol Salva (left and right) have been a pillar of support for her, even now that she is married.

When she seethed with anger toward her father’s killer, God reminded her of the two criminals who had died beside Him on the cross.

“He impressed upon me that those criminals had done the worst, because you can only be on the cross if you did many bad things. But the Lord had forgiven them. One of those, he even took with Him to paradise,” said Rosalinda, who found in this the strength to forgive the man who had killed her father.

As she looked back at her tragic childhood, God also opened her eyes to see that He had saved her repeatedly.

“In the first tragedy with my dad, the Lord saved me and my mum. And in that second tragedy of my mum’s accident, the Lord saved me again,” she said.

“I was also saved from poverty because I was not placed with my relatives,” added Rosalinda, whose orphanage sent her to a private school. She now has a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree in social work.

Over several years of wrestling with God, these realisations helped her to believe that despite all that she had been through, He has a good plan for her life (Jeremiah 29:11).

“I started to see hope and the goodness of God in my life. After that, I told myself that I would follow Him, serve Him and know Him every day,” she said.

Restoration despite tragedy

Today, Rosalinda dedicates her life to caring for orphans and placing them in families where they can belong.

She hopes that she can be an agent of God’s healing to other orphans like herself, having experienced how God brought healing to and restored all the broken parts of her life.

When she was about to age out of her orphanage, God provided a Christian couple who welcomed her into their family and were pillars of support in life. (Read about it here.)

Rosalinda with her family.

Then she met the man who would become her husband, while they were both working at Kids With Purpose International, the orphanage in which she had grown up.

Her husband, a social worker and director of another children’s home, proposed to her at the orphanage on Christmas Eve, the anniversary of her father’s death, redeeming the place and date that had once held deep sorrow for her.

The couple now share a son, Enoch, and a newly adopted daughter, Esther Hope, as well as a passion to help vulnerable children in their nation.

Looking back on her life today, Rosalinda is confident that God had always been with her.

“He’s my constant. He’s my rock. He didn’t abandon me,” she said.

“I can relate to the story of Job. He lost everything but the Lord gave him a double portion. That’s what the Lord has provided for me.”

If you’d like to find out more about how you can help to end the orphan crisis in the Philippines, visit Generations–Home.

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